Posted by Jilly | Posted in musings | Posted on 11-07-2010
Tags: bedtime, intelligence, IQ, night owl, owl, sleep
Finding this article made me smile as I lazed about in bed this morning until after 11 AM. I argued with my husband that if I had my way no one would get up much before noon. He felt half the day was wasted. But I’ve always been at my most creative and productive after midnight and would prefer a daily 2-3 AM bedtime with a 10ish or later wake up. Unfortunately my cube job keeps me from sticking to that schedule. Heh… may not have to worry about that soon…
Apparently this study by a psychologist named Satoshi Kanazawa found that to be a night owl you have to have a high enough intelligence to over-ride the natural instinct that tells us to go to bed when it’s dark and wake up when it’s light out.
Here’s the IQ and correlating average sleep times from his study:
Night Lights
Bedtimes and wake-up times for Americans in their 20s by IQ.
Very Dull (IQ < 75)
Weekday: 11:41 P.M.-7:20 A.M.
Weekend: 12:35 A.M.-10:09 A.M.
Normal (90 < IQ < 110)
Weekday: 12:10 A.M.-7:32 A.M.
Weekend: 1:13 A.M.-10:14 A.M.
Very Bright (IQ > 125)
Weekday: 12:29 A.M.-7:52 A.M.
Weekend: 1:44 A.M.-11:07 A.M.
On a side note… Owls were one of my maternal grandmother’s favorite things. I only knew her for 4 years, most of which I was a baby, but I always think of her when I see an owl.
