When it comes to getting out of bed in the morning, there are usually two types of people.
On one hand, you have those strange morning people who jump out of bed at 6 am because they simply can't wait to start their days.
Then, you have people like myself, who firmly believe getting out of bed anytime before noon is a special type of torture no one should have to endure.
Unfortunately, I've never had a good relationship with mornings.
In fact, I despise mornings so much, I'd like to think there's a special place reserved in hell for whoever decided the workday should start at 9 am.
If you happen to hate mornings even more than this year's presidential candidates, I have some bad news for you.
Science just confirmed all those crazy morning people might actually have an advantage over us sleepyheads.
That's right. A new study published by the Association for Psychological Science just revealed your decision-making skills gradually become worse at the end of the day. This is true whether you're an early riser or late sleeper.
For the study, researchers asked 100 online chess players – who have to continuously make decisions – to answer questions about their sleeping habits in order to determine their chronotypes.
In case you're unfamiliar with this term, chronotypes are differences in individuals' circadian rhythms. They influence when people typically like to go to sleep and wake up.
Those who prefer to wake up early are known as larks, while those who like to stay up late at night are referred to as owls.
Originally, the researchers thought the players who were larks would perform best in the morning, while those who were owls would play best at night.
While the larks and owls displayed a peak in mental ability at different times of the day, researchers were surprised to find both groups of players made slow, accurate choices in the morning and faster, sloppier decisions at the end of the day.
According to the authors of the study,
We found that players changed their decision-making policy throughout the day: Players decide faster and less accurately as the day progresses, reaching a plateau early in the afternoon. This effect was observed for all players regardless of their chronotype, indicating that changes in decision time are mainly determined by the time of the day.
So, if you want to step up your game at work, you might want to stop hitting the snooze button a bajillion times every morning and start getting out of bed earlier.
Citations: THE SCIENTIFIC REASON WHY YOU MIGHT WANT TO BECOME A MORNING PERSON (Well And Good)
