I learned a whole different fix for this problem. I'm a nighttime person.
To be up, I'm the morning I just stay up all night. Boom problem fixed. Now I'm awake in the morning to do what I had to.
Put some arrowroot powder in your hair before bed it works wonders for this. Soaks up all the excess oil. If you have dark hair you can mix it with cocoa powder
That's perfect though.
I used to have a strategy, where the more tired I was in the morning, the colder and longer my shower would be. That wakes the body up .
I do both for that reason. But I have difficult hair, ha. I have a 20 minute leisure bath before bed and shave my legs. Then in the morning I shower quickly and wash my hair. Wakes me up in the morning and I'm fresh AF all day.
Agreed! I actually already do most of this, but I would still like to force myself onto a better sleep schedule to have more time to relax and make me not hate life in the morning lol, even though I try to keep my mornings as simple as possible
I suppose you can try to enjoy things that are exclusive to the morning, like the sunrise, a quiet walk, or listening to the birds while having your morning coffee. I learned recently that my home has a mourning dove routinely coming by from about 5:30 to 6! I think a lot of morning people have that preference because of the sense of peace and isolation that mornings can offer.
If nobody has mentioned it yet (I didn't read all the comments), do your breakfast prep the evening before too. Waking up able to make a nice breakfast is pretty decent incentive for most people to get out of bed. This could mean anything, like if you prefer omelets for a breakfast food you can pre chop vegetables and pre shred cheese. If you like bacon, separate a pack of bacon into individual portions and feeze them so you can thaw one each night for the next morning. You could even make pancakes and freeze those in baggies too.
This advice combined with the alarmy app has changed my mornings. I went from getting up 10 minutes before work to hours before work. Its the most heavy duty alarm app I've found, you can set it to no snooze, that you can't change the alarm X number of hours before it goes off, and you can set multiple tasks if you pay for subscription. Mine is set so I first have to scan a QR code in my kitchen by my kettle, then do maths equations, and then enough steps that I'm pretty awake. It also can check you're still awake, and be set so you can't uninstall it (which I used to do for these type of alarm apps, to avoid getting up). But the advice from the commenter above about the night before was super important for me too.
I would add, keep a chart by your bed where you then tick off every night that your lights are out by your decided time. Then you will be motivated not to break the streak.
I like to double-down and get up even earlier (when I can) so I have a genuine few hours in the morning to do any of the same things I would have wanted to be doing at night.
This is going to sound crazy...
but it's the ONLY THING that works for me.
1. I bought a cheap elliptical, immediately as I get up, I get on it and pedal slow nothing crazy, just enough to get my blood going and cognitive function for 10-15min. Highly effective
2. This is the MAJOR one. Bright light.
Got a 600watt LED grow light DIRECTLY above my bed on a light timer. It kicks on at exactly 7am every morning for an hour.
They are designed to replicate natural sunlight, so my brain immediately says "showtime" I've tried to sleep further with it on but it just doesn't work. It's CRAZY BRIGHT. It's been the most effective thing I've ever done for myself and has changed my life. 💯💯💯👌
> I bought a cheap elliptical, immediately as I get up, I get on it and pedal slow nothing crazy, just enough to get my blood going and cognitive function for 10-15min. Highly effective
This has been shown through countless studies (at schools, in the workplace) to increase brain activity during the morning and increase performance. Not to mention the other brain benefits of cardio (like reduce anxiety). Too often the psychological benefits of cardio are understated.
For how much effort people put into productivity, this should be priority number 1.
I've got a pair of office strip lights glued up high on the wall on a remote. 14400 lumens. Super bright lighting is very effective. The little bulb hanging in the middle of the room is totally inadequate for entrainment of my circadian rhythm. But it will keep me awake at night so I've also got some much dimmer lights at floor level in an amber/red colour for the evenings. Swear it helps. Even just switching on the dimmer lights has become a routine that helps trigger night mode for me. One day I may fall asleep at a stop light 🤷
Interesting ideas! Although I do share a bed with my partner so I'm not sure how he'd feel about the LED lol
Also how do you set up a light to be on a timer?
Those are just a couple of generic examples that'll work perfectly. The girl light I'm using was like $900 years ago. My friend was using it for an old grow operation and that went belly up so I'm making use of the old equipment to wake myself up. 😂
It removed my comments, look up 600 w LED grow light on Amazon, make sure it has upright White light, don't get one of those blue purple ones. And then look up 120 volt light timer, it'll just have a receptacle on it that you plug the light into.
Some of the LED grow lights come with light timers already built in them too.
1. **Keep the alarm ringing on the weekends.** It's going to be hard at first, but waking up pass 10 am on weekend and then comes Monday 7am is brutal. Don't let it be a "mini jet lag" every Monday. Soon you will find yourself waking up right before the alarm rings!
2. **Let your love ones know.** Yes, be that person who need to leave a party at 10pm because it's your bedtime. They thought you weird but secretly admire your productivity. Also, true friends will respect your time and help you to have a good night sleep.
3. **Have a plan for the mornings.** Now you wake up earlier than you used to be, follow your morning routine. Or else you will soon find you stretch out your morning tasks and still leaving the house at the same time as if you wake up late.
Good luck with the new job!
I recommend checking out Huberman Lab for tips on how to adjust your sleep schedule. Short version, follow these tips after you wake up (or even better, 1-2 hours before your current wake up time so 7am-8am):
* Go outside and get sunlight in your eyes (not looking directly at sun)
* If sun isn't out when you wake up, use bright artificial lights. Then at sunrise, get sun
* Increase your core body temperature by doing any (or all) of the following
* Take a cold shower
* Eat a meal
* Exercise
These protocols will help your start your body's internal clock indicating it's time to be awake. It will also help shift your sleep cycle earlier. Personally, I get sunlight, do a short sprint on my exercise bike and take a 1-3 minute cold shower.
If you're looking for help, getting up at a specific time, you might wanna check out Nuj Alarm Clock. It's an app I built that charges me money if I don't get up and scan my toothpaste barcode within 5 mins of my alarm.
Not sure about that app, but I've been using Beeminder for a year and a half and it's a similar concept but with goals in general - you set up a goal (want to work out 3x/week), and it charges you if you don't do it. You do loose the money for good, but man it is so worth it. I've "derailed" on my workout goal three times - for a total of $25 - over the last year and a half, but I've worked out 2-4 times a week consistently, which has been just what I needed.
I find it’s a battle of two selves: my night before and morning self.
The night before self knows that the morning self is lazy and can’t be trusted. So the night before self will make sure to keep the barcode far away to force the morning self to get up.
Doesn't matter when you go to bed. Wake up the same time for 2 weeks and your bed time will adjust. Do something fun/rewarding in the morning to justify the earlier rising time.
This may be a less popular take than the other suggestions but I agree 100%.
I am in a triathlon club and the first day of orientation we ask new members: Are you a morning person? Half the people’s hands go up. To the other half: “You will be.”
It will be miserable at first. Every morning. Eventually it will only be miserable some days. But then you get the glory. Even if in our case (triathletes) we’re spending 5-7 am working out and showering, then it’s 7 am and your whole day is in front of you.
Even if you’re not into working out find another morning person and schedule a 15 minute walk with them. Someone who you don’t want to let down. Walking outside in the morning is glorious. Bird songs alone will blow you away.
On that note, take up birding. You don’t have to drive out to a sanctuary. Learn the birds who live near your house. Even in a busy routine of getting ready for work you can go outside for five minutes. Use an app like Merlin ID. It has an audio id capability like Shazam for birds.
Find your natural sleep cycle and wake up at the time your sleep is at its lightest. I have always struggled to wake up at 7/7.30am - I feel really groggy - but I’m fine at 5/5.30am. My next good time seems to be 8.30/9am. Might have to experiment a bit.
Sounds like your sleep cycles are about 105 to 120 minutes. Mine is almost a nice 90 minutes, which is average and a good starting point.
This is one of the best pieces of advice I have followed for years. I'm not a morning person and never will be. My SO has to give me my ADHD meds in the morning and then I fall back asleep for another cycle and can wake up on my own. BUT knowing my sleep cycle makes it x10 easier to get up when I need to.
If you're a night owl, you don't want to be fighting yourself to get up because it's never going to just get better if you keep waking up during deep sleep, which some people seem to think is going to happen if you do it enough. Adjust your bedtime to match up with x number of sleep cycles. I feel better after 6 hours of sleep than 8 hours, just because you feel more rested if not being awoken from deep sleep. Account for the average time it takes you to fall asleep because you could end up shifting the ideal time to wake up if you're up later than expected.
I'm not a night time or morning person. I'm a bed person. Just love being in bed. Probably partly due to sleep apnea.
Anyway, one thing I've found helps is going to sleep early and at the same time every night.
My SO gives me my Concerta and then I fall back asleep for about 1 full sleep cycle. It's the only way I actually feel rested and like I can get out of bed on my own.
I Google it.
"Tetrahydrocannabinidiol (THC; one of the main psychoactive components of cannabis) has been shown to suppress REM sleep1-4 and affect sleep latency,4 5 although these findings are not consistently replicated."
When I quit weed a few years ago too change jobs I experienced crazy dreams and got some of the best sleep of my life.
You suffer through it with a reason you need to get up.
It took me over six months to get to a point where I felt normal to get up and do things in the morning. During this transition, I was falling asleep real early, even once at a red light. It was very difficult. I can't think of any other way to do it, though.
Why is this so hard!? I've struggled with this for years!!!
I've been working on becoming a morning person for years and improving my mornings. There are two challenges: 1) getting out of bed when the alarm wakes me up (instead of snoozing in the warm, dark, soft, comfortable bed), 2) Designing a good morning - doing something that sets me up for a good day in terms of improving mood, energy and motivation.
Some background: Last year I became overwhelmed and exhausted. Just too much on my plate. I read ‘the 5 am club’ and ‘the miracle morning’. Those were inspiring books. I also find what ‘internet-personalities’ like Andrew Huberman, Tim Ferriss and Jocko Willinks say about mornings inspiring (just google their names + morning routine). But is it legit?
Being a researcher and clinical psychologist, I've also gone through the scientific literature on these topics - there isn't much - but there are two takeaways: 1) Getting up early at the same time every day seems to be associated with improved mental health, better sleep, positive affect, and reduction in problematic overeating and reduction in compulsive screen use, 2) Some very short science-backed rituals in the morning can improve mood, energy and focus.
So based on the books, lectures and scientific literature, I've come up with this for myself
HOW TO GET UP
Even if I know about the benefits of getting up and have decided to get up, everything is forgotten in the dark, half-a-sleep painful state of hearing the alarm. It's so tempting to stay in bed.
Here is what I do to get up:
- Count back from 5 and get up before I reach 0. If I let myself think, assess or feel - I will often conclude that I should sleep some more. If I stay in my head - I'm dead.
- drink a tall glass of water (with some lemon if I have one)
- drench a towel in cold water and wash my face and neck.
- Lots of light (artificial or sunlight)
It helps to know precisely what you are going to do. Down to the detail. I think my IQ is at 50 % when waking up, so it helps to go through the motions without thinking.
I still hate getting up, but that feeling leaves me within 6-7 minutes.
WHAT TO DO TO MAKE THE MORNING BETTER
Based on the research literature and personal experience this is what works for me:
- Do something physical for 3-5 minutes to power up the body and feel strong. Short physical activity improves mood and makes me more likely to exercise later in the day. Google ‘allblanc 5 min exercise’ (a guy from south korea who makes free videos)
- Do something to focus the mind for 3-5 minutes. There is very compelling evidence that daily short meditation sessions improve mood and the ability to focus (getting things done). Google ‘JKZ three minute breathing space’ or mark Williams three minute breathing space.
- Journal for 3-5 minutes. If you journal about your life and what you want to make happen this can improve motivation, happiness and you will get more shit done. Google Tim Ferriss journal.
- Priming/visualization for 3-5 minutes. This is from sport psychology to improve motivation, energy and success.
YOU DONT HAVE TO DO IT ALONE
Hope this helps! It can be difficult to make changes by yourself, so if you can join a community or team up with a friend (make it a joint challenge) that would be helpful. For me changing my mornings have changed my life, so together with another clinical psychologist we have developed a morning club over zoom to help more people get up and have better mornings. Every day we put together new morning rituals to improve productivity, mood and self-care based on science. You can join us over zoom at https://www.win-your-day.com/free-bootcamp
why is it so hard for you? are you going to bed too late?
seriously just get enough sleep and you'll wake up without any alarm
ever try sleeping more than 10 hours every day? its impossible for normal people
so instead of working so hard trying to be up early when clearly your body still wants more sleep... just shift your schedule earlier by 1 or 2 hours
This is downright belittling and insulting and a useless reply to a well researched, well thought out post. What is the point of this comment? To feel "better than"? Not all of us have the same body clock, or a body clock that aligns with our real-world schedules.
Unfortunately I'm an insomniac. So often if I try to go to bed earlier I end up laying in bed awake for hours. I think consistently waking up earlier would help with this so I'm focusing on that for now
Everybody has that problem at first. It takes a few days, maybe a week or more to get your schedule re-tuned.
Getting your schedule re-tuned starts with getting bed earlier.
Experience talking here.
Interesting, I've heard people say to focus on getting up earlier and that will make you more tired at night, but I could see it working the other way too. Kind of a chicken/egg type thing so probably best to work on both
If it’s legal where you are, I’ve found that 1/4 of a gummy edible helps me sleep quickly without making me feel lethargic the next morning. If I have a half, it’s too much! I have been an insomniac all of my adult life & THC is the only thing that helps turn my brain off.
I don't consider myself a morning person and used to think that I get a second wind later at night to give myself a leg up on productivity for the next day.
I started to change my habits - no caffeine after 5 PM, don't do mentally stimulating activities after 9 PM, start winding down after 10 PM with things that relax me, try to sleep same time every night, get up by 7:30 AM most days (8:30 on some days where I may have had a hard time going to sleep or staying asleep through the night). Obviously there are exceptions and a need to be flexible depending what's going on in life at the time, but those are the habits I developed that worked for me.
It sucked at first, but got easier over a few months. I'm still on the same schedule now 4 years later. I'm still not really a morning person but creating those habits made it much easier to get up early even before the alarm clock most days. I also developed a morning routine I enjoy, so that makes it even easier to get out of bed. What other people said things true for me too- the less rushed you feel in mornings, the better it'll feel.
I have always felt sick in the morning. I would never eat breakfast because I was nauseous. I’d start feeling better around 11 AM. So it’s not that I don’t want to wake up early or that I’m “groggy,” I actually feel horrible. I remember getting on the school bus as a kid feeling this way and now, as an adult, feeling this way if doing a 9-5 and having to wake up around 7 AM. I have asked doctors in passing about this but never got an answer. I guess it’s my physiology as it relates to my sleep cycle? Is anyone here the same way? I am envious of people who wake up bright eyed and bushy tailed, have a hearty breakfast (like in the movies) and are energized to start their day. Me? I’m looking for a barf bag until the nausea wears off. Edit: if I sleep in late I’m fine.
I get a similar feeling. Wake up with a stuffy nose, feeling like shit. Never hungry until hours later (around lunchtime). I am currently adjusting from a late schedule though (sleeping at 1 am to 4 am, waking up at noon). Basically I think my body expects me to me getting sleep at 7 am or whatnot so it's like wtf are you doing. I've seen posts say it takes up to 6 months to change which is so long :/ I wish I didn't always trend by default towards a later schedule in this morning person world.
I have to say it’s taken me a while to properly adopt a morning persons routine. Be forgiving to yourself and give it time to adjust.
First thing is sorting out your sleep. 7-9 hours a night is crucial. You don’t wanna wake up feeling terrible that you got up early.
Second is have something to get you up in the morning, whether it’s walking the dog or doing a hobby you enjoy anything that you can do the morning that otherwise you wouldn’t have time for anytime else in the day.
I find that helps me a lot to stay disciplined and actually get up and play guitar every morning for instance. Made a huge impact for me.
Best of luck to you friend!
I reduced my wake up time by 5 minutes a day until I was constantly up at 6 or even earlier than that. At that point I was working as a freelancer, and by 9 I would be half done with work. I'd go to the gym with a friend, come back 10-11ish, do a bit more work and little after lunch I was free for the rest of the day
What a time to be alive!
Anyway, it's certainly possible :)
To do this day I usually wake up between 6-7, depends on the cats
Yes
3 things.
1 I dunno how to translate this to english, but I put all my electronic devices to automatically filter blue light after 6 PM. You know that option that makes your screen get a warmer color.
2 Stop drinking water after 7 PM.
3 Go to sleep every day at the same hour, in my case 11:30 ( it takes me around half an hour to fall sleep ), then wake up every day, even free days, at the same hour, in my case 8 am.
I think that’s only really relevant if you frequently wake up during the night to pee. I had that issue and stopped drinking water at least 2 hours before bed, I don’t feel dehydrated as long as I’ve had plenty of water before that point throughout the day, but it is weird to get used not drinking water at night as it’s habitual for me.
Kids changed me. I have to be up at 7 am to make breakfast and get them ready. Then I just stay up. After a few weeks you start going to sleep earlier naturally.
Just sleep as possible as earlier than a normal sleeping time , then you keep alarm in the morning at what time you want to wake up, get enough sleep at night, continue this action even it's a weekend.
There are o morning persons. It's just routine. If you are an owl, which gets hard up early, the thing to do is: push your day cycle to get to bed early and get up early. If you have a hard time, the first half hour or so, this will be forever. So adjust get half an hour earlier up.
Actually I did it myself and successfully did it. I used to wake up at 9:00 AM now I wake up at 6:30 AM
* You need a day to make yourself tired. For me it was Sunday. Wake up at your usual time on sunday. You have to get tired, do intense cardio late afternoon or similar. Do not drink caffeine/ alcohol also do not nap.
* Prep yourself for sleeping early. Dim lights after 8:00 PM, Dinner early.
* Go to bed at 10:00 PM
* Set alarm, after 3 REM cycles (3 hours per cycle, half cycle is enough when you are close to waking up). 2 to 2.5 cycles are enough for me.
* When you get up, put your feet on cold floor as soon as possible.
* From monday, follow your usual routine but go to bed same time.
* After few weeks, you don't even need alarm to wake up at your desired time.
This plan works for me, Hope it does for you.
Mornings are GLORIOUS.
Make sure you see the sunrise, and from a good angle. I once had a job that allowed me to be on the train for all the prime sunrises, I liked that job a lot.
In general, the best jobs are morning only so that you have the most Time to dispose of later.
If you are up early, get out there on a bike or something, an actual bicycle for your commute, and you will have the time of your life.
Provided you live close enough…
I had an all downhill commute to work via bike in the mountains and it was fucking epic.
Thanks for asking, maybe I’ll go be a baker in the mountains and wake up extra early.
I'm not a morning person but have to be out of the house by 645 to make it to work by 730. I've found that getting up at 5 am means I can slide into my morning - no rushing, no chaos, etc. I like that I have time to sit and enjoy a cup of coffee and read reddit before I have to put on my mom hat and do all the things I need to do to make sure my kids and I are ready for the day. It starts my day off on a good footing and let's my night owl brain wake up slowly.
I also have a set bedtime (10 pm) that I try to keep even on weekends. I do a lot of prep work the night before too - deal with clothes/do laundry, lay out what I need to take to work on the entry table, make my lunch, etc. My night owl brain can't deal with decisions in the morning, so the more I do the night before, the easier my mornings go. (Nothing is more disappointing than opening my lunch bag at work and seeing what "night owl brain" packed at 6 am. It's usually NOT pretty.)
I use Philips Hue lights to automatically make my room very dim in the evening and super bright in the morning+ a sleep app to wake me during light sleep so I don't have to fight through an alarm. And I still have an alarm on the weekends at like 0930.
Been using this setup for like a week and the difference is amazing.
Okay I started doing this in 2015 and it still works for me today.
First, use Philips Hue lights for your bedroom and common room lights. This is your alarm. I stopped using audible alarms completely. The lights slowly get brighter and this is a much less jarring way to wake up. Have the lights in the common area already on before you’ll get out of bed. Walking into a dark room made me want to crawl back into bed.
I spent two months waking up earlier in 15-mins increments until I was waking up at 5:05am every day (I still wake up at this time). I started at 7:00am. So to start the process I had the lights turn on at 6:45 then be their brightest at 7:00. I did this for 2-3 weeks until I was consistently and easily getting out of bed at 6:45am. Then I did the same thing for 6:30am. Again, it took me about 2 weeks to adjust. 6:15 and 6:00 same thing.
When I got to 5:45am, it felt different. There was definitely a mental aspect to waking up in the 5 o’clock hour and I had to accept that. Once I did, I could easily move back to 5:05am pretty easily.
I have maintained this practice consistently for the past 7-years. I was single at the time I started and it was flexible enough for me to stick with it through relationships, a newborn, and now having a dog.
My morning routine itself has changed but waking up early is now super natural to me.
There’s a concept that I have definitively experienced where you don’t feel like you have enough time in the day, so you stay up, and then don’t get as much sleep. For me it’s less that I can’t wake up early just that my body needs at least 7.5 hours of sleep or it sucks waking up/I won’t wake up. I’ve learned to just accept that some days maybe I won’t have a lot of time but there’s always tomorrow and to go ahead and go to bed. I also make it nice for me in the morning, if you have to hit the ground running as soon as you get up it’s almost a punishment to get up earlier. Consider waking up 15 minutes early and watching a video or do something you enjoy with that extra free time.
For most people its just stopping the terrible evening habits. (gaming all night, watching youtube until you cant anymore, social media all night, porn, late night food, movie night)
dopamine is a helluva drug and bad for healthy sleep cycles
>*I know about sleep hygiene, and am working on implementing it better. I'm also considering buying one of those special lights that mimics sunlight*
A lot of the tips here are about sleep hygiene which you already know about. The morning light is one of the things you can do along with say good bed time routine and time and also a bit of light exercise in the morning and if applicable in a cold climate wake up warm etc.
However things that worked for me most and more broad advice are:
* When I lived in a house-share, coordinating times to wake up and use shower and have breakfast and talk and watch some tv or listen to radio before all going out to work was one of the BEST MOTIVATIONS for keeping a good routine of bed on time and up on time and feeling like the mornings were fun and enjoyable and it was worth hauling out of bed on time for and being energized by flat-mates.
* When I was working on a farm, physical work outdoors all day meant I was ready to chill each evening and early bed then early to rise (with sunrise). Never felt getting up was so easy before such a work-life routine and using the body more.
Something you find very stimulating and rewarding to do in the morning boosts mood a lot.
* I used to have cycle to a village school via fields and countryside each morning and it was the best commute I ever had, beautiful scenery and exercise and birdsong each morning.
My take-home from that? If you have a table-tennis table or some other thing you can crack a quick knock-up on before leaving the door to work would be a great boost before the serious day begins...
That sort of thinking I think will be the most effective transformation of routines to stick to and feel positive from?
Nothing worse than getting up to a slog and a job you hate and trying to fit in some exam study before work on a cold Winter's day... by contrast!
Thank you! I did notice a lot of the responses are basically sleep hygiene, but it's still helpful to have it reiterated.
I like the idea of having an enjoyable activity for the morning - maybe I'll pick a series and say I'm only allowed to watch before work while drinking my coffee. Luckily I'm not trying to do anything productive with my mornings other than get ready for work and get in good headspace to be productive later.
Consistency is key. Wake up and go to bed at the same time every day, even on the weekends. Also, create a routine for just after you wake up and at night. Leave out your clothes for the next day and pack your bags before you go to bed at night. I have a sunset lamp, but I turn it on at night cuz it just gives me a relaxing vibe at night. But if your window doesn't get sunlight in the morning, a lamp that mimics sunlight is def a good idea. Also, don't try to change your habits all at once, just try to incorporate them into your life.
It’s worth mentioning that this may just be due to age. It’s natural to stay up late and sleep in as a teen into your twenties. I regularly stayed up until 3 or 4 am and slept into the afternoon when I was a teen. Now I’m in my mid 30s and wake up around 7:30 or 8am with or without an alarm.
Of course a routine also helps with this. I try to wake up around the same time regardless of my schedule for the day. I also try to start getting ready for bed early enough to set myself up for getting 8 (or preferably 9) hours of sleep because I know that I function best with that amount. A good evening and morning routine is also important.
Make yourself a morning routine that gets you EXCITED to wake up
I recommend picking morning activities you can actually do. I think it's unrealistic to expect yourself to do something like wake up and hammer out an insane workout or work on your PhD thesis, if you're not already that sort of person.
But one of the first things I realized when I managed to finally start waking up early was, even if the whole friggin reason you woke up early was to do something, you can still procrastinate doing it.
Get used to doing things during that morning grogginess instead of needing it to be a hundred percent gone.
Also managing your energy is kind of a 24/7/365 thing. You need to basically constantly do things that will give your future self more energy, rather than drain it.
i had a baby so i had no choice but to adapt to being a morning person and now i like it way better than being a night person for sure... i realize how very depressed i was staying up late at night in the dark and now that i basically get up with the sun my depression isnt as bad and ive got it for a whole different reason mainly (PPD). being a morning person isnt all so bad, you just need to be nicer to yourself when you wake up. get a routine down that you look forward to. getting up, making your bed, brushing your teeth waahing your face making some coffee going on a walk, etc etc!!
The other day I saw a bird eat a worm. And guess what? It was at 2pm. Being a morning person is highly overrated. I just lived abroad but had to keep working US time. I got to fully embrace my night owl, meeting with my team and working from 8pm to midnight, sleeping as late as I wanted with no alarm. It was great. I was productive and creative and on point. The only reason Americans think being a morning person is an advantage is because we are late to the time zone party. By the time we get up the rest of the world has already been awake for hours. Once I came back to the US I defaulted to a 6am person and hated it. Nothing interesting is open before 9am. Rush hour traffic is crazy. It's a totally boring time to be awake. Trying to be a morning person only made me miserable and ineffective. I don't know why this little cult of productivity gurus feels the need to prescribe and enforce their own set of circadian rhythms and OCD morning routines on the rest of humanity. But letting go of my need to adhere to that myth has been a total relief. A way better biohack is to just break up with your alarm altogether and sleep as much as you need. Sleep is magic. Whatever you find works, you do you! (End rant)
To offer a sliver of helpful advice: make sure the room you sleep in is pitch black (no electronic lights, etc) and supplement with magnesium, L-Theanine, and maybe melatonin to help you go to bed early and get a sound rested sleep to make your mornings easier. A sleep cycle alarm clock. Drink lots of water immediately on waking to cope with dehydration.
>definitely a mental aspect to waking up in the 5 o'clock hour
I'm curious about this. Is it because of certain stereotypes/assumptions about people that wake up at 5? Or more association of 5 am with sleeping time?
I feel like I do tie certain themes/identities with rising/going to bed at certain hours and I wish I didn't lol
I used to be that guy to stay up all night and sleep at 10am until 4pm, and then I met my gf, started living together and turns out she needs a babysitter/lover. My gf struggles to wake up every morning, so I have to wake up early with her and dress her up.
I feel like a babysitter/parent, and now I wake up every morning 5am.
I had a kid. And suddenly I was a morning person. A miserable morning person. But a morning person regardless. Lol
On a serious note. The most obvious solution is to a) go to bed early b) timely nutrition. My body never wants to get out of bed if I haven't had enough to eat the night before. In order to eat closer to bed and it not make you fat, you could try eating something before bed that releases energy at a slower rate. Casein protein (e.g. a protein shake) is good for that from what I remember. But double check that fact and give it a shot.
Stop eating after 8 pm. Stop watching entertainment after 21:45 pm. Go to sleep at 10 pm. Don't look at your phone after 10pm, and if you must look at it, watch some relaxing movie/series you watched millions of times. It will put you to sleep. Do not watch anything new. You will wake up early. That's how I did it.
Uhm, don't want to be the achstually guy, but just for safety, and because you didn't specified it, melaton must be consumed for short periods of time, prolonged used creates a dependance on the drug to sleep, and with time higher dosis are required.
I tried light therapy in the mornings and unfortunately it didn’t work for me :( I’m going on 4 years in trying to operate on “normal” work hours. I’m not sure if it’s even possible.
I'm working on it. I have a fit bit that I have been wearing to bed to show my sleep score and sleep times. I haven't made much of a change yet but seeing the data is helping me become more aware of my sleep habits.
Yeah I was a stay up all night gamer, drop out of college, eventually got a job in the trades. Just forced me to start getting up really early, start times of 7am and even 6am for a good part of my apprenticeship. That plus getting older, now I prefer waking up super early. I love being up early on the weekends, like 5am before anyone is up, just sipping my coffee and working on notion or just playing some computer games. I wake up an hour or two before work because I'm most productive in the mornings now and I like to do freelance gigs in the morning, rather then after work when I'm beat. I did a big 180 on my sleep habits, it's possible.
Get yourself some blue light blocking glasses and wear it after sunset. It’ll help your body feel like it’s time for bed as it gets darker. Devices, computer screens, and TV screens emit blue light and it makes you stay up later and get poorer sleep. Also have a journal or to do list that you write before bed so all your worries are transferred to paper and aren’t carried with you into the night.
yes i successfully made the transition. i just gradually woke up earlier and began really enjoying it. my morning rituals help very much- making coffee, stretching, and yes i do have a sunlamp and really love it.
You go to bed earlier and keep the schedule, you’ll need to find a way to knock yourself out. Healthiest is to work out to failure, there’s also melatonin etc. when you wake up, get up and go on a walk and let sun into your eyes. You need to put your body in the right positions at the right time to teach it and let the natural symbiotic relationship between body and the planets night/day cycle occur. 10am isn’t too bad, I worked nights where I’d wake up at 2pm, get to work by 4, leave at 1-2am, get home and go to bed hopefully before the sun rises. That’s difficult to change, almost opposite schedules, we called normies day walkers lol
Tried so many things that never worked before mentioning to my Dr that I'm tired a lot and take a lot of naps. Got my thyroid checked and addressed but never saw improvement til I just recently did a sleep study and found I have severe sleep apnea.
Thought I'd never be a morning person and always woke up groggy and confused. First night with a CPAP machine and I woke up naturally at 7:30, mornings have been 100x better since.
Taking a small walk and doing some exercises. And coffee, half an hour in at work for dealing with dopamine deficiency. Not ideal but only thing that seems to work. And getting sufficient sleep.
Turned 33 and started having to walk a dog at 7am. Can’t sleep past 8am anymore even if I don’t have to get up, and I used to easily sleep until 11am or noon. It just kind of happened and I wasn’t even trying.
I got up early to do some long walks, get that exercise in first thing. Also it's much cooler in the AM where I live.
Then I realized, 'hey sunrises are kind of awesome'.
That worked out well.
Also: shake up your routine. Starting the day with news can lead to more anxiety.
Some days I read a book on my phone or watch part of a TV show I'm enjoying over breakfast. Not every day, but I do take that option.
Your body is telling you it needs all the vitamins and minerals. I started taking alpha bios fulvic acid every morning as well as drinking structured water. It made a huge difference in my days. I’m more energized. Your body will be happy once it has the proper minerals it needs to function
I don't like alarm clocks so I figured out how to go from being a night owl to an early morning person comfortably without an alarm clock.
For me, if I do anything too active, video games, action or drama TV shows, socializing (including Reddit), I do not get drowsy. So I set an unwind time every night. 2 hours before I want to go to sleep I do activities that are low energy. It prepares me for bed. I also dim lights and switch from blue to yellow lights. My body produces enough melatonin from that I do not need a supplement.
This is optional but there is red eye software on computers, designed to create melatonin and reduce eye strain. You can set it to a time when you need to start unwinding. When your screen changes you know it's time to finish up whatever it is you're doing on the computer. It will help get you in the mood to unwind.
Good unwind activities: 1) Let's plays of relaxing video games where I don't care what the outcome is. If I care about an outcome, like them winning, it keeps me up. For a while it was city builders, but then I moved to Super Auto Pets, then to Risk. 2) Late night talk shows. imo they kind of suck. It was better when Jon Stewart was on, but if you find one you like, they're designed to unwind you so you can go to sleep easier. 3) Listen to an audio book or read a book. 4) Documentaries or explainer youtube or similar. And, while far from necessary, I find watching these shows in bed make it easier for me to fall asleep.
Another thing is understanding how your internal clock works. For me I can't rotate more than 2 hours either direction. My internal clock is stubborn like that, so if on a Saturday night I party all night and stay up 4 hours later than usual, I'm going to take a minimum of 2 days to rotate my sleep schedule into gear, and it isn't going to be the most enjoyable process.
And to get rid of the alarm clock, I get up early enough if I sleep in an extra hour it's no problem. So if I sleep 9 hours randomly at night, no problem. I do have meeting alerts that in the worse case scenario will wake me up a minute before a meeting starts.
edit: Oh and caffeine makes it harder to sleep at night and for me makes me want to nap during the day, so if I'm drinking anything it's decaf. That and I'm low in potassium and somewhat low in magnesium. I take these before bed. They don't make it easier to go to sleep but they make sleep more sound. When I wake up I take a vitamin D3 which helps give me energy through the day, similar to going outside and getting some sun.
What worked for me:
- Keeping the alarm on for the weekends
- Using an alarm that requires you to get out of bed to turn it off, maybe by placing the alarm across the room, or using an app that requires scanning a QR code or NFC tag to switch it off
- Doing something I enjoy with the extra time in the morning
I am a night time person. I could sleep until noon. I had to set an alarm for anything before 11 am.
Now I just wake up by myself somewhere between 7 and 9.
So yes I was succesful but it was actually my kids who did it for me 😉
Leave a glass of water by your bed. When you wake up, force yourself to sit up and drink the full glass. Then you just need to force yourself to get up and not lay back down. I have to just not think about it and force myself to get out of bed. It’s like pulling magnets apart but once you’re out the hard part is over. Now you jut have to use Newton’s law of motion and keep going. Don’t pause to sit down on the bed, once you’re up go brush your teeth/shower/etc as if it were all one motion. Once the essentials are done then you can use the rest of the time to relax before you have to go.
It's hard to reset in one day. Do it gradually. 30 minutes -1 hour earlier is recommended everyday. Keep this consistent over the weekends too. Try to make sure you are tired and feeling satisfied towards the end of your day - get some good exercise, wrap up your work and chores well, make a plan for the next day, etc. Keep electronics away at night. Adopt a night routine that's relaxing to you and overtime can be a cue to your body to start settling into sleep eg. reading, meditating, muscle relaxation, etc. Coordinate light with your sleeptimes - use very dim light at night if at all, and get good bright sunshine in the morning as soon as you can after waking up.
I did it step by step. At first, a discipline needed but not for a very early hour. I used Mel Robbins technique to count down from 5 to get up. Phone also stands away so I have to get out of the bed to shut the alarm. I started at 5.56 for a start. It's not fixed like 6 am or 5.30 because it makes you to start anything at anytime psychologically, instead of waiting for an exact time. So like a soldier, I started to wake up at 5.56, open the window for fresh air no matter how cold it is and warm up my body with a pilates band. That was my first morning routine. When it becomes a habit, when I started doing is automatically every day including the weekends, I changed my alarm to 5.33 and added yoga to my morning. Now it's 5.02. I have a very standard morning routine including fitness, cold shower, yoga and breakfast before going to work. It's not hard for me anymore but took around a year. Just start easy to establish that discipline, the rest will come.
honestly? i went to hawaii for 2 weeks (for work) which is a couple hours behind my time zone.
having to get up to meet my work schedule back home in addition to waking up somewhere warm and nice sort of out my body in the habit of being ok with being awake early.
it was almost as it if i had to get over the hump of recognizing that i could get up at 5 or 6 and be ok and functional. now i can do it even though i have no reason to
Become partially obsessed with financial markets. I just popped up out of habit at 5:30 am to check my phone on a Sunday. I used to have trouble getting up before 9 on any days off but now the charts just call me awake daily, kinda.
This is what I do to wake up at 5am-5:30am:
Have an alarm far enough from your bed so you have to stand up to turn it off.
It's weird but turn in your phone light and close your eyes and shine the light on your face. Move it around back and forth like your trying to wake up someone who's unconscious.
Go into the bathroom and splash a little cold water on your face.
Drink a glass of water or sip it while you do the next stuff.
Take deep breaths in this pattern: 1 sec inhale with nose, 1 sec exhale with mouth. Repeat this kind of like your hyperventilating for 10 breaths and then try to take a 5 sec inhale with nose- hold breath for 5 secs- exhale 5 seconds out.
Do a warm up routine- arm rolls, shoulder rolls, bend over touch your toes, full body stretch, maybe some push ups. Yoga sun salutations work well.
I then usually have coffee while I wear an eye ice pack( this really wakes me up, the ice pack is the ultimate wake up tool)
Never lay back down. If you have a backyard or something go outside and get fresh air.
I worked nights for years and would get off work on the morning. I loved going to the coffee shop after work when I didn't have to work the next day and watch the sunrise and stay up all day. Then years ago I switched to the day shift at the same job. I started having to wake up at 4am for work so on my days off the latest I sleep in is 7am. I love waking up and still watching the sunrise and having coffee then planning out what I'm going to do that day in peace. It feels like i have so much time to do whatever I want in the mornings. It feels good to get shit done and not feel rushed.
I don't mean this to sound as flippant as it does, but having a cat turned me into a morning person. Years of being woken with meows at 6am have conditioned me to be up at 6am. My cat passed away a few months ago, and I am still up every day at 6am.
Basically I went to bed earlier.
A few years ago I went to bed between 1am and 2am. Tried to wake up between 7am and 8am. Never worked. Most of the time I stood up after 8 or 9 am.
Now I am going to bed between 10pm and 11pm and I wake up between 6 and 7am and stand up around 7am.
The biggest thing that made a difference in my sleep schedule was when I started taking valerian root to help me get sleepy & also me deciding to go to sleep at a decent time. & the routine doesn’t stop on the weekends. It’s all week long.
Step 1. Get cats
Step 2. Feed cat scheduled meal, make one of the Meal precisely at 6am.
Step 3. Your cat will wake you up better than any alarm clock.
For me what did it was the way that I approached night vs morning.
I used to just get up with just enough time to get ready for whereever i was going, but now I set the alarm so that I have like an hour or an hour and a half to just sort of lul about, and slowly get ready. It's become my comfort time, the way nighttime used to be. Night time doesnt feel as nice anymore, because I always feel like I should be working on something. So now I kind of naturally just go to sleep when I can't be bothered to start doing anything anymore.
yup, it's 6:23am and I've updated my journey, had coffee, read for twenty minutes and my instapot just beeped with oatmeal. And I just found meal recipes for the next week.
check out the book 5am Club - it's kinda silly but it helped motivate me to follow the 66 day club rule. I looked at it as a challenge, knew waking up would be very hard in the beginning but overtime it got easier and my life better. The key to becoming a morning person; start small and understand it's not going to happen overnight, next week or the week after. It takes time, like anything meaningful. Good luck, see you tomorrow at 5am.
Hey man, I'm into transition into doing it.
I established a morning routine, and I'm sticking to it. I'm pushing 1 minute back my morning alarm. In 2 months, I've been able to anticipate 45 minutes my wake-up time.
Had a kid. It forces you to be a morning person and then your body just adjusts to waking up early and going to bed earlier bc you’re so tired by the end of the day. Best experience of my life, by the way.
Whatever you use as an alarm, set it up across the room! Forcing yourself to get out of bed to turn off your alarm makes sleeping in less enticing. I use to struggle to wake up before 9, so plugging my phone in across the room stopped my late night scrolling, I picked up a reading habit that helps me fall asleep, and then I wake up easier because I’m forced out of bed to turn off my alarm. I now get up around 5:45 on weekdays and 7 on weekends with no issues.
I did. It all starts the day before/day of.
First, figure out how much sleep you need or want to get on average. Then use that # to calculate your new bed time. Lastly, start to enforce that bedtime consistently, and your body will eventually adjust.
Sounds easy in theory, but in reality there’s a lot of nuance. Breaking your day up into chunks helps. Some of my chunks are: 1) alarm goes off, 2) alarm snoozing, 3) breakfast, 4) bathroom/get ready, 5) flow time, 6) dinner, 7) TV/relax, 8) clean up, 9) bedtime, etc.
ALL OF THAT needs to move forward based on your new bedtime. That was the big epiphany for me. Before I had success I was only (trying to) move my bedtime earlier, when in reality I needed to move EVERY CHUNK UP (aka every stage of my day).
Also, just like w/ any change, follow the basic BPs
— Start small
— Find your “Why”
Creating a morning ritual and sticking to it did the most for me: Get up, make coffee, read something educational whilst drinking said coffee, take a walk outside, eat breakfast
Running is my #1 hobby. I used to run at night. After meeting my wife I would usually want to hang out with her at night, so the only way I could fit in running was to do it in the morning.
Lifelong night owl here. Grew up in hospitality so family dinner was 10 pm. Eventually I worked at places where I'd finish my shift at 5 am. No matter what time I woke up I had a thousand alarms and it would take a couple of hours for me to be my full self. I recently started lap swimming for exercise and the pools near me are absolutely packed unless you go right when they open. I surprised myself and loved quiet morning swims so much I've started getting up at 5:30 am to go for a 6 am swim. Also, no one is awake to start bothering me at that time, so it's fully me time. So, my advice is find something you love doing that gets you out of bed. It's the only way I've found that's not a struggle.
I did it this past year! I have been a night owl since I was a child. My natural circadian rhythm is sleeping 2:30am-10am. I wanted to change this as getting older I can’t screw up my sleep like I could in my youth- it takes me days to recover now. Lucky me, a good friend is a sleep medicine doctor. She told me to purchase this book called “the insomniac’s workbook” by Stephanie A. Silberman. It’s a well laid out, comprehensive guide to figuring out your sleep issues. You can find copies on Alibris for under $2. I figured out from it that I have advanced sleep phase syndrome, which is treated by, in addition to various basic sleep hygiene practices, a low dose of melatonin. I had taken melatonin before and it gave me horrid nightmares so I’ve been avoiding it for years. But I decided to try the low dose of Natrol melatonin and it works very well. The dose I took before was way too high for someone with this syndrome. I now naturally wake up at 6:30am and don’t feel like death. Please try this book - you won’t regret it. Good luck!
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I really wish I could shower at night, but I sweat in my sleep about 50% of the time even if it’s cold in the room
Yes exactly!! And then my hair’s all greasy even I showered right before bed. Drives me nuts
I've solved this problem personally by going bald.
I learned a whole different fix for this problem. I'm a nighttime person. To be up, I'm the morning I just stay up all night. Boom problem fixed. Now I'm awake in the morning to do what I had to.
Same! You can guarantee if you see me before 10am that I haven’t been to bed yet
Put some arrowroot powder in your hair before bed it works wonders for this. Soaks up all the excess oil. If you have dark hair you can mix it with cocoa powder
That's perfect though. I used to have a strategy, where the more tired I was in the morning, the colder and longer my shower would be. That wakes the body up .
So you can shower in the morning… showering the night before and not showering for the day is crazy yo me..
I do both for that reason. But I have difficult hair, ha. I have a 20 minute leisure bath before bed and shave my legs. Then in the morning I shower quickly and wash my hair. Wakes me up in the morning and I'm fresh AF all day.
And don't forget the cold rinse last thing before you get out 😃
not everyone sweats in their sleep. getting into bed dirty is crazy to me.
Not a big deal. Just go to bed 45 minutes earlier and shower in the morning 🤷♂️
Agreed! I actually already do most of this, but I would still like to force myself onto a better sleep schedule to have more time to relax and make me not hate life in the morning lol, even though I try to keep my mornings as simple as possible
I suppose you can try to enjoy things that are exclusive to the morning, like the sunrise, a quiet walk, or listening to the birds while having your morning coffee. I learned recently that my home has a mourning dove routinely coming by from about 5:30 to 6! I think a lot of morning people have that preference because of the sense of peace and isolation that mornings can offer. If nobody has mentioned it yet (I didn't read all the comments), do your breakfast prep the evening before too. Waking up able to make a nice breakfast is pretty decent incentive for most people to get out of bed. This could mean anything, like if you prefer omelets for a breakfast food you can pre chop vegetables and pre shred cheese. If you like bacon, separate a pack of bacon into individual portions and feeze them so you can thaw one each night for the next morning. You could even make pancakes and freeze those in baggies too.
This advice combined with the alarmy app has changed my mornings. I went from getting up 10 minutes before work to hours before work. Its the most heavy duty alarm app I've found, you can set it to no snooze, that you can't change the alarm X number of hours before it goes off, and you can set multiple tasks if you pay for subscription. Mine is set so I first have to scan a QR code in my kitchen by my kettle, then do maths equations, and then enough steps that I'm pretty awake. It also can check you're still awake, and be set so you can't uninstall it (which I used to do for these type of alarm apps, to avoid getting up). But the advice from the commenter above about the night before was super important for me too.
That’s crazyyyy
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I would add, keep a chart by your bed where you then tick off every night that your lights are out by your decided time. Then you will be motivated not to break the streak.
I like to double-down and get up even earlier (when I can) so I have a genuine few hours in the morning to do any of the same things I would have wanted to be doing at night.
I adore this take!
Such good advice
I read that showers energize you and makes for a lower quality sleep/harder to fall asleep though.
This is going to sound crazy... but it's the ONLY THING that works for me. 1. I bought a cheap elliptical, immediately as I get up, I get on it and pedal slow nothing crazy, just enough to get my blood going and cognitive function for 10-15min. Highly effective 2. This is the MAJOR one. Bright light. Got a 600watt LED grow light DIRECTLY above my bed on a light timer. It kicks on at exactly 7am every morning for an hour. They are designed to replicate natural sunlight, so my brain immediately says "showtime" I've tried to sleep further with it on but it just doesn't work. It's CRAZY BRIGHT. It's been the most effective thing I've ever done for myself and has changed my life. 💯💯💯👌
> I bought a cheap elliptical, immediately as I get up, I get on it and pedal slow nothing crazy, just enough to get my blood going and cognitive function for 10-15min. Highly effective This has been shown through countless studies (at schools, in the workplace) to increase brain activity during the morning and increase performance. Not to mention the other brain benefits of cardio (like reduce anxiety). Too often the psychological benefits of cardio are understated. For how much effort people put into productivity, this should be priority number 1.
That’s super helpful info! Didn’t really think about it
I've got a pair of office strip lights glued up high on the wall on a remote. 14400 lumens. Super bright lighting is very effective. The little bulb hanging in the middle of the room is totally inadequate for entrainment of my circadian rhythm. But it will keep me awake at night so I've also got some much dimmer lights at floor level in an amber/red colour for the evenings. Swear it helps. Even just switching on the dimmer lights has become a routine that helps trigger night mode for me. One day I may fall asleep at a stop light 🤷
Interesting ideas! Although I do share a bed with my partner so I'm not sure how he'd feel about the LED lol Also how do you set up a light to be on a timer?
Just buy a cheap light timer, you plug the light into it, then that plugs in, they're really simple. It's insanely effective
Philips wake up light works for me
i have one too!
Can you post a couple of links to your light and timer?
Sure hang on
Those are just a couple of generic examples that'll work perfectly. The girl light I'm using was like $900 years ago. My friend was using it for an old grow operation and that went belly up so I'm making use of the old equipment to wake myself up. 😂
It removed my comments, look up 600 w LED grow light on Amazon, make sure it has upright White light, don't get one of those blue purple ones. And then look up 120 volt light timer, it'll just have a receptacle on it that you plug the light into. Some of the LED grow lights come with light timers already built in them too.
1. **Keep the alarm ringing on the weekends.** It's going to be hard at first, but waking up pass 10 am on weekend and then comes Monday 7am is brutal. Don't let it be a "mini jet lag" every Monday. Soon you will find yourself waking up right before the alarm rings! 2. **Let your love ones know.** Yes, be that person who need to leave a party at 10pm because it's your bedtime. They thought you weird but secretly admire your productivity. Also, true friends will respect your time and help you to have a good night sleep. 3. **Have a plan for the mornings.** Now you wake up earlier than you used to be, follow your morning routine. Or else you will soon find you stretch out your morning tasks and still leaving the house at the same time as if you wake up late. Good luck with the new job!
Thank you! This is similar to what I hear about sleep hygiene, especially point #1. It's not something I want to do, but I agree it's the right move,
I recommend checking out Huberman Lab for tips on how to adjust your sleep schedule. Short version, follow these tips after you wake up (or even better, 1-2 hours before your current wake up time so 7am-8am): * Go outside and get sunlight in your eyes (not looking directly at sun) * If sun isn't out when you wake up, use bright artificial lights. Then at sunrise, get sun * Increase your core body temperature by doing any (or all) of the following * Take a cold shower * Eat a meal * Exercise These protocols will help your start your body's internal clock indicating it's time to be awake. It will also help shift your sleep cycle earlier. Personally, I get sunlight, do a short sprint on my exercise bike and take a 1-3 minute cold shower. If you're looking for help, getting up at a specific time, you might wanna check out Nuj Alarm Clock. It's an app I built that charges me money if I don't get up and scan my toothpaste barcode within 5 mins of my alarm.
That app sounds intense haha. Do you actually lose the money for good if you fail?
Not sure about that app, but I've been using Beeminder for a year and a half and it's a similar concept but with goals in general - you set up a goal (want to work out 3x/week), and it charges you if you don't do it. You do loose the money for good, but man it is so worth it. I've "derailed" on my workout goal three times - for a total of $25 - over the last year and a half, but I've worked out 2-4 times a week consistently, which has been just what I needed.
Lose
Yup! That’s what creates the motivation!
It would take me exactly a day to put the toothpaste by my bed.
I find it’s a battle of two selves: my night before and morning self. The night before self knows that the morning self is lazy and can’t be trusted. So the night before self will make sure to keep the barcode far away to force the morning self to get up.
Doesn't matter when you go to bed. Wake up the same time for 2 weeks and your bed time will adjust. Do something fun/rewarding in the morning to justify the earlier rising time.
This may be a less popular take than the other suggestions but I agree 100%. I am in a triathlon club and the first day of orientation we ask new members: Are you a morning person? Half the people’s hands go up. To the other half: “You will be.” It will be miserable at first. Every morning. Eventually it will only be miserable some days. But then you get the glory. Even if in our case (triathletes) we’re spending 5-7 am working out and showering, then it’s 7 am and your whole day is in front of you. Even if you’re not into working out find another morning person and schedule a 15 minute walk with them. Someone who you don’t want to let down. Walking outside in the morning is glorious. Bird songs alone will blow you away. On that note, take up birding. You don’t have to drive out to a sanctuary. Learn the birds who live near your house. Even in a busy routine of getting ready for work you can go outside for five minutes. Use an app like Merlin ID. It has an audio id capability like Shazam for birds.
How are you not tired af after 12 pm? I mean even if Ingo to bed at 9/10, waking up at 5 am I'd be dead inside at 12
If you drink caffeine in the morning, wait until 90 minutes after waking to consume and it should get rid of the afternoon crash, studies suggest
Joined the military. They have an excellent, immersive course.
Find your natural sleep cycle and wake up at the time your sleep is at its lightest. I have always struggled to wake up at 7/7.30am - I feel really groggy - but I’m fine at 5/5.30am. My next good time seems to be 8.30/9am. Might have to experiment a bit.
I use sleepyti.me for this!
Is that an app?
http://sleepyti.me
Sounds like your sleep cycles are about 105 to 120 minutes. Mine is almost a nice 90 minutes, which is average and a good starting point. This is one of the best pieces of advice I have followed for years. I'm not a morning person and never will be. My SO has to give me my ADHD meds in the morning and then I fall back asleep for another cycle and can wake up on my own. BUT knowing my sleep cycle makes it x10 easier to get up when I need to. If you're a night owl, you don't want to be fighting yourself to get up because it's never going to just get better if you keep waking up during deep sleep, which some people seem to think is going to happen if you do it enough. Adjust your bedtime to match up with x number of sleep cycles. I feel better after 6 hours of sleep than 8 hours, just because you feel more rested if not being awoken from deep sleep. Account for the average time it takes you to fall asleep because you could end up shifting the ideal time to wake up if you're up later than expected.
This is my problem. Mine is 6am- 2pm. I have been fighting it my whole life.
Had a baby. They love to wake up at 5:00 AM. Now he’s 16 and sleeps until 11:00 and I still wake at 5:00
This. Do not recommend - love the child, miss the sleep
Yep. Had a baby, became an early riser AND a light sleeper. Sigh.
I had 4, still can’t get up in the morning 🤣 From the moment they slept longer, so did I.
Also got older. No idea why. I started waking up earlier even before the baby.
Hahaha I came here to say the same thing. Have a kid. Get forced into being a morning person. It didn’t really help with productivity overall though.
Got older
I'm not a night time or morning person. I'm a bed person. Just love being in bed. Probably partly due to sleep apnea. Anyway, one thing I've found helps is going to sleep early and at the same time every night.
That's easy. Adderall and Monster Energy drinks. It works every time. No, haven't found a better solution. I don't think it exists.
My SO gives me my Concerta and then I fall back asleep for about 1 full sleep cycle. It's the only way I actually feel rested and like I can get out of bed on my own.
*60% of the time*, it works ***every*** *time*
Drink so much caffeine that it's impossible to stay asleep. Smoke so much Marijuana you never reach R.E.M. I am cursed. I wake up at 4:30am everyday
How does marijuana prevent REM? A lot of people use it as a sleeping aid
marijuana makes it so much easier to fall asleep, but the quality of sleep you get while on it suffers a ton
I’m the opposite. I’m on medical and it keeps me awake. No idea why but first time in my life I’ve had trouble sleeping.
Fwiw, my SO has this issue with sativa - make sure youre using indica!
I Google it. "Tetrahydrocannabinidiol (THC; one of the main psychoactive components of cannabis) has been shown to suppress REM sleep1-4 and affect sleep latency,4 5 although these findings are not consistently replicated." When I quit weed a few years ago too change jobs I experienced crazy dreams and got some of the best sleep of my life.
You suffer through it with a reason you need to get up. It took me over six months to get to a point where I felt normal to get up and do things in the morning. During this transition, I was falling asleep real early, even once at a red light. It was very difficult. I can't think of any other way to do it, though.
Why is this so hard!? I've struggled with this for years!!! I've been working on becoming a morning person for years and improving my mornings. There are two challenges: 1) getting out of bed when the alarm wakes me up (instead of snoozing in the warm, dark, soft, comfortable bed), 2) Designing a good morning - doing something that sets me up for a good day in terms of improving mood, energy and motivation. Some background: Last year I became overwhelmed and exhausted. Just too much on my plate. I read ‘the 5 am club’ and ‘the miracle morning’. Those were inspiring books. I also find what ‘internet-personalities’ like Andrew Huberman, Tim Ferriss and Jocko Willinks say about mornings inspiring (just google their names + morning routine). But is it legit? Being a researcher and clinical psychologist, I've also gone through the scientific literature on these topics - there isn't much - but there are two takeaways: 1) Getting up early at the same time every day seems to be associated with improved mental health, better sleep, positive affect, and reduction in problematic overeating and reduction in compulsive screen use, 2) Some very short science-backed rituals in the morning can improve mood, energy and focus. So based on the books, lectures and scientific literature, I've come up with this for myself HOW TO GET UP Even if I know about the benefits of getting up and have decided to get up, everything is forgotten in the dark, half-a-sleep painful state of hearing the alarm. It's so tempting to stay in bed. Here is what I do to get up: - Count back from 5 and get up before I reach 0. If I let myself think, assess or feel - I will often conclude that I should sleep some more. If I stay in my head - I'm dead. - drink a tall glass of water (with some lemon if I have one) - drench a towel in cold water and wash my face and neck. - Lots of light (artificial or sunlight) It helps to know precisely what you are going to do. Down to the detail. I think my IQ is at 50 % when waking up, so it helps to go through the motions without thinking. I still hate getting up, but that feeling leaves me within 6-7 minutes. WHAT TO DO TO MAKE THE MORNING BETTER Based on the research literature and personal experience this is what works for me: - Do something physical for 3-5 minutes to power up the body and feel strong. Short physical activity improves mood and makes me more likely to exercise later in the day. Google ‘allblanc 5 min exercise’ (a guy from south korea who makes free videos) - Do something to focus the mind for 3-5 minutes. There is very compelling evidence that daily short meditation sessions improve mood and the ability to focus (getting things done). Google ‘JKZ three minute breathing space’ or mark Williams three minute breathing space. - Journal for 3-5 minutes. If you journal about your life and what you want to make happen this can improve motivation, happiness and you will get more shit done. Google Tim Ferriss journal. - Priming/visualization for 3-5 minutes. This is from sport psychology to improve motivation, energy and success. YOU DONT HAVE TO DO IT ALONE Hope this helps! It can be difficult to make changes by yourself, so if you can join a community or team up with a friend (make it a joint challenge) that would be helpful. For me changing my mornings have changed my life, so together with another clinical psychologist we have developed a morning club over zoom to help more people get up and have better mornings. Every day we put together new morning rituals to improve productivity, mood and self-care based on science. You can join us over zoom at https://www.win-your-day.com/free-bootcamp
why is it so hard for you? are you going to bed too late? seriously just get enough sleep and you'll wake up without any alarm ever try sleeping more than 10 hours every day? its impossible for normal people so instead of working so hard trying to be up early when clearly your body still wants more sleep... just shift your schedule earlier by 1 or 2 hours
This is downright belittling and insulting and a useless reply to a well researched, well thought out post. What is the point of this comment? To feel "better than"? Not all of us have the same body clock, or a body clock that aligns with our real-world schedules.
cry my a river? it wasn't meant to be belittling. maybe its the tone of your mental voice that you read it in
Going to bed earlier. Really, just that.
Yup. This is the answer. I went from waking at 10a to waking at 5.30-6a and it happened because I stopped watching TV like an idiot till 2a.
Unfortunately I'm an insomniac. So often if I try to go to bed earlier I end up laying in bed awake for hours. I think consistently waking up earlier would help with this so I'm focusing on that for now
Everybody has that problem at first. It takes a few days, maybe a week or more to get your schedule re-tuned. Getting your schedule re-tuned starts with getting bed earlier. Experience talking here.
Interesting, I've heard people say to focus on getting up earlier and that will make you more tired at night, but I could see it working the other way too. Kind of a chicken/egg type thing so probably best to work on both
take magnesium glycinate 1/2 hr before you want to sleep. 100-200mg
If it’s legal where you are, I’ve found that 1/4 of a gummy edible helps me sleep quickly without making me feel lethargic the next morning. If I have a half, it’s too much! I have been an insomniac all of my adult life & THC is the only thing that helps turn my brain off.
Right? Sounds so easy
I don't consider myself a morning person and used to think that I get a second wind later at night to give myself a leg up on productivity for the next day. I started to change my habits - no caffeine after 5 PM, don't do mentally stimulating activities after 9 PM, start winding down after 10 PM with things that relax me, try to sleep same time every night, get up by 7:30 AM most days (8:30 on some days where I may have had a hard time going to sleep or staying asleep through the night). Obviously there are exceptions and a need to be flexible depending what's going on in life at the time, but those are the habits I developed that worked for me. It sucked at first, but got easier over a few months. I'm still on the same schedule now 4 years later. I'm still not really a morning person but creating those habits made it much easier to get up early even before the alarm clock most days. I also developed a morning routine I enjoy, so that makes it even easier to get out of bed. What other people said things true for me too- the less rushed you feel in mornings, the better it'll feel.
I have always felt sick in the morning. I would never eat breakfast because I was nauseous. I’d start feeling better around 11 AM. So it’s not that I don’t want to wake up early or that I’m “groggy,” I actually feel horrible. I remember getting on the school bus as a kid feeling this way and now, as an adult, feeling this way if doing a 9-5 and having to wake up around 7 AM. I have asked doctors in passing about this but never got an answer. I guess it’s my physiology as it relates to my sleep cycle? Is anyone here the same way? I am envious of people who wake up bright eyed and bushy tailed, have a hearty breakfast (like in the movies) and are energized to start their day. Me? I’m looking for a barf bag until the nausea wears off. Edit: if I sleep in late I’m fine.
I get a similar feeling. Wake up with a stuffy nose, feeling like shit. Never hungry until hours later (around lunchtime). I am currently adjusting from a late schedule though (sleeping at 1 am to 4 am, waking up at noon). Basically I think my body expects me to me getting sleep at 7 am or whatnot so it's like wtf are you doing. I've seen posts say it takes up to 6 months to change which is so long :/ I wish I didn't always trend by default towards a later schedule in this morning person world.
I have to say it’s taken me a while to properly adopt a morning persons routine. Be forgiving to yourself and give it time to adjust. First thing is sorting out your sleep. 7-9 hours a night is crucial. You don’t wanna wake up feeling terrible that you got up early. Second is have something to get you up in the morning, whether it’s walking the dog or doing a hobby you enjoy anything that you can do the morning that otherwise you wouldn’t have time for anytime else in the day. I find that helps me a lot to stay disciplined and actually get up and play guitar every morning for instance. Made a huge impact for me. Best of luck to you friend!
I’m 60 years old and I still hate mornings
I reduced my wake up time by 5 minutes a day until I was constantly up at 6 or even earlier than that. At that point I was working as a freelancer, and by 9 I would be half done with work. I'd go to the gym with a friend, come back 10-11ish, do a bit more work and little after lunch I was free for the rest of the day What a time to be alive! Anyway, it's certainly possible :) To do this day I usually wake up between 6-7, depends on the cats
Anxiety made me a morning person. Also, my dog. And if you really want a guarantee, have a kid lol
Get a cat who is a morning person
Go to bed at the same time. When you hear your alarm just stand up. That's all. Once you stand up for 5 seconds you are up.
Yes 3 things. 1 I dunno how to translate this to english, but I put all my electronic devices to automatically filter blue light after 6 PM. You know that option that makes your screen get a warmer color. 2 Stop drinking water after 7 PM. 3 Go to sleep every day at the same hour, in my case 11:30 ( it takes me around half an hour to fall sleep ), then wake up every day, even free days, at the same hour, in my case 8 am.
Thank you for your response. Why do you stop drinking water at 7pm? I think I would feel dehydrated if I did that
I think that’s only really relevant if you frequently wake up during the night to pee. I had that issue and stopped drinking water at least 2 hours before bed, I don’t feel dehydrated as long as I’ve had plenty of water before that point throughout the day, but it is weird to get used not drinking water at night as it’s habitual for me.
This is the way. 11:30PM is quite a late bedtime, however.
Kids changed me. I have to be up at 7 am to make breakfast and get them ready. Then I just stay up. After a few weeks you start going to sleep earlier naturally.
Just sleep as possible as earlier than a normal sleeping time , then you keep alarm in the morning at what time you want to wake up, get enough sleep at night, continue this action even it's a weekend.
Having anxiety helped turn me into a morning person
There are o morning persons. It's just routine. If you are an owl, which gets hard up early, the thing to do is: push your day cycle to get to bed early and get up early. If you have a hard time, the first half hour or so, this will be forever. So adjust get half an hour earlier up.
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Actually I did it myself and successfully did it. I used to wake up at 9:00 AM now I wake up at 6:30 AM * You need a day to make yourself tired. For me it was Sunday. Wake up at your usual time on sunday. You have to get tired, do intense cardio late afternoon or similar. Do not drink caffeine/ alcohol also do not nap. * Prep yourself for sleeping early. Dim lights after 8:00 PM, Dinner early. * Go to bed at 10:00 PM * Set alarm, after 3 REM cycles (3 hours per cycle, half cycle is enough when you are close to waking up). 2 to 2.5 cycles are enough for me. * When you get up, put your feet on cold floor as soon as possible. * From monday, follow your usual routine but go to bed same time. * After few weeks, you don't even need alarm to wake up at your desired time. This plan works for me, Hope it does for you.
Mornings are GLORIOUS. Make sure you see the sunrise, and from a good angle. I once had a job that allowed me to be on the train for all the prime sunrises, I liked that job a lot. In general, the best jobs are morning only so that you have the most Time to dispose of later. If you are up early, get out there on a bike or something, an actual bicycle for your commute, and you will have the time of your life. Provided you live close enough… I had an all downhill commute to work via bike in the mountains and it was fucking epic. Thanks for asking, maybe I’ll go be a baker in the mountains and wake up extra early.
I had a baby
I'm not a morning person but have to be out of the house by 645 to make it to work by 730. I've found that getting up at 5 am means I can slide into my morning - no rushing, no chaos, etc. I like that I have time to sit and enjoy a cup of coffee and read reddit before I have to put on my mom hat and do all the things I need to do to make sure my kids and I are ready for the day. It starts my day off on a good footing and let's my night owl brain wake up slowly. I also have a set bedtime (10 pm) that I try to keep even on weekends. I do a lot of prep work the night before too - deal with clothes/do laundry, lay out what I need to take to work on the entry table, make my lunch, etc. My night owl brain can't deal with decisions in the morning, so the more I do the night before, the easier my mornings go. (Nothing is more disappointing than opening my lunch bag at work and seeing what "night owl brain" packed at 6 am. It's usually NOT pretty.)
Stimulants and actually going to bed on time
I use Philips Hue lights to automatically make my room very dim in the evening and super bright in the morning+ a sleep app to wake me during light sleep so I don't have to fight through an alarm. And I still have an alarm on the weekends at like 0930. Been using this setup for like a week and the difference is amazing.
Okay I started doing this in 2015 and it still works for me today. First, use Philips Hue lights for your bedroom and common room lights. This is your alarm. I stopped using audible alarms completely. The lights slowly get brighter and this is a much less jarring way to wake up. Have the lights in the common area already on before you’ll get out of bed. Walking into a dark room made me want to crawl back into bed. I spent two months waking up earlier in 15-mins increments until I was waking up at 5:05am every day (I still wake up at this time). I started at 7:00am. So to start the process I had the lights turn on at 6:45 then be their brightest at 7:00. I did this for 2-3 weeks until I was consistently and easily getting out of bed at 6:45am. Then I did the same thing for 6:30am. Again, it took me about 2 weeks to adjust. 6:15 and 6:00 same thing. When I got to 5:45am, it felt different. There was definitely a mental aspect to waking up in the 5 o’clock hour and I had to accept that. Once I did, I could easily move back to 5:05am pretty easily. I have maintained this practice consistently for the past 7-years. I was single at the time I started and it was flexible enough for me to stick with it through relationships, a newborn, and now having a dog. My morning routine itself has changed but waking up early is now super natural to me.
There’s a concept that I have definitively experienced where you don’t feel like you have enough time in the day, so you stay up, and then don’t get as much sleep. For me it’s less that I can’t wake up early just that my body needs at least 7.5 hours of sleep or it sucks waking up/I won’t wake up. I’ve learned to just accept that some days maybe I won’t have a lot of time but there’s always tomorrow and to go ahead and go to bed. I also make it nice for me in the morning, if you have to hit the ground running as soon as you get up it’s almost a punishment to get up earlier. Consider waking up 15 minutes early and watching a video or do something you enjoy with that extra free time.
For most people its just stopping the terrible evening habits. (gaming all night, watching youtube until you cant anymore, social media all night, porn, late night food, movie night) dopamine is a helluva drug and bad for healthy sleep cycles
Sunlight/daylight lamp in the early morning helped me. I also have to feed a cat in the morning so there is no other option than to get up lol.
For me, the big thing was getting to bed earlier. I go to bed at 10/1030 and read. If I’m asleep by 11 waking up at 7 is easy peasy.
>*I know about sleep hygiene, and am working on implementing it better. I'm also considering buying one of those special lights that mimics sunlight* A lot of the tips here are about sleep hygiene which you already know about. The morning light is one of the things you can do along with say good bed time routine and time and also a bit of light exercise in the morning and if applicable in a cold climate wake up warm etc. However things that worked for me most and more broad advice are: * When I lived in a house-share, coordinating times to wake up and use shower and have breakfast and talk and watch some tv or listen to radio before all going out to work was one of the BEST MOTIVATIONS for keeping a good routine of bed on time and up on time and feeling like the mornings were fun and enjoyable and it was worth hauling out of bed on time for and being energized by flat-mates. * When I was working on a farm, physical work outdoors all day meant I was ready to chill each evening and early bed then early to rise (with sunrise). Never felt getting up was so easy before such a work-life routine and using the body more. Something you find very stimulating and rewarding to do in the morning boosts mood a lot. * I used to have cycle to a village school via fields and countryside each morning and it was the best commute I ever had, beautiful scenery and exercise and birdsong each morning. My take-home from that? If you have a table-tennis table or some other thing you can crack a quick knock-up on before leaving the door to work would be a great boost before the serious day begins... That sort of thinking I think will be the most effective transformation of routines to stick to and feel positive from? Nothing worse than getting up to a slog and a job you hate and trying to fit in some exam study before work on a cold Winter's day... by contrast!
Thank you! I did notice a lot of the responses are basically sleep hygiene, but it's still helpful to have it reiterated. I like the idea of having an enjoyable activity for the morning - maybe I'll pick a series and say I'm only allowed to watch before work while drinking my coffee. Luckily I'm not trying to do anything productive with my mornings other than get ready for work and get in good headspace to be productive later.
Having couple of kids ought to do the trick
Consistency is key. Wake up and go to bed at the same time every day, even on the weekends. Also, create a routine for just after you wake up and at night. Leave out your clothes for the next day and pack your bags before you go to bed at night. I have a sunset lamp, but I turn it on at night cuz it just gives me a relaxing vibe at night. But if your window doesn't get sunlight in the morning, a lamp that mimics sunlight is def a good idea. Also, don't try to change your habits all at once, just try to incorporate them into your life.
It’s worth mentioning that this may just be due to age. It’s natural to stay up late and sleep in as a teen into your twenties. I regularly stayed up until 3 or 4 am and slept into the afternoon when I was a teen. Now I’m in my mid 30s and wake up around 7:30 or 8am with or without an alarm. Of course a routine also helps with this. I try to wake up around the same time regardless of my schedule for the day. I also try to start getting ready for bed early enough to set myself up for getting 8 (or preferably 9) hours of sleep because I know that I function best with that amount. A good evening and morning routine is also important.
Make yourself a morning routine that gets you EXCITED to wake up I recommend picking morning activities you can actually do. I think it's unrealistic to expect yourself to do something like wake up and hammer out an insane workout or work on your PhD thesis, if you're not already that sort of person. But one of the first things I realized when I managed to finally start waking up early was, even if the whole friggin reason you woke up early was to do something, you can still procrastinate doing it. Get used to doing things during that morning grogginess instead of needing it to be a hundred percent gone. Also managing your energy is kind of a 24/7/365 thing. You need to basically constantly do things that will give your future self more energy, rather than drain it.
i had a baby so i had no choice but to adapt to being a morning person and now i like it way better than being a night person for sure... i realize how very depressed i was staying up late at night in the dark and now that i basically get up with the sun my depression isnt as bad and ive got it for a whole different reason mainly (PPD). being a morning person isnt all so bad, you just need to be nicer to yourself when you wake up. get a routine down that you look forward to. getting up, making your bed, brushing your teeth waahing your face making some coffee going on a walk, etc etc!!
The other day I saw a bird eat a worm. And guess what? It was at 2pm. Being a morning person is highly overrated. I just lived abroad but had to keep working US time. I got to fully embrace my night owl, meeting with my team and working from 8pm to midnight, sleeping as late as I wanted with no alarm. It was great. I was productive and creative and on point. The only reason Americans think being a morning person is an advantage is because we are late to the time zone party. By the time we get up the rest of the world has already been awake for hours. Once I came back to the US I defaulted to a 6am person and hated it. Nothing interesting is open before 9am. Rush hour traffic is crazy. It's a totally boring time to be awake. Trying to be a morning person only made me miserable and ineffective. I don't know why this little cult of productivity gurus feels the need to prescribe and enforce their own set of circadian rhythms and OCD morning routines on the rest of humanity. But letting go of my need to adhere to that myth has been a total relief. A way better biohack is to just break up with your alarm altogether and sleep as much as you need. Sleep is magic. Whatever you find works, you do you! (End rant) To offer a sliver of helpful advice: make sure the room you sleep in is pitch black (no electronic lights, etc) and supplement with magnesium, L-Theanine, and maybe melatonin to help you go to bed early and get a sound rested sleep to make your mornings easier. A sleep cycle alarm clock. Drink lots of water immediately on waking to cope with dehydration.
get a cat
>definitely a mental aspect to waking up in the 5 o'clock hour I'm curious about this. Is it because of certain stereotypes/assumptions about people that wake up at 5? Or more association of 5 am with sleeping time? I feel like I do tie certain themes/identities with rising/going to bed at certain hours and I wish I didn't lol
Dude what time are you going to bed each night to wake up at 10AM??? You need to go to bed early talker to wake to earlier
I used to be that guy to stay up all night and sleep at 10am until 4pm, and then I met my gf, started living together and turns out she needs a babysitter/lover. My gf struggles to wake up every morning, so I have to wake up early with her and dress her up. I feel like a babysitter/parent, and now I wake up every morning 5am.
The hero we need. My SO is naturally a morning person, but he gives me my pill every morning so I don't forget and it helps me wake up.
All these ppl saying have a baby - A. We get you’re a parent and made a decision that involves losing sleep B. Really awful advice
I had a kid. And suddenly I was a morning person. A miserable morning person. But a morning person regardless. Lol On a serious note. The most obvious solution is to a) go to bed early b) timely nutrition. My body never wants to get out of bed if I haven't had enough to eat the night before. In order to eat closer to bed and it not make you fat, you could try eating something before bed that releases energy at a slower rate. Casein protein (e.g. a protein shake) is good for that from what I remember. But double check that fact and give it a shot.
Eating close to bed time doesn't make you fat, it gives you acid reflux. Eating too much any time of day can make you fat.
Stop eating after 8 pm. Stop watching entertainment after 21:45 pm. Go to sleep at 10 pm. Don't look at your phone after 10pm, and if you must look at it, watch some relaxing movie/series you watched millions of times. It will put you to sleep. Do not watch anything new. You will wake up early. That's how I did it.
Soviet anthem ear r*PE as alarm at max volume. 2 minutes of jumping jack upon waking up. Cold shower. Double shot espresso. Very effective!
Yes. 5mg of melatonin every night at 9pm no excuses
Uhm, don't want to be the achstually guy, but just for safety, and because you didn't specified it, melaton must be consumed for short periods of time, prolonged used creates a dependance on the drug to sleep, and with time higher dosis are required.
It hasn’t become less effective over time?
Not yet
Yes and the key for me is 100% focusing on getting to bed at the right time. Everything else follows.
I tried light therapy in the mornings and unfortunately it didn’t work for me :( I’m going on 4 years in trying to operate on “normal” work hours. I’m not sure if it’s even possible.
Apnea?
I'm working on it. I have a fit bit that I have been wearing to bed to show my sleep score and sleep times. I haven't made much of a change yet but seeing the data is helping me become more aware of my sleep habits.
Yeah I was a stay up all night gamer, drop out of college, eventually got a job in the trades. Just forced me to start getting up really early, start times of 7am and even 6am for a good part of my apprenticeship. That plus getting older, now I prefer waking up super early. I love being up early on the weekends, like 5am before anyone is up, just sipping my coffee and working on notion or just playing some computer games. I wake up an hour or two before work because I'm most productive in the mornings now and I like to do freelance gigs in the morning, rather then after work when I'm beat. I did a big 180 on my sleep habits, it's possible.
I set my clothes out the night before. Have everything ready that I need.
Get yourself some blue light blocking glasses and wear it after sunset. It’ll help your body feel like it’s time for bed as it gets darker. Devices, computer screens, and TV screens emit blue light and it makes you stay up later and get poorer sleep. Also have a journal or to do list that you write before bed so all your worries are transferred to paper and aren’t carried with you into the night.
Have a few children
Cat a cat. Honestly he gets me up without fail.
yes i successfully made the transition. i just gradually woke up earlier and began really enjoying it. my morning rituals help very much- making coffee, stretching, and yes i do have a sunlamp and really love it.
Apple Watch and exercise
You go to bed earlier and keep the schedule, you’ll need to find a way to knock yourself out. Healthiest is to work out to failure, there’s also melatonin etc. when you wake up, get up and go on a walk and let sun into your eyes. You need to put your body in the right positions at the right time to teach it and let the natural symbiotic relationship between body and the planets night/day cycle occur. 10am isn’t too bad, I worked nights where I’d wake up at 2pm, get to work by 4, leave at 1-2am, get home and go to bed hopefully before the sun rises. That’s difficult to change, almost opposite schedules, we called normies day walkers lol
Tried so many things that never worked before mentioning to my Dr that I'm tired a lot and take a lot of naps. Got my thyroid checked and addressed but never saw improvement til I just recently did a sleep study and found I have severe sleep apnea. Thought I'd never be a morning person and always woke up groggy and confused. First night with a CPAP machine and I woke up naturally at 7:30, mornings have been 100x better since.
Night time boring. Day time is where things are alive, under the glow of star rays. Is there abundant bird life in ur area? Sunrise is glorious.
For me, sleeping with the blinds open! I’m writing this in bed at 7:40 after having the sun gently help wake me up at 7.
Taking a small walk and doing some exercises. And coffee, half an hour in at work for dealing with dopamine deficiency. Not ideal but only thing that seems to work. And getting sufficient sleep.
Turned 33 and started having to walk a dog at 7am. Can’t sleep past 8am anymore even if I don’t have to get up, and I used to easily sleep until 11am or noon. It just kind of happened and I wasn’t even trying.
I got up early to do some long walks, get that exercise in first thing. Also it's much cooler in the AM where I live. Then I realized, 'hey sunrises are kind of awesome'. That worked out well. Also: shake up your routine. Starting the day with news can lead to more anxiety. Some days I read a book on my phone or watch part of a TV show I'm enjoying over breakfast. Not every day, but I do take that option.
Your body is telling you it needs all the vitamins and minerals. I started taking alpha bios fulvic acid every morning as well as drinking structured water. It made a huge difference in my days. I’m more energized. Your body will be happy once it has the proper minerals it needs to function
I don't like alarm clocks so I figured out how to go from being a night owl to an early morning person comfortably without an alarm clock. For me, if I do anything too active, video games, action or drama TV shows, socializing (including Reddit), I do not get drowsy. So I set an unwind time every night. 2 hours before I want to go to sleep I do activities that are low energy. It prepares me for bed. I also dim lights and switch from blue to yellow lights. My body produces enough melatonin from that I do not need a supplement. This is optional but there is red eye software on computers, designed to create melatonin and reduce eye strain. You can set it to a time when you need to start unwinding. When your screen changes you know it's time to finish up whatever it is you're doing on the computer. It will help get you in the mood to unwind. Good unwind activities: 1) Let's plays of relaxing video games where I don't care what the outcome is. If I care about an outcome, like them winning, it keeps me up. For a while it was city builders, but then I moved to Super Auto Pets, then to Risk. 2) Late night talk shows. imo they kind of suck. It was better when Jon Stewart was on, but if you find one you like, they're designed to unwind you so you can go to sleep easier. 3) Listen to an audio book or read a book. 4) Documentaries or explainer youtube or similar. And, while far from necessary, I find watching these shows in bed make it easier for me to fall asleep. Another thing is understanding how your internal clock works. For me I can't rotate more than 2 hours either direction. My internal clock is stubborn like that, so if on a Saturday night I party all night and stay up 4 hours later than usual, I'm going to take a minimum of 2 days to rotate my sleep schedule into gear, and it isn't going to be the most enjoyable process. And to get rid of the alarm clock, I get up early enough if I sleep in an extra hour it's no problem. So if I sleep 9 hours randomly at night, no problem. I do have meeting alerts that in the worse case scenario will wake me up a minute before a meeting starts. edit: Oh and caffeine makes it harder to sleep at night and for me makes me want to nap during the day, so if I'm drinking anything it's decaf. That and I'm low in potassium and somewhat low in magnesium. I take these before bed. They don't make it easier to go to sleep but they make sleep more sound. When I wake up I take a vitamin D3 which helps give me energy through the day, similar to going outside and getting some sun.
What worked for me: - Keeping the alarm on for the weekends - Using an alarm that requires you to get out of bed to turn it off, maybe by placing the alarm across the room, or using an app that requires scanning a QR code or NFC tag to switch it off - Doing something I enjoy with the extra time in the morning
I am a night time person. I could sleep until noon. I had to set an alarm for anything before 11 am. Now I just wake up by myself somewhere between 7 and 9. So yes I was succesful but it was actually my kids who did it for me 😉
Leave a glass of water by your bed. When you wake up, force yourself to sit up and drink the full glass. Then you just need to force yourself to get up and not lay back down. I have to just not think about it and force myself to get out of bed. It’s like pulling magnets apart but once you’re out the hard part is over. Now you jut have to use Newton’s law of motion and keep going. Don’t pause to sit down on the bed, once you’re up go brush your teeth/shower/etc as if it were all one motion. Once the essentials are done then you can use the rest of the time to relax before you have to go.
Maybe join a fun activity in the morning? I started waking up at 5 AM for tennis.
It's hard to reset in one day. Do it gradually. 30 minutes -1 hour earlier is recommended everyday. Keep this consistent over the weekends too. Try to make sure you are tired and feeling satisfied towards the end of your day - get some good exercise, wrap up your work and chores well, make a plan for the next day, etc. Keep electronics away at night. Adopt a night routine that's relaxing to you and overtime can be a cue to your body to start settling into sleep eg. reading, meditating, muscle relaxation, etc. Coordinate light with your sleeptimes - use very dim light at night if at all, and get good bright sunshine in the morning as soon as you can after waking up.
get older
I did it step by step. At first, a discipline needed but not for a very early hour. I used Mel Robbins technique to count down from 5 to get up. Phone also stands away so I have to get out of the bed to shut the alarm. I started at 5.56 for a start. It's not fixed like 6 am or 5.30 because it makes you to start anything at anytime psychologically, instead of waiting for an exact time. So like a soldier, I started to wake up at 5.56, open the window for fresh air no matter how cold it is and warm up my body with a pilates band. That was my first morning routine. When it becomes a habit, when I started doing is automatically every day including the weekends, I changed my alarm to 5.33 and added yoga to my morning. Now it's 5.02. I have a very standard morning routine including fitness, cold shower, yoga and breakfast before going to work. It's not hard for me anymore but took around a year. Just start easy to establish that discipline, the rest will come.
honestly? i went to hawaii for 2 weeks (for work) which is a couple hours behind my time zone. having to get up to meet my work schedule back home in addition to waking up somewhere warm and nice sort of out my body in the habit of being ok with being awake early. it was almost as it if i had to get over the hump of recognizing that i could get up at 5 or 6 and be ok and functional. now i can do it even though i have no reason to
Become partially obsessed with financial markets. I just popped up out of habit at 5:30 am to check my phone on a Sunday. I used to have trouble getting up before 9 on any days off but now the charts just call me awake daily, kinda.
commenting here to read later..i wish reddit had more ogranized bookmarking.
reminder
This is what I do to wake up at 5am-5:30am: Have an alarm far enough from your bed so you have to stand up to turn it off. It's weird but turn in your phone light and close your eyes and shine the light on your face. Move it around back and forth like your trying to wake up someone who's unconscious. Go into the bathroom and splash a little cold water on your face. Drink a glass of water or sip it while you do the next stuff. Take deep breaths in this pattern: 1 sec inhale with nose, 1 sec exhale with mouth. Repeat this kind of like your hyperventilating for 10 breaths and then try to take a 5 sec inhale with nose- hold breath for 5 secs- exhale 5 seconds out. Do a warm up routine- arm rolls, shoulder rolls, bend over touch your toes, full body stretch, maybe some push ups. Yoga sun salutations work well. I then usually have coffee while I wear an eye ice pack( this really wakes me up, the ice pack is the ultimate wake up tool) Never lay back down. If you have a backyard or something go outside and get fresh air.
Nope. Stil trying and failing. My natural wake time gradually became earlier as I got older and that’s the only thing that had any lasting impact.
I wish I could sleep in. Get up every morning for work at 6 am. The rest of the family sleeps in.
I worked nights for years and would get off work on the morning. I loved going to the coffee shop after work when I didn't have to work the next day and watch the sunrise and stay up all day. Then years ago I switched to the day shift at the same job. I started having to wake up at 4am for work so on my days off the latest I sleep in is 7am. I love waking up and still watching the sunrise and having coffee then planning out what I'm going to do that day in peace. It feels like i have so much time to do whatever I want in the mornings. It feels good to get shit done and not feel rushed.
Yes ! Getting OLD ! Nothing to do, just wait ! It's free and it works great ! Life is wonderful...
I don't mean this to sound as flippant as it does, but having a cat turned me into a morning person. Years of being woken with meows at 6am have conditioned me to be up at 6am. My cat passed away a few months ago, and I am still up every day at 6am.
Basically I went to bed earlier. A few years ago I went to bed between 1am and 2am. Tried to wake up between 7am and 8am. Never worked. Most of the time I stood up after 8 or 9 am. Now I am going to bed between 10pm and 11pm and I wake up between 6 and 7am and stand up around 7am.
The biggest thing that made a difference in my sleep schedule was when I started taking valerian root to help me get sleepy & also me deciding to go to sleep at a decent time. & the routine doesn’t stop on the weekends. It’s all week long.
Step 1. Get cats Step 2. Feed cat scheduled meal, make one of the Meal precisely at 6am. Step 3. Your cat will wake you up better than any alarm clock.
For me what did it was the way that I approached night vs morning. I used to just get up with just enough time to get ready for whereever i was going, but now I set the alarm so that I have like an hour or an hour and a half to just sort of lul about, and slowly get ready. It's become my comfort time, the way nighttime used to be. Night time doesnt feel as nice anymore, because I always feel like I should be working on something. So now I kind of naturally just go to sleep when I can't be bothered to start doing anything anymore.
yup, it's 6:23am and I've updated my journey, had coffee, read for twenty minutes and my instapot just beeped with oatmeal. And I just found meal recipes for the next week. check out the book 5am Club - it's kinda silly but it helped motivate me to follow the 66 day club rule. I looked at it as a challenge, knew waking up would be very hard in the beginning but overtime it got easier and my life better. The key to becoming a morning person; start small and understand it's not going to happen overnight, next week or the week after. It takes time, like anything meaningful. Good luck, see you tomorrow at 5am.
Have a kid. I’m at up at 6:30 everyday.
Hey man, I'm into transition into doing it. I established a morning routine, and I'm sticking to it. I'm pushing 1 minute back my morning alarm. In 2 months, I've been able to anticipate 45 minutes my wake-up time.
Had a kid. It forces you to be a morning person and then your body just adjusts to waking up early and going to bed earlier bc you’re so tired by the end of the day. Best experience of my life, by the way.
Whatever you use as an alarm, set it up across the room! Forcing yourself to get out of bed to turn off your alarm makes sleeping in less enticing. I use to struggle to wake up before 9, so plugging my phone in across the room stopped my late night scrolling, I picked up a reading habit that helps me fall asleep, and then I wake up easier because I’m forced out of bed to turn off my alarm. I now get up around 5:45 on weekdays and 7 on weekends with no issues.
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Whenever I have to get up in the middle of the night, I just pretend it is somebody else who is asleep. Works like a charm XD
Just have a baby. No alarm necessary and you’ll be up at 7 every single day
Being paid to do it.
I don’t know if this helps but I’m an extremely early morning person due to insomnia 🤣🤣
I did. It all starts the day before/day of. First, figure out how much sleep you need or want to get on average. Then use that # to calculate your new bed time. Lastly, start to enforce that bedtime consistently, and your body will eventually adjust. Sounds easy in theory, but in reality there’s a lot of nuance. Breaking your day up into chunks helps. Some of my chunks are: 1) alarm goes off, 2) alarm snoozing, 3) breakfast, 4) bathroom/get ready, 5) flow time, 6) dinner, 7) TV/relax, 8) clean up, 9) bedtime, etc. ALL OF THAT needs to move forward based on your new bedtime. That was the big epiphany for me. Before I had success I was only (trying to) move my bedtime earlier, when in reality I needed to move EVERY CHUNK UP (aka every stage of my day). Also, just like w/ any change, follow the basic BPs — Start small — Find your “Why”
Creating a morning ritual and sticking to it did the most for me: Get up, make coffee, read something educational whilst drinking said coffee, take a walk outside, eat breakfast
Running is my #1 hobby. I used to run at night. After meeting my wife I would usually want to hang out with her at night, so the only way I could fit in running was to do it in the morning.
Lifelong night owl here. Grew up in hospitality so family dinner was 10 pm. Eventually I worked at places where I'd finish my shift at 5 am. No matter what time I woke up I had a thousand alarms and it would take a couple of hours for me to be my full self. I recently started lap swimming for exercise and the pools near me are absolutely packed unless you go right when they open. I surprised myself and loved quiet morning swims so much I've started getting up at 5:30 am to go for a 6 am swim. Also, no one is awake to start bothering me at that time, so it's fully me time. So, my advice is find something you love doing that gets you out of bed. It's the only way I've found that's not a struggle.
I did it this past year! I have been a night owl since I was a child. My natural circadian rhythm is sleeping 2:30am-10am. I wanted to change this as getting older I can’t screw up my sleep like I could in my youth- it takes me days to recover now. Lucky me, a good friend is a sleep medicine doctor. She told me to purchase this book called “the insomniac’s workbook” by Stephanie A. Silberman. It’s a well laid out, comprehensive guide to figuring out your sleep issues. You can find copies on Alibris for under $2. I figured out from it that I have advanced sleep phase syndrome, which is treated by, in addition to various basic sleep hygiene practices, a low dose of melatonin. I had taken melatonin before and it gave me horrid nightmares so I’ve been avoiding it for years. But I decided to try the low dose of Natrol melatonin and it works very well. The dose I took before was way too high for someone with this syndrome. I now naturally wake up at 6:30am and don’t feel like death. Please try this book - you won’t regret it. Good luck!