The Burden of Intelligence

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Everyone on Earth is dealt different hands. Some have been gifted with wealth; others are born into a world of very little. Lucky children have been welcomed into a loving family; others are merely one of several children, of whom only half will reach adulthood. Finally, a few are destined to be brilliant, while the rest are not as clever. When it comes to education and levels of intelligence, however, who really has been gifted? “Intelligence in childhood is a risk factor for psychological distress due to anxiety and the milder forms of depression in young adults” (Stumm). Those with higher intelligence, maybe, suffer from more mental illnesses and ailments. Throughout time, there have been numerous examples of gifted individuals who have suffered in life due to their deeper comprehension of the universe. It seems that though people, like Solomon and Stephen Hawking, have been gifted with great wisdom and intelligence, they have been burdened in other ways because of it.
Individuals who are highly intelligent have shown tendencies to be night owls. According to one source, it asks the reader to “consider that intelligent people are infamous for burning the midnight oil to cram for tests, write papers, touch up those earnings reports” (Rodriguez). The source also mentions that it is most likely that the more intelligent stay up later to avoid the distractions of day-dwellers, that is, they stay up later to concentrate. Staying up late on a regular basis, however, is extremely detrimental to the health. Those who do not go to bed at a “regular” time are three times more likely to suffer depression- even though they may receive the same amount of sleep as any other individual, a “study shows that even relatively subtle shifts in pa...

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