Did you know that insomnia is more common for those who have a high IQ. Intelligent people have a harder time switching off their brain. So, maybe you are just too clever to snooze! Don't panic, high IQ or not, cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia can help you.
However, the average adult needs 7-9 hours of sleep per night to function at their best. So, the idea that smart people sleep less may be a myth for most mortals and should not be used as an excuse for skimping on sleep.
The macrostructure of sleep has a small but consistent correlation with intelligence, with possible nonlinear effects. Biological and social factors contribute to the relationship between sleep macrostructure and intelligence.
Studies have shown that people with higher IQs are likely to deviate from familiar evolutionary traits, such as circadian rhythms. Night owls who opt to wake up in the later hours of the day and stay awake until the wee small hours of the morning may be exhibiting a form of evolution.
Less sleep lowers IQ scores and grades
According to Coren, scores on intelligence tests decline cumulatively on each successive day that you sleep less than you normally sleep. The daily decline is approximately one IQ point for the first hour of sleep loss, two for the next, and four for the next.
Sleeping smart: The magic number
Women who slept 7 hours per night had the highest score for every cognitive measure, followed by those who got 6 hours of snooze time, the study found. For men, the findings were slightly different: those who reported sleeping six, seven or eight hours had a similar cognitive function.
In his blog "A Geek With A Hat," Swizec Teller — a programmer — explains why you can actually concentrate better when your brain is exhausted. He says it's because your brain is so tired, it has to focus. In other words, "there isn't enough left-over brainpower to afford losing concentration."
According to researchers, while a third of the population doesn't have a strongly defined chronotype, 30 percent are ascribed night owls.
If your body and brain fail to rev up until later in the day, you're likely a night owl, naturally programmed to enjoy staying up late and sleeping in past traditional school and work start times.
Psychology Today reported that intelligent people are likely to be nocturnal beings, with those with a higher IQ going bed later on both weeknights and weekends.
To Conclude. Now, it's evident that not all geniuses have different sleeping patterns and it's also quite evident that some of them do. Ultimately, however, there is no clear link between the time you spend sleeping and your levels of intellect.
Sleep problems may, in turn, contribute to psychological problems. For example, chronic insomnia may increase an individual's risk of developing a mood disorder, such as depression or anxiety. In one major study of 10,000 adults, people with insomnia were five times more likely to develop depression.
Albert Einstein, a household name that has inspired many a crazy hair day and who is most famous for his theory of General Relativity, was a huge fan of catching some Z's. He would sleep an average of 10 hours a night as well as taking daytime naps.
Productivity begins even before the start of the workday. High achievers don't sleep in. Nearly 50 percent of the self-made millionaires begin their days at least 3 hours before the start of their workday.
According to new research, babies and children who are smarter or more gifted tend to need fewer hours of sleep to operate than other children.
Other well-known night owls include Winston Churchill, Fran Lebowitz, Bob Dylan, Carl Jung, J.R.R. Tolkien, John Travolta, Prince, Christina Aguilera, and, believe it or not, Barack Obama. Some research even suggests that those who stay up late and sleep in regularly are smarter than those who don't.
Morning people really are happier, study finds. A new study finds that night owls have an increased risk for mental illness and are less happy than morning larks. Morning larks wake in the early hours with smiles on their faces and a can-do attitude that befuddles most night owls.
Usually, people who are night owls stay awake past midnight, and extreme night owls may stay awake until just before or even after dawn. Some night owls have a preference or habit for staying up late, or stay up to work the night shift.
People who sleep and wake up late tend to be smarter.
Five years later, he interviewed 15,197 of the original respondents again. This time, they reported when they went to bed and when they woke up on both the weekdays and weekends. He found that people with high intelligence are likelier to be night owls.
This is because our brain is constantly forming new connections while we are awake. The longer we are awake, the more active our minds become.
The researchers found that when older adults listened to pink noise, their deep, slow-wave sleep improved, and then they scored three times higher on a memory test the next day compared to how they performed after receiving false treatment.