By: Tanya Lewis
Published: 01/30/2015 09:38 AM EST on LiveScience
Football fans, take note: The outcome of this weekend’s Super Bowl, along with other major sporting events, may depend on whether the players are night owls or early birds, a new study suggests.
Scientists found that the performance of competitive athletes varied by as much as 26 percent over the course of a day.
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The findings apply not just to elite athletes, but to everyone, the researchers said. And biological clocks can influence not just athletic performance, but cognitive performance, as well.
Aptitude tests at schools and offices often take place in the morning, Brandstaetter said, so “how many talented people are we missing out on?”
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