We’ve all heard our parents, teachers, and coaches preach that getting to bed at an earlier hour makes for a more productive and early start to the following day. As Benjamin Franklin once said, “Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise”. However, contrary to popular belief, the idea of getting to bed at an early hour that our oldest instilled in our daily routine may not be beneficial, and could potentially have an adverse affect on our overall livelihood.

Multiple studies  performed by scientists at the University of Iowa focused on two types of people: “Larks” who rise early in the morning, and tend to go to sleep at a respectable evening hour, and “owls” who are most alert at night, and typically go to sleep long past midnight. Notably, these labels are more involved than they appear, they have to do with how alert the volunteers feel in the morning, when they normally get tired, and when they would ideally like to get up.
First, I researched a study performed by epidemiologists at Southampton University in England, the study analyzed a national sample of men and women who’d they surveyed years earlier on sleep patterns as well as measures related to, wellness, health, wisdom, and wealth. There were 356 self proclaimed  larks and 318 owls in the group. Contrary to Franklin’s decree, night owls had noticeably larger incomes overall than morning people. However, the two opposing groups scored the same on a cognitive test and showed no health differences. This study opposed Franklin’s argument that going to bed and waking up early was associated with any health, socioeconomic, or cognitive advantage.

A further study was published the following year by Psychologist Richard D. Roberts of the University of Sydney that looked more closely at the question of intelligence differences. They measured the chronotype of 420 test participants and gave them two intelligence tests. Together the tasks measured vocational knowledge, general math, reading, memory and processing speed. The results, although not overwhelming, came down slightly on the side of the night owls. There were significant differences on working memory and processing speed. The same results appeared in favor of the night owls even when the tests were taken in the morning. Richard Roberts quotes, “ The results indicate that, contrary to conventional folk tale, evening people are more likely to have higher intelligence scores”. Franklin’s thoughts on morning people being healthier hold true in this regard. Larks are less vulnerable than owls to substance abuse. A number of studies support these connections. Specifically, one analysis of 676 adults from a finnish twin cohort found that evening types were much more likely to be current or lifelong smokers. They were less likely to stop smoking, and were at higher risk for nicotine dependence compared to morning people. Another similar study of 537 individuals found that night owls consume more alcohol than larks. The results are understandable since these activities are often performed at night, however, it’s unclear to researchers as to why evening people are more likely  to partake in such activities  because they’re already out late, or whether the addictive behaviors keep them up longer in the first place.

From the studies analyzed above, Ben Franklin certainly wasn’t completely correct. There are benefits and downfalls to being both an “early bird” and “night owl”, so follow your instincts when it comes to when to go to sleep and wake up in the morning!