Night Owls vs. Early Birds: Why Who Is Actually Smarter?

“Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”

It is one of the oldest proverbs in the English language, famously championed by Benjamin Franklin. Society generally favors the “Morning Lark”—the productive, disciplined morning person who hits the gym at 5:00 AM and clears their inbox before the rest of the world has had coffee.

However, scientific data suggests that Franklin might have been wrong about the “wise” part.

While early risers tend to be more punctual and arguably happier, Night Owls (those with a late chronotype) consistently score higher on measures of general intelligence.

The Savanna-IQ Interaction Hypothesis

The most compelling argument for the “Smart Night Owl” comes from evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa at the London School of Economics. His theory is based on the concept of “evolutionary novelty.”

The Logic

1. Ancestral Environment: For millions of years, our ancestors were strictly diurnal. They woke up with the sun and went to sleep when it got dark. We have no biological adaptation for seeing in the dark; night activities were dangerous (predators, falls, cold).
2. The Novelty: Staying awake at night is, therefore, an “evolutionarily novel” behavior. It goes against 200,000 years of primitive programming.
3. The Intelligence Link: Kanazawa argues that “More intelligent individuals are more likely to acquire and espouse evolutionarily novel values and preferences.”

In other words, it takes a higher level of cognitive complexity to override biological instinct. The ability to ignore the sun and the body’s natural sleep drive in favor of intellectual pursuit is a marker of a brain that has transcended its primitive roots.

The Data: Smarter People Sleep Later

Kanazawa analyzed a large dataset from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. He compared the sleep patterns of young adults with their IQ scores collected years earlier.

The results showed a clear, statistically significant trend.

• Very Dull (IQ < 75): Average wake-up time around 7:20 AM.
• Normal (IQ 90-110): Average wake-up time around 7:32 AM.
• Very Bright (IQ > 125): Average wake-up time around 7:52 AM.

While the difference in minutes refers to weekdays (where work/school forces conformity), the weekend data showed even larger gaps. The brightest individuals naturally drifted toward a nocturnal schedule whenever society allowed them to.

The Creativity Connection: Pitch Black Thinking

Beyond raw IQ, night owls score significantly higher on measures of Creativity and Inductive Reasoning. Why does the night fuel the creative mind?

1. Reduced Inhibitions

As the day wears on, the brain’s frontal cortex (the “executive manager” responsible for discipline and logical order) gets tired. When the “inner critic” falls asleep, it allows for more divergent thinking. The late-night brain is less filtered, allowing for weirder, wilder connections to be made.

2. Solitude

The night offers something the day cannot: Silence. For a high-functioning brain, the day is full of noise—emails, notifications, phone calls, traffic, social obligations. The night is a vacuum. This solitude allows for “Deep Work” (a concept by Cal Newport). It is the only time a creator can enter a flow state without fear of interruption.

The Genetic Component: The PER3 Gene

Being a night owl isn’t just a habit; it’s often in your DNA. Researchers at the University of Surrey discovered that the PER3 gene (Period Circadian Gene 3) dictates your sleep preference.

• Long Version: People with the longer version of the gene are “Morning Larks.” They love mornings and crash hard in the evening.
• Short Version: People with the shorter version are “Night Owls.” Their circadian rhythm runs slower.

This suggests that fighting your chronotype might be a losing battle. If you are a Night Owl, trying to force yourself into a 5 AM Club routine might not just make you miserable—it might be biologically impossible to sustain.

The Trade-Off: Success vs. Smarts

It is crucial to note a distinction: Intelligence does not always equal Success. A separate study from the University of Heidelberg found that while night owls were smarter, Early Birds got better grades in school.

Why? The world is rigged against the Owl.

• Social Jetlag: Night owls constantly suffer from “social jetlag”—forcing their bodies to wake up 2-3 hours earlier than their internal clock desires. This sleep deprivation impairs performance, canceling out their IQ advantage.
• Conscientiousness: Early risers often score higher on “conscientiousness,” a personality trait linked to discipline and reliability. The Night Owl is often perceived as lazy or undisciplined, even if they worked until 4:00 AM.

Famous Night Owls

History is littered with brilliant minds who did their best work after the sun went down:

• Charles Darwin: Often worked late into the night analyzing his specimens.
• James Joyce: Wrote “Finnegans Wake” at night, sleeping until the afternoon.
• Marcel Proust: Lined his bedroom with cork to block out the morning light and wrote exclusively at night.
• Barack Obama: Famously termed himself a “night guy,” using the quiet hours after the First Family slept to read briefs and work on speeches.

Conclusion

If you struggle to drag yourself out of bed in the morning, don’t despair. You aren’t necessarily lazy; you might just be evolutionarily advanced. While the early bird gets the worm, the night owl gets the quiet solitude required to solve complex problems—and perhaps the cheese that the early mouse died for. The key is to find a lifestyle or career that allows you to work with your biology, rather than fighting a war against the sun that you cannot win.