That said, science has indicated that learning is most effective between 10 am to 2 pm and from 4 pm to 10 pm, when the brain is in an acquisition mode.
Our brains tend to be the most efficient and alert in the morning after a good night's sleep and a hearty breakfast. The morning time is often the best time to learn new theories and grasp complex concepts. The ample amount of natural light available in the morning can also help you stay alert and focused.
The Best Time to Learn Something New
Learning is most effective when the brain is in acquisition mode, generally between 10:00 am to 2:00 p.m. and then again from 4:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. Night owls beware: think twice before pulling an all-nighter.
“Sleep may help your brain come up with new solutions because that's a time when it's not bogged down with 20 other tasks,” says Beeman. Ironically, research has found that people are at their least creative when it's demanded the most – at the heart of the workday, from 11 am to 3 pm.
Most of the students prefer to study in the early morning, generally from 4 or 5 AM in the morning as the brain is more likely to concentrate. It could be the best option for students who have more stamina early in the day.
Most people need at least seven to eight hours of sleep at night for the body and brain to function normally. So, if you stay up all night, missing out on the recommended amount of sleep, your brain will be equally as weary -- rendering a sharp decrease in performance for specific learning and memory tasks.
At night, there's a calmness that seems surround everything. That calmness has a tendency to lower stress levels, which makes room for creativity. Studies have been done that shows there is a correlation between the "Intelligence Quotient (IQ)" and the ability to function better at night.
Creative people tend to be more inspired at night and put sleep on the back burner while they pursue creative projects. They deviate from a normal sleep schedule because they are brave enough to adhere to their own schedules and have confidence in their ability to create.
This is because there is a dip in the stress hormone cortisol, which remains high during the day as the evening approaches and night sets in your body reduce the secretion of cortisol to prepare for sleep, making you relaxed and hence more productive.
The European study, which was released this week, found evidence that we tend to hit our cognitive maximum around age 35 and remain there until about age 45, at which point a long, slow decline takes hold.
IQ peaks at around 20-years-old and later effort will not improve it much beyond this point, research finds. The complexity of people's jobs, higher education, socialising and reading all probably have little effect on peak cognitive ability.
For example, raw speed in processing information appears to peak around age 18 or 19, then immediately starts to decline. Meanwhile, short-term memory continues to improve until around age 25, when it levels off and then begins to drop around age 35.
From birth to age 5, a child's brain develops more than at any other time in life. And early brain development has a lasting impact on a child's ability to learn and succeed in school and life.
Studying at 3 AM is a good idea for those who have more brain power and higher energy levels in the wee hours of the night. The same is true for those who can focus more at night as they have accomplished their everyday tasks already and have fewer distractions and interruptions to worry about.
Scores of studies conclude that students really do better when they sleep. Sleeping poorly (or not at all) leads to worse test results and poorer ability to learn new things. In fact, an all nighter hurts your ability to think, reason, and understand to the same degree as if you were taking your test drunk.
Intelligent people are more likely to have different sleep cycles (or circadian rhythms) than people with a lower IQ. In fact, research indicates that there's a strong correlation between intelligence and bedtime. That is the higher your IQ, the later you'll stay up.
Science has proved the mad genius is not a myth. Studies of artists and writers collated in Scientific American confirm that artists and writers are up to 20 times more likely to suffer from bipolar disorder (also called manic depressive illness) and 10 times more likely to suffer from depression.
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.
Overthinking at night is largely down to the brain processing what has happened to us during the day. 'We don't have the time and space during the day to process what's happened and to evaluate and make sense of it. Sometimes the only time we get to do that is when we're in bed,' says Bastine.
For now, he speculates that creative types often struggle to sleep at night because of a combination of the way their minds operate and the times of day that they tend to work on their craft. Barone says a major cause of poor sleep — for creative geniuses and mere mortals alike — is a mind that just won't quit.
Some artists have argued that their insomnia is essential to their creative output. Unstructured time late at night provides them with extra hours free of distractions to create. Picasso was famous for his all night creative sessions and sleeping during the day.
It impairs your cognitive function
Sleep deprivation impacts your cognitive function by affecting your memory, ability to concentrate and your problem-solving skills. Put simply, you're not at your best after staying up all night, which means it's the worst time to take a test.
Sleeping between 90 and 110 minutes gives your body time to complete one full sleep cycle and can minimize grogginess when you wake. But any sleep is better than not at all — even if it's a 20-minute nap.
In college, students often are able to pull "all-nighters" – studying only overnight the day before the exam – and still do well. Not in med school. With the vast amount of information, it is not possible to cram it all into just a day or so of studying.