GRONINGEN, Netherlands — Your natural sleep schedule might be quietly damaging your brain, but only if you fall into a specific category of people.
A decade-long study of nearly 24,000 adults has uncovered a troubling connection between being a night owl and cognitive decline — with a surprising twist.
Why Smart Night Owls Suffer More The education connection appears to be about job flexibility.
Alcohol consumption and physical activity levels didn’t explain the cognitive decline, even though night owls showed different patterns in these areas.
Flexible work schedules might particularly benefit highly educated night owls.
GRONINGEN, Netherlands — If you are a member of a particular group, your sleep schedule may be subtly harming your brain. With a startling twist, a ten-year study of almost 24,000 adults has revealed a concerning link between night owl tendencies and cognitive decline.
Education Makes All the Difference.
Night owls suffered from much greater cognitive decline than early birds, according to researchers from the University of Groningen, who tracked participants for ten years. That previously mentioned twist? Regardless of their sleep preferences, those with less education did not exhibit such a pattern.
Over the course of ten years, there was a 0–80 point drop in cognitive test scores among participants with college degrees for every hour shift toward night owl status. This translates to quantifiable differences in mental acuity between an early riser and someone with the most extreme late sleep schedule.
Simply put, your body’s innate preference for when to go to sleep and wake up is your chronotype. Your internal 24-hour clock, known as your circadian rhythm, controls it. It controls everything from hormone production to body temperature. Just 7% of adults are extreme early risers, whereas 20% of adults naturally prefer late bedtimes during midlife.
Reasons Why Intelligent Night Owls Are More Affected.
It seems that the connection between education and job flexibility. Those with advanced degrees usually hold strict 9–5 office jobs. There is little room for natural sleep preferences for professionals with rigorous morning schedules, such as managers, teachers, and executives.
Meanwhile, the work schedules of those with less formal education tend to be more varied. Service workers usually have shifting schedules that could better fit their natural sleep timing, bartenders work nights, and construction workers may start early.
Researchers refer to this phenomenon as “social jet lag,” which is essentially chronic biological jet lag, when your job requires you to wake up significantly earlier than your body desires. Since they have less control over their work schedules and are always fighting against their natural rhythms, highly educated night owls might feel this more strongly.
“Children prefer the mornings.”. In a statement, lead author Ana Wenzler states, “That changes when you reach puberty and become an evening person.”. For most people, that gradually changes back to morning people around your 20s. The majority of people return to being morning people by the age of forty. However, not everyone experiences this. Evening people depart from the norm in this manner. “.”.
The harm is explained by smoking and sleep quality.
The study, which was published in The Journal of Prevention of Alzheimer’s Disease, found that smoking and poor sleep quality were the two main causes of cognitive decline. These variables explained roughly one-third of the association between night owl behavior and brain fog in participants with high levels of education.
As might be expected, night owls reported lower-quality sleep. Your body may want to remain up until two in the morning. M. You have to get up at six in the morning, though. A. You suffer from a chronic lack of sleep for work. Sleep deprivation impairs the brain’s capacity to eliminate waste materials, including proteins linked to Alzheimer’s disease.
Unexpectedly, smoking contributed significantly, accounting for roughly 19% of the cognitive decline. It’s possible that nicotine’s ability to temporarily sharpen the mind helps night owls deal with the conflict between their biological clock and work demands, which is why they were more likely to smoke.
Even though night owls displayed distinct patterns in these areas, alcohol consumption and levels of physical activity did not account for the cognitive decline.
Millions of Americans Will Be Affected.
Millions may be impacted, especially those whose jobs require early starts, as one in five American adults have a natural preference for later sleep schedules. The study used tests of executive function and problem-solving abilities, which are critical for making plans and adjusting to changing circumstances, to gauge cognitive decline.
Although scientists cannot say with certainty that this decline causes dementia, any discernible decline in cognitive function over a ten-year period is concerning. Solutions, however, might result from an understanding of these mechanisms.
For highly educated night owls, flexible work schedules may be especially advantageous. Employers may be able to safeguard the long-term mental health of their staff by permitting later start times for those whose biology prefers the evening.
Programs specifically designed to help night owls with demanding jobs quit smoking and improve their sleep may also be beneficial. Addressing these factors could have a significant impact, as smoking and poor sleep quality accounted for 25% of the cognitive decline.
