Are you the type of person who enjoys staying up late at night? Whether it is to socialize with friends, enjoy a good TV program, or get work done, society often suggests that this is not a good and healthy way to live.

The phrase, “early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise” comes to mind often.

According to a new study, however, the opposite is actually true.

The study started out with data from a half a million people from the UK, and specifically analyzed 26000 of them who had gone through a series of cognitive tests.

In addition, those in the study answered whether they considered themselves ‘early birds’ or ‘night owls.’

The results found that, on average, the night owls out performed the early birds by a significant amount.

Overall, night owls had scores that were 13.5% higher than those who were early birds.

Even those who self-reported as ‘intermediate sleepers’ (those who regularly switch between going to bed early and staying up late) performed better than the strict early birds. Intermedia sleepers beat the early birds by 10.6%.

The cognitive function was measured using four separate tests that looked at multiple factors including visual and working memory, verbal and numerical intelligence, reaction time, and more.

The study also found that getting enough sleep is important. Those who got between 7 and 9 hours of sleep per night performed best. Those who regularly got less, or more, than this performed worse.

If you are an early riser, don’t worry.

The study only looked at the averages, so there are high performers in every group. Raha West, an Imperial College London medical researcher on this study, commented on this, saying:

“It’s important to note that this doesn’t mean all morning people have worse cognitive performance. The findings reflect an overall trend where the majority might lean towards better cognition in the evening types.”

So, if you are most productive in the evening, it might be because you are smarter than average.

But not always.

If you found that story interesting, learn more about why people often wake up around 3 AM and keep doing it for life.