Effects of Sleep on the Human Body

Introduction

There is a slight correlation with people who are night owls and higher intelligence and/or creativity, proven with studies, along with other findings, such as children having highs and lows on performance, and emotional behaviors. Sleep is an interesting part of human life. Sleep can affect everything in human life. Even knowing someone’s sleep cycle, generalizations about that person can be made, like if they have a tendency to be more intelligent or not.

Night Owls and Higher Mental Activity

Do night owls, people who tend to stay up later, have a tendency to have a higher intelligence? The London School of Economics and Political Science launched a project, led by Satoshi Kanazawa, discovering that “People with higher IQs are more apt to be nocturnal night-owls. Those with lower IQs tend to restrict their activities primarily to daytime.” (Alison, 2010). In short, that means people who are more intelligent TEND to stay up later and people with average intelligence TEND to be more active during the day. That does not mean that only geniuses stay up late and the mentally impaired go to bed early, there can be geniuses that go to bed early and mentally impaired people who stay up late. That statement is just a generalization, it may not be applicable to every person on Earth. A study at the University of Bologna found “Eveningness [characteristic of being more active and/or alert in the evening] is often age-related and that eveningness usually peaks at between 17-21 years of age,” (Alison, 2010), which is when the human brain is still developing but at it’s peak in the developmental cycle and is using more energy to perform intelligent actions, tending to give off the possible illusion of being more intelligent.

Ef...

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...austed from lack of sleep. Sleep, a necessity, is an interesting subject. People who stay up later, not necessarily avoiding sleep, tend to be more intelligent, proven with studies and the time of day may affect activities throughout the day.

Reference

Alison, R. (2010, January 20). Smart people SLEEP LATE. - Winnipeg Free Press. Retrieved March 3, 2014, from http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/analysis/smart-people-sleep-late-82486792.html

Hines, C. (2004). Time-of-Day Effects on Human Performance. Catholic Education: A Journal of Inquiry and Practice, Seven, 390-413. Retrieved March 3, 2014, from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1006503.p

Zimmerman, F. (2008, June). Children’s Media Use and Sleep Problems: Issues and Unanswered Questions. Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, 1. Retrieved March 3, 2014, from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED527857.pdf