Morning vs evening. When are we at our peak cognitive performance?

What do we mean by peak performance? It’s that great feeling when you sit down to do your work and feel like you’ve got it! When presentations are swiftly rehearsed, medical textbook chapters diligently remembered, brainstorm sessions creatively brainstormed, and articles elegantly typed. Well, that period of the day has a science-backed time window.

When is the exact time of peak brain performance?

If you would take a 24-year-old and a 57-year-old, and ask them to do a middle school math test, who would perform better if they took it at 1:00 pm? Pause right here and take a moment to think about this riddle.

Do you have your predictions? The answer is: most likely the 24-year-old. Why? Well, according to a 2012 Mexican research paper, older people tend to have better cognitive performance in the morning, while younger people excel in the early afternoon. This is supported by another study, published in 2022, which found that university students (mean age – 21) do significantly better on exams when they take them in the early afternoon (1:30 pm). Why is that?

It all has to do with our circadian rhythm – a biological daily clock that controls numerous processes in our body, including our hormones, organ functions, and energy levels. And it seems that younger people’s circadian rhythms are shifted a bit forward (later in the day) than older people’s.

It means that if you’re somewhere in the middle between 24 and 57, you can expect that your brain’s peak performance time will also be somewhere between early morning and early afternoon. The Mexican researchers also mention that on average, our morning productive time is between 10:00 am – 2:00 pm.

So should we do all our work in the morning and early afternoon?

It depends on you. We all are different, we all have different times when we are better able to do our work, and also some work requires creativity, and some requires practical thinking. But the most important lesson from this research isn’t about the specific peak performance time window, but about how much our biological clocks (the circadian rhythm) affect our cognitive performance.

We can be night owls or morning birds but regardless, we will have a rhythm, a ticking clock inside of us that will create dips and rises in our cognitive performance. Those dips and rises may not be the same for everyone, but they are inevitable. Our job is to listen to that clock, to our body, and ride on those dips and rises like on a rollercoaster towards better cognitive performance.

Upgrade your peak performance further

If you want to bring your peak performance to an even higher level, you can look to biohacking. You can try wearables like PEMF or tDCS. You can take nootropic supplements like L-theanine, Bacopa monnieri, or just regular caffeine. You can try sound therapies like binaural beats or pink and brown noise. And finally, you can develop peak performance skills like the ability to enter the flow state.

We may all be different birds, but we all have ticking clocks inside of us. Your peak performance is likely to be between early morning-early afternoon but it’s our job to listen to what our own body tells us, and when our peak performance is.

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• PEMF, tDCS, TMS: what’s the difference?
• Bacopa monnieri – a promising peak performance nootropic
• L-theanine: does it work, is it safe, and how much to take?
• Does white noise seem too irritating to fall asleep to? Try pink or brown noise
• Why are people so excited about binaural beats?
• Focus. Timelessness. Passion. Flow state.