No need to feel guilty about sleeping in.
“Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise,” goes the well-known quote, but studies seem to disagree.
Feel free to sleep in guiltlessly as new research suggests that late risers tire less quickly than those who wake up very early in the morning.
In this latest study scientists evaluated night owls against early birds in a task designed to measure their reaction and attention times.
Both groups performed well soon after getting up, but 10 hours into their day, it was the late-risers who were quicker and more alert, the journal Science reports.
Those who woke up early felt sleepier in the 10th hour of their day. Scans showed that the parts of their brains linked to attention were also less active.
“During the evening session, evening types were less sleepy and tended to perform faster than morning types,” said Dr. Phillippe Peigneux of the University of Liege in Belgium.
Studies in the past seem to agree that night owls are more clever and have better memories. Previous studies have also shown that getting up late appears to be in a person’s DNA and that our body clock is regulated by a series of genes which determine whether a person is an early bird or a night owl, according to the Daily Mail.
Follow Mary Ann Georgantopoulos on Twitter @marygeorgant.
