Ask HN: Smart people sleep late?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4473908

by clwen • 14 years ago

3 5 14 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Some researches suggest that people with higher IQ sleep late. e.g., <http://bit.ly/OUp4m6>; (google the keywords and you get bunch more)

However, this doesn't make sense to me because I personally know some brilliant people are morning type: maybe wake up at 4am or even 3am.

HN people, do you sleep late? Do you feel you have a higher IQ?

zura• 14 years ago

Not sure about IQ, but I remember when I had to prepare for some exam, in a subject uninteresting to me, I was procrastinating a whole day and only starting to study at 00:00 midnight till 3:00-4:00.

For me, it also depends on where I am. In the city - get up late, go to bed late. In the village/farm house - get up 5:00-6:00 morning, go to bed earlier, usually 21:00-22:00.

mooism2• 14 years ago

Asking people to self-report their IQ will give you misleading results. I'd expect people with embarrassingly low IQs (in comparison to those IQs that are reported) to be less likely to comment.

I don't remember ever taking an IQ test... but my personal anecdatum is that I feel more productive when I have a regular sleep cycle, but that can involve waking up at 7am or 9am or earlier or later and what that depends on, beyond the seasons, I don't know.

orangethirty• 14 years ago

I'm dumb as a rock and I sleep late/wake up early. Only get to enjoy REM on Sundays.

tokenadult• 14 years ago

I challenge the validity of the statements. There doesn't appear to be any good-quality research on correlation of IQ and sleep habits.

redspark• 14 years ago

I have taken a few of those online IQ tests and they show to be well above average. I don't believe those tests to be accurate and more importantly I don't believe IQ is an accurate measurement of anything meaningful.

That being said I am an odd mix of morning person, night person. I function very well if I am out of bed by 6-6:30am, then I drop off about 11:00am. From 7pm-1am I again function at a high level. I typically only sleep about 4-5 hours per night and feel very groggy if I sleep more than that.

I agree with most of the other responses. I think your peak production period depends on the season, type of work and lifestyle.

Ask HN: Smart people sleep late?

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