How to become a morning person relatively painlessly

It used to be that I was neither a morning person nor a night owl.

Whenever anyone would ask, I would tell them that there was a brief window of time from about 2:15-3:30 in the afternoon when I was totally "on" .

Of course I was kinda kidding, but truthfully I've never really felt a natural association with either the night owls or the early risers. This all changed, though, when I started my own virtual business and had the amazing opportunity to work whatever hours I wanted.

I thought "I want to arrange my schedule so that the best hours of my day are free", and after having tried a bunch of different schedules, I have to admit that I get a whole bunch more done and feel more "in the groove" on the days when I act like a morning person.

Not to mention, if you are doing the 4-hour workday thing, if you start work at 8am, you can be finished by noon!

Can you train yourself to be an early riser?

Since I was able to switch from being a mid-afternoon person to an early riser, I have to believe that early risers are not necessarily born that way, but can be made. I did some research to try to come up with a strategy that should allow anyone to become a morning person relatively painlessly. Here's what I discovered:

Productivity guru Steve Pavlina says that there are 2 schools of thought on sleep--

1. One school says you should go to bed at the same time each night and wake up at the same time every morning.
2. The other school of sleep patterns says that you should go to sleep when you feel tired and wake up when you naturally feel awake.

Steve says that both sleep approaches are not the right approach if your goal is to not waste time. If you go to sleep and wake up at set times, then there will be nights when you go to bed when you're not tired, and you'll end up wasting time trying to sleep when you aren't really ready for it.

If you go to sleep when you're tired and wake up when you're feeling awake, you will probably end up sleeping more than you need (Steve says you can be sleeping 10-15 hours more a week than you need to be).

So, what is the answer? It's very simple:

• Go to sleep when you're very tired
• Wake up at a fixed time every day (either by the clock or at sunrise)

The sleepiness test: If you cannot read a book for more than few pages without your eyes naturally falling shut, then you're sleepy enough for bed. If you're not sleepy, stay up until you pass the sleepiness test. Don't lie in bed trying to sleep without being very tired.

Waking Up Gently

Of course you can use an alarm clock tell you when to wake up, but I don't really worry about waking up at a certain time on the clock, because I prefer to use the sun as my guide.

I myself despise alarm clocks (I find them a little jarring), so the way I wake up at a fixed time is to leave my curtains and blinds open at night. When the sun starts to rise, light comes into my room and I naturally wake up in a gentle way.

If you also don't like alarm clocks, you may be able to train yourself to wake up to another sound that happens at sunrise, such as birds chirping or another environmental sound. I live near a military base, so many days at sunrise I'll hear a bugle call off in the distance which signals to me that it's time to get up. Between the birds chirping, the sun rising and the bugle call, I've got my gentle alarm clock. :-)

• Whether you're using an alarm clock, the sun or some other signal to let you know when it's time to wake up, the trick is to just stretch, sit up in bed, and then get up. Don't contemplate what it would feel like to sleep longer. Don't try to make any bargains ("just 10 more minutes and I'll get up") Don't fight it at all--just get up.

You will likely feel tired the first few days that you wake up with the sun, but if you didn't get enough sleep the night before, you will naturally go to sleep earlier the next night. Eventually it will even out.

Another thing that helps with motivating yourself to get up early is to have a little morning ritual in place.

My ritual is this: Wake up at sunrise, have a cup of tea or coffee, then go out to the park to walk my dog. I've done it so many times it's like a habit--I don't even think about it any more. But before I started doing this sleep pattern tweak it was a stretch for me to wake up by 10am.

So, if you're interested in changing your sleep patterns so that you become a morning person, just go to bed when your very, very sleepy, and wake up at a fixed time 7 days a week. After a few weeks of doing this, you may find that you don't even need an alarm clock. Your body will just naturally wake up at your new earlier rising time.

Comments

[CC]

Hi,
Greeting from the world's most beautiful city, Sydney, Australia.
I have been a night-owl all my life, have had been "persecuted" by my relatives for staying up all "night"/actually all MORNING - the early A.M. hours.
On some occasions when I had slept through the early A.M. hours, and woke up at 7:00 A.M., I feft great, and got a lot accomplished.
That's why, I am definitely going to try your method. Shall keep you posted of my progress.
P.S.: I, too, am a lucky one who who is NOT bound by a rigid work pattern ...

[Sharon Sarmiento]

Hi CC,

Thanks so much for stopping by. I look forward to hearing how things go! :)

[Heather]

Hello, I have a question that I am hoping that you can answer for me. I can wake up early, that is not my problem. My problem is getting "my brain to wake up". It takes me an hour in the morning to be able to think clearly! My husband wakes up and is ready to go right away... this is a problem for us! I need quite time to slowly wake up, and if I don't get it, I am very grumpy until I am fully awake, do you have any suggestions on how I can change this to wake up and be ready to go? Any help would be appreciated! Thanks :-)

[Sharon Sarmiento]

Hi Heather--I am groggy in the morning too, and I don't drink coffee either, so I have to rely on exercise to get me up! It usually works. Hope that helps!