
Ask HN: how to become a morning person? - zxcvvcxz
I feel like my body just can't accept a static bedtime on a 24 hour cycle. I remember many a summer where I would operate on something closer to a 27 hour day which is pretty awesome but messed up in terms of integrating with the rest of society, which I assume most of us need/want to do. Also, I've never been a morning person - the closest thing I've had to a regular sleep schedule is like 3:30am to around noon.<p>Anyone else experience similar issues and shift their schedules accordingly? What helped out, and what kept it sustainable long term?
======
pg
Getting lots of exercise makes it easier to fall asleep at night. The ultimate
solution, however, is to have a small child.

~~~
jtheory
What time does your small child go to bed? (Not your point, really -- having
lots to do, including lots of physical play, does a great job exhausting
you... but I'm looking at many of the responses to your comment.)

I can't tell you how many parents I know that complain (sometimes bitterly)
about how early their kids wake them up, and I find out they put the kid in
_bed_ at 7pm. Or 6pm, even.

My wife works best in the morning (and I work just fine whenever), so we play
with our almost-2-year-old in the evenings and she generally goes to sleep at
11pm or sometimes later, then wakes up normally about 10am. She's never had a
bedtime earlier than 10pm.

I don't know about every other parent (and how this would fit in with life)
but this works great for us. We can go out to dinner and/or see friends in the
evening when we want to (we take her along), we get lots done in the morning,
and she gets her sleep.

Is there some other factor I'm missing? Why, when a child wakes up at 5:30am,
is it not automatic for the parents to think "we're putting her to bed 2 hours
too early"?

A possible enabler, now that I think about it -- we have great shutters on our
windows, so it's dark until we open them.

~~~
Jem
Because not all kids work this way. If I put my daughter (17.5 months) to bed
any later, not only would she wake earlier but she would wake up in the night
more too.

I do know of another couple who have a similar system to you though; Dad works
all day so they keep their boy up later and let him sleep in to get more
family time.

------
lbk
Looks like you have DSPS .

There's a good wikipedia page on it ; go read that , read the whole thing .
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_sleep_phase_syndrome>

I got my diagnosis 3 years ago , after a melatonin-test . I had to do 24
saliva samples at 24 consecutive hours , they tell you from the graph whether
your melatonin production is off .

The 'fix' is to take melatonin , as a pill , same time every night . For some
that's close to a cure , for others it isn't (it drags my sleep phase about
50% towards a normal phase , if i take it further than that the fatigue kicks
in again ) . Once you get diagnosed a doctor would start you off at 5mg , you
can lower the dose later on .

So go get diagnosed , unless you think you can diagnose yourself .

~~~
follower
I wish your reply was higher.

Chances are if OP is asking the question the standard reply of "sleep hygiene"
isn't a useful answer.

OP, have a consultation with a sleep specialist. And, take lbk's advice of
reading the DSPS page and also potentially:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-24-hour_sleep-wake_syndrome>

It could change the way you view both yourself and your life.

And, to everyone else, consider that, sometimes it isn't just a matter of
"more willpower" or just doing whatever worked for you.

------
jarin
I'm a big sleeper. I really enjoy sleeping, but I usually get up at 4 am. I'm
not necessarily recommending this, but here's what I do:

\- I drink a lot of caffeine (studies show that after a regular, high level of
caffeine intake it doesn't affect your sleep patterns anymore).

\- I take a 1 hour nap every day (usually around 3 pm)

\- I go to sleep around 11 pm

\- I naturally wake up around 4 am with no alarm

I like this schedule because I get a lot done before everyone gets up and then
I have the whole day ahead. Plus, I really like taking naps.

Edit: Just wanted to add that I'm not naturally what you would consider a
"morning person". My previous schedule for the last several years was
something like: wake up at 2 pm, work, go to sleep at around 6 am, rinse,
repeat. I kind of stumbled into my current schedule by accident.

------
chaosmachine
I've found Flux[1] to be very useful in stopping the constant forward-shift of
my sleep schedule. Now I actually get tired at night. Perhaps it was simply
over-exposure to blue light all these years...

[1] <http://stereopsis.com/flux/>

~~~
thegoleffect
Pretty cool tool. This would not be as useful to someone doing design work
that requires color accuracy though :-\\.

~~~
tmitchell
It actually has a setting specifically to accommodate this. From their FAQ:

"f.lux was created by people who care a lot about accuracy in colors. We know
you want to make sure your colors are perfect so there is an option to disable
f.lux for 1 hour at a time (for example, while using Photoshop). This setting
returns your screen to its normal settings. In the future we plan to allow
automatic disabling of f.lux when you launch certain programs. f.lux is not
designed for use during advanced color work, but it's fine for layout or HTML.
Currently, we don't recommend running f.lux on calibrated systems running
Windows, but we expect to have a solution for this soon."

------
djloche
Get out of bed immediately when you wake. Then drink a tall glass of cold
water. Do not go back to bed.

I'm not a morning person, but if I've been up for more than an hour or two,
eaten breakfast and gone for a walk before the events of the day start, I
could probably fool you. The trick is to get up and get started.

~~~
abdulla
I transition between morning and night, and it's basically getting into a
consistent cycle. If you get out of bed at the same time every day for two
weeks, you'll alter your cycle. The main idea is: don't go back to bed, get
out of bed, take a shower, go for a run. DO NOT go back to bed.

------
gte910h
I had issues with sleeping when others do for a long while. I do not anymore
(although get out of sync again about 2x a year).

1\. Caffeine and you: You have a certain sensitivity to this drug. You may
also be misusing it. Generally speaking, it's a late morning, early afternoon
only drug. Late morning is the only place it starts working as its an
adenosine antagonist, and you don't start getting adenosine in any really
effective amount in your brain until then. (Adenosine is the neurotransmitter
which makes you sleepy because you've been up for a certain period of time).

If you drink coffee (or soda) when you wake up _stop_. Cup #1 of coffee is the
_Earliest_ you should use it, and shouldn't happen before about 13 hours
before you want your "bed time" to be or about 3 hours after you get your butt
out of bed (so let's say "11 am". All it does before then is a brief heart
rate spike from the adrenaline surge, or possibly help with caffeine
withdrawal from yesterday (which you will not have issues with if you use your
caffeine only between say 11a-4p)

The bloodstream half-life of caffeine is 4.9 hours That means it takes about
~10 hours to 1/4 the amount of caffeine in your system as when you stopped
drinking it. Additionally, as its an adenosine antagonist, its effectiveness
skyrockets the later in the day you have it in you. So if you're shooting for
a 12pm bedtime, stop drinking by 2pm-5pm to significantly reduce your blood
stream level by bed time.

2\. Your bed and you: What are you allowed to do in your bedroom from now on?
Have sex, sleep, get dressed. That's it. If there is a tv in your bedroom, say
bye bye. If you read in there, say bye bye. If you touch your bed during the
day, stop it. If you're sitting there with thoughts for tomorrow, stop that.
If you can't stop that, you have to schedule a time of day considerably
earlier than bedtime where you lay out tomorrows tasks.

If you're laying in bed for more than 30 minutes without sleep, up and at em,
go read in a different room.

3\. Routine: You need to get into a set pattern. Set yourself a bedtime. Start
winding down before that, not playing video games or watching TV, (especially
sports or TV with lots of faces) in that hour before bed. Setup a ritual for
sleep, including oral hygene, preparing for tomorrow, etc.

4\. Reduce alcohol consumption: Alcohol lightens the depth of sleep.
Especially while getting used to a schedule, restrict your intake.

5\. Cool down your house at night. I don't care if you like the thermostat in
the high 70's most of the time, at night you want high 60's and hide under
warm blankets. It really really really will knock you out.

6\. Lights are something people are sensitive to in varying degrees. I suggest
erroring on the side of expecting yourself to be light sensitive. Use tools
like f.lux to drop monitor brightness after sundown. Use timers to turn on/off
lamps to make your house have a sundown. Eschew bright, overhead lights before
bedtime. If your TV has multiple video settings, even make a TV setting that's
overly dark to use past a certain hour.

On the flipside, try to get a North eastern room with lots of windows. Try to
live as far south geographically as you can. Make lights turn on like crazy
(again, timers) before you want to be waking up. Create lots of noise in your
living space (not alarms, but things like tvs, etc) around the time to get up.

7\. Eat breakfast, and to really reset yourself, eat nothing 16 hours before
you want to wake up. (This works VERY well to fix jetlag).

~~~
lkozma
All great points, I would add one more: forget the alarm clock. If you can
afford a variation of 30 mins - 1hour in wake up time, get up when you wake up
naturally. Access to natural sunlight in the morning is best. It's amazing how
precisely wake-up times synchronize automatically, but I find the alarm clock
really really harmful. See this for a strong opinion:
<http://www.supermemo.com/articles/sleep.htm>

~~~
jtheory
There are plenty of alarm clocks available that either fade in ocean noises
(or similar), or will play an MP3 that you upload (and you can choose
something like that -- slowly fading in white noise).

I actually generally agree with the advice -- my wife and I only use the alarm
clock when we have some kind of morning appointment or travel -- but in that
case the one we have works well -- it gradually increases the lights and fades
in the "alarm" (mostly white noise), and it's gentle enough that when only one
of us needs to get up, it's pretty rare that it wakes both of us, just the one
who's "primed" to wake up unusually early. And it never wakes the baby (who
sleeps in the bed with us).

So yeah, any kind of "jolt" alarm clock is a really bad way to start the day,
but they're still useful devices (and waking to an alarm doesn't need to be so
painful).

------
Mz
When I've had to adjust my schedule quickly, it has helped to take melatonin
in the evening about 30 minutes before I wanted to be asleep and co-q-10 in
the morning to help me wake up. If I can arrange to do this for 3 days
beforehand, it does wonders.

I used to have really serious insomnia and I took co-q-10 in the morning for
several years to help adjust my brain chemistry in terms of the sleeping and
waking cycle. At one time, I didn't tolerate melatonin very well. If I took
it, I felt half asleep for up to three days. Co-q-10 is the co-enzyme for
melatonin. Taking melatonin does not cause the body to produce more co-q-10
(which is made in the body in a complex multi-step process and is often
deficient because of a bottleneck at one or more step). But taking co-q-10
does cause the body to produce a melatonin spike something like 12 hours
later. So if you need to adjust your brain chemistry in terms of the waking
and sleeping cycle, co-q-10 addresses both halves of the equation whereas
melatonin only addresses one half of it. I routinely recommend it as a means
to address such issues.

I actually found that for me it seemed like that spike came more like 14 hours
later rather than 12 but my body doesn't work right to begin with. I no longer
supplement with co-q-10 but took quite high doses of it at one time and took
it consistently for several years. I have heard that a magnesium deficiency is
one of the things that will cause a co-q-10 deficiency. So I think treating
for underlying deficiencies can eventually help the body produce its own
supply and stop needing the supplements. I've worked really hard on underlying
health and I no longer need this as a supplement and sleep a lot better than I
used to.

\-- Michele, BioHacker (thanks to pumpmylemma for that term :-) )

------
daimyoyo
I wonder, OP, if you've considered the idea that your not being a morning
person ins't a bad thing? You see, I've been a nite owl since I was 8 years
old. Unless I'm sick, drunk, or have been up more than 24 hours, I am never
tired before 4 or 5 am. I've had job after job in my time that required me to
be at the office early, and I needed to wake up at the last possible second or
else, I'd go back to sleep. Finally, I realized that just like there are some
people who are left-handed, people's sleep schedules can and do vary. So what
I would do were I in your situation is instead of seeking to "cure" the fact
you aren't a morning person, accept it and look for people like us, and jobs
that don't require you to be at work before noon. They're out there, I
guarantee you. Good luck, and welcome to the club.

~~~
charlieflowers
Agreed. I'm one of them too. Yes, I can change it for a while if needed ...
but I'm at my best when I embrace it.

------
JesseAldridge
Sounds like you're exactly like me -- if so, then probably nothing will work.
You're options are: 1) Be out of sync with everyone else, or 2) Feel half dead
throughout the day.

I stumbled across an illuminating graph on the trends page of my Google Web
History: <http://imgur.com/Or18c>

I've got that 3 am to noon gap, just like the OP describes. I used to think I
was on a 25+ hour cycle, but now I'm thinking I just generally like to go to
sleep late. If something grabs my attention and I end up staying awake a few
hours later than usual, the sun comes up and that makes it harder to go to
sleep... thus leading to what seems like a > 24 hour sleep/wake cycle.

Exposure to sunlight seems to help somewhat.

Maybe consulting a professional would be a good idea. Prescription drugs. I
never cared enough to go that far.

~~~
danek
I have the same problem. I can stay up until 8am no problem working on
something moderately interesting, but I can't go to bed early and wake up at
8am if my life depends on it. I think this is a genetic thing so it's not a
simple change, like all the early risers like to claim. All my life people
said "when you are older, you will start waking up earlier"--they said this
about college when I was in high school, about work when i was in college,
etc. Well I'm nearly 30 and it hasn't happened yet. If anything, I want to
sleep in even later than when I was younger.

I'm lucky to work at a company that isn't retarded--I can show up at noon and
as long as I get my shit done, they don't care and I don't feel like a
slacker. However, waking up at 10 is still hard, and I drink about 2 cups of
coffee a day to cope. My last job I had to be there at 8am sharp--I worked
there 2 years and wasn't much more than a zombie with computer skills. Not
worth it if you ask me, which sort of, you (by you I mean OP) did.

------
fabiandesimone
I just received my Wakemate a few days ago. My sleep has been improving ever
since.

I'm slowly starting to feel less groggy every morning therefor enjoying more
my days. This, inevitably makes me be more productive during the day which in
turn makes me spend more energy feeling more tired earlier, thus going to be
at more reasonable hours. A good vicious cicle if you will.

Also, I started swimming for about 45 minutes around two to three hours before
bed time. Guaranteed Knockout.

~~~
X-Istence
When I still used to live with my parents we had a pool as well. Even if I
went swimming an hour or two before bed I would just become more refreshed and
more awake and still not go to sleep. For some reason swimming triggered my
brain to wake up and start working on more new problems.

So this advice may not work for everyone.

~~~
whatusername
Try jumping in the pool and swimming first thing. :) I love waking up like
that.

------
eelco
Steve Pavlina wrote a good article a while ago:
[http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/05/how-to-become-an-
ea...](http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/05/how-to-become-an-early-riser/)
Don't miss the links to more sleep experiments at the bottom.

------
rdl
I've had to get up at absurd hours (0200 flights, 0400 boat trips an hour
away, ops windows, etc.).

I've discovered a few tricks:

1) Never rely on the alarm clock if I'm going to bed less than an hour or two
before wake-up time (it's easy to sleep through). I'm probably going to make a
much more substantial alarm clock and "here's what happened while you were
asleep" briefing system using a TV, computer controlled room lights, etc.
Other good alarm clocks: a cat which is trained to expect food whenever you
wake up, or a girlfriend (or boyfriend, whatever is desired) who is a morning
person.

2) Make sure the "wake up, become functional" process is inherently
streamlined; get clothes, bags, etc. all ready the night before.

3) Remove any willpower from the "wake up, begin getting ready" process; once
you make it a decision, vs. automatic, it becomes easy to just hit snooze over
and over, and makes the actual waking up process itself more stressful. I
usually feel great 1-2 minutes after I wake up, and almost always feel great
once I'm fully awake, in the shower, etc., but the first 5-10 seconds is not
as good -- and that can drag out to hours if you stay in bed trying to decide
if you should wake up or sleep longer.

------
sebkomianos
I've noticed a lot of discussion about the topic of sleep during the past
months.

Am I the only one who believes we should maybe consider changing a few things
in the way the whole thing works?

\- A lot of people are clearly way more productive durring the night. I've
seen this applying to coders and to people that need to write essays but I
guess there are more categories that fit into this.

\- We don't all need the same amount of sleep. My almost-60 years old father
can work intensively for around 12 hours (he is a taxi driver in a place
that's like hell during the summer months), then work a bit more relaxed for
5-6 more hours and only needs a few hours of sleep every night (usually 3 to
5). Now, compare this to me: I just can't function properly if I don't get at
least 6 hours of sleep (and that's a rather positive number, I usually need
around 10 to bet completely okay).

\- And then, summer people have no standard needs and can live with one hour
of sleep now, then a few hours of work, then some more sleep, and so on.

I am not able to suggest a particular new system of daily life but I think we
should discuss the topic. Maybe less days with each day being bigger and two
"cycles" of productivity at each?

------
cydonian_monk
In my experience being a morning person is mutually exclusive to integrating
with (most of) the rest of society.

I was born a morning person, but high school and college forced me to abandon
that lifestyle. Eventually my body caught up to me (10 years later) and I had
to go back to being a morning person again. It was a simple thing to fall back
into... I just started going to sleep around 9 or 10 in the evening. The nice
thing is I now wake up without an alarm after 8 hours. Getting some early
morning exercise and a decent breakfast help, too. Cutting back on caffeine as
well - I dropped coffee for a few blends of tea, mostly green.

(The one thing that doesn't help is being up at 12:30 AM on a Saturday morning
waiting for the cross-compile of a linux kernel for my used-to-be-Nook to
finish. This is almost as slow as bootstrapping Gentoo from stage1.)

------
gaoshan
I'm 42 and have never successfully conquered my sleep issues. I am still a
late night person and will stay up all night every now and then just to get
back to a "normal" cycle (which never lasts).

Traveling abroad highlights my problem. In China I will be up at 5:00am (and
enjoying it and wanting to make it last) the first few days, then my schedule
will start to drift later and later until I am all screwed up again. As a dad
I simply have to get up early sometimes and these fall asleep at 2:00, 3:00 or
4:00am get up at 6:30am days just wreak havoc on me and, sadly, I do not
"adjust".

What's more, I had a job where for several years I had to get up every single
morning at 5:15am. I was told "You'll adjust when you are forced to do it long
enough". Nope. I never did. I'm becoming convinced some people just can't. It
sucks, by the way.

------
blacksqr
I was just like OP for a long time. If I couldn't sleep until 10 or 11AM I was
just desperately groggy until mid-afternoon. It just didn't matter how early I
went to bed. At the same time I could happily function on seven hours or so of
sleep, as long as those seven hours were between 3-10AM. Trying to work a day
job with regular office hours was hellish.

What finally saved me was a combination of herbal sleep aids and caffeine
pills. Every evening I put a caffeine pill on my nightstand and popped it the
second the alarm clock went off. Mid-way through my shower, I would actually
start to wake up. (For some reason, just drinking coffee in the morning never
helped much). I can't tell you how good it felt actually to be awake in the
morning, I can't imagine heroin feels any better.

My body still wanted to stay up past midnight many nights... I found that
taking kava or valerian before bed would allow me to get enough restful sleep
before the alarm went off.

This regimen changed my life and made it possible to be a much more productive
and creative person. After about five years, my internal clock finally
adjusted somewhat, and I was able to do away with the pills and function
normally in the mornings without them. I still keep some around for backup,
but I find I can now make reasonable choices of sleep and wake time without
recourse to drugs.

I don't know if it's wise to recommend such a plan to another, but if I could
go back 20 years and tell myself one sentence, "valerian" and "caffeine pills"
would be in it.

------
rsaarelm
Figure out how much sleep you need per day, and try to set up a rigid schedule
where you wake up when you want to and go to bed the required hours before the
time.

Hacks for getting to sleep at a specific time:

\- Take an hour long walk, go to the gym or go running during the day to get
more tired.

\- Try to get exposed to direct sunlight during the day, this is supposed to
do something in your brain that helps it maintain the circadian cycle.

\- Use F.Lux to keep your monitor from blasting your brain with sunlight
analogue wavelengths in the evening.

\- Try a cold shower or a cold bath about an hour before bedtime. Several
people have reported that this helps them sleep.

\- Have a schedule for doing specific non-open-ended stuff that doesn't get
you anxious or worked out for half-an-hour to an hour before bedtime. The
repeating ritual will prime your brain for sleep.

\- Don't read in bed. Make your brain associate being in bed only with
sleeping.

\- Try meditation. Either do sitting meditation right before bed, or do
mindfulness meditation while lying in bed.

\- Maintain a _very small_ sleep deprivation, like sleeping half an hour less
than you would without any alarms, to fall asleep quickly.

\- Fast during the day and eat a carbohydrate heavy meal right before bed.
Post-dinner coma will knock you out.

Hacks for waking up:

\- Set an alarm 60 or 90 minutes before the time you really wake up, eat a 100
mg caffeine pill and go back to sleep. The caffeine will kick in while you're
asleep and you'll wake up when it's fully effective.

\- Get a sunrise lamp or rig one up yourself with a power timer. The light
will prime your brain for getting up when it's time to wake up.

\- If you have a smartphone with an accelerometer, see if there's a smart
alarm clock app that will detect when you're sleeping lightly and wake you up
then. There's ElectricSleep for Android and EasyWakeup for iPhone.

\- Committing to attending something early in the morning like 8 AM will make
you anxious to wake up and get up in time. Anxiety isn't very fun though.

\- Use mind judo to get up from bed without willpower:
[http://lesswrong.com/lw/fh/willpower_hax_487_execute_by_defa...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/fh/willpower_hax_487_execute_by_default/)

\- If you've gotten yourself out of the bed at the time you want, but feel
like going right back in, try a shower, a walk, or a run to make your body
wake up a bit more.

It's much harder to spend two consecutive nights sleeping much less than usual
to adjust to an early wakeup time than a single night.

~~~
salemh
Hacks for waking up: \- Set an alarm 60 or 90 minutes before the time you
really wake up, eat a 100 mg caffeine pill and go back to sleep. The caffeine
will kick in while you're asleep and you'll wake up when it's fully effective.

Very interesting, will give it a whirl. Hydroxycut could be an alternative. It
tends to give me less "jitters" when drinking 4-6 cups of coffee, and more of
a longer-term boost with just a single cup.

I COMPLETELY agree that waking up WITHOUT a stimulant is highly effective
(natural waking). I tend to drink coffee in the morning out of either habit,
or, the love of coffee's flavor.

------
mattm
Have a wind down period in the evening. Monitors and TV screens seem to
activate my brain and I have trouble falling asleep if I use them late into
the evening. Shut off every monitor at least 10 hours before you want to wake
up. Relax in a warm bath for 30 minutes and then perhaps read or write down
your thoughts in a journal.

That said, not everyone is a morning person. If you feel better being a
nightowl, just try to adjust your life to it as much as possible.

------
richpalmer2
I try to give myself adventures and goals for the morning to at least make it
interesting. Some I've tried:

\- Figuring out the most efficient way to make an omelet and coffee, in the
least amount of time. Since you only get one shot at breakfast, you will have
to try again the next day, and eventually build up your craft.

\- Outdoor bike rides for both exercise and exploration. I luckily live in
Berkeley, so there are plenty of bike-friendly paths and streets, but having
the wind in your face, getting exercise, and exploring new areas of your city
helps wake my mind up.

\- However, the best for me when I was in a corporate job was to set my alarm
for 5, have my gym bag and work clothes packed the night before, take the
subway to the gym and shower there. I'd eat breakfast when I get to work.
Breakfast for a while was granola (carbs), Siggi's yogurt (nice protein boost)
and Yerba mate.

It's a shameless plug, but since I'm proud to be a morning person, I'm writing
a series of posts called "Morning People Unite" that might help you and others
get motivated:

<http://www.richpalmer.org/good-morning>

<http://www.richpalmer.org/morning-people-unite-2>

------
ethank
Right now I'm "semi retired" so my alarm clock is my 22 month year old son
shouting at us through the baby monitor.

When I was working, my trick was this:

I made a stack of stuff on top of my alarm clock (my iPhone) by my bed in the
morning, and kept it far enough away from me that I couldn't just slap it. On
top of it, I put my work out clothing and my running shoes.

I also make sure that the alarm clock is loud enough to scare me awake as the
adrenaline dump into the system makes it impossible to fall asleep. My wife
wears earplugs.

First thing I do is run, usually a 5k or 10k run in the morning depending. It
helps clear the head, and I'm awake for the day.

Right now I run at night, which makes me wired, but I find showering and
benadryl takes care of that. And also the 22 month old that I'm now home with
every day.

------
tzs
As soon as you wake up, turn on a lot of bright light, open the drapes to let
the Sun in, and so on. Exposure to light is one of the major factors that is
used to reset your circadian rhythms to keep them synchronized with the
external world.

------
beck5
2 things made a difference for me, Routine & Age.

If you get a 9-5 job after a while your body learns. I used to wake up at 3pm
regularly (and hate myself) but after a couple of years doing the 9-5 I can't
sleep in past 9:30 anymore.

I'm only mid twenties now but I swear getting out of bed is easier now than as
a teenager.

Unfortunately I am slipping back, I am doing a masters but have no more
classes, every night I work a bit later because I know I don't have to be up
early, so I wake up a little later, repeat. Its a spiral which I need to
break.

------
BasDirks
Upon waking in winter: "does my clock say 5:30 or later"? -> GTFO of bed. In
spring/summer/fall: "is the sky no longer pitch black?" -> GTFO of bed.

I will cheat if I went to bed > 12:00.

Why rise at insane times? Because there are far too many awesome things I want
to do that day, and as soon as I wake up they pop into my head. Between 6 and
9 I do whatever I want, so I use it to read about interesting tech stuff,
perhaps do a little planning, check Facebook without being stalked, etc.

~~~
machrider
> Because there are far too many awesome things I want to do that day, and as
> soon as I wake up they pop into my head.

Sounds like a description of what it's like to be a morning person, rather
than how to become one. I do not wake up full of excitement and ideas for the
day. I wake up pissed. But by the end of the day I'm full of inspiration and
generally get a lot done in the evenings. I don't know if this is something
you can change about yourself, at least not easily.

~~~
BasDirks
Fair enough, to elaborate: I became a morning person by jumping out of bed as
soon as I was awake. Keep it up long enough, and you might notice (as was the
case with me) that the morning becomes a fruitful and enjoyable start of the
day. The advantage of having good mornings is that it affects your entire day.

Looking out of your window onto sunny empty streets, with a whole day of
hacking (and lazy breaks outdoors) ahead of you, is fantastic.

------
tobylane
Find a reason to. This morning I got out of bed early for the F1 race, even
though I was recording it (I watched the whole thing with about a ten second
delay plus my own replays a few times).

One thing that is going to work very often is the need for the toilet. Drink a
lot before bed, you will wake up well and roughly at the right time. I've only
ever once woken up too early for the toilet, and without turning the bathroom
light on, went back to sleep easily.

------
russjhammond
I have been fighting the same issue myself and finally just asked myself, why
do I care about being a morning person? The honest answer was that I thought I
should be one.

Since that revelation I have stopped fighting it and just accepted that I am
not. I don't sleep more than about 7 hours a day so there is no major problem
with this approach.

Try just accepting that you don't really want to be a morning person and see
if that works for you.

------
johnyqi
Don't eat anything 4-5 hours before sleep, no computer / mobile few hourse
before, eat light food, less meat, sugar, fat, milk... Drink loads of water,
1.5-2L (but not before going to sleep, kidneys have to rest) and you need
loads of exercises. I would also suggest to get one of these recordings to
help you calm down <http://www.oceen.com/store/>

------
mike_esspe
I just don't fight it and live on a 25 hours cycle :)

~~~
wladimir
Indeed. You could simply accept what the preferences of your body are, and
make your life fit to that, instead of the other way around.

------
scotty79
Take a 5 mg of melatonine at 21:30 and after thirty minutes turn off the
lights and the computer, lay down in bed and close your eyes.

After few days of such treatment you'll be more morning person than you've
ever been.

Don't try to stop taking melatonine unless you are very strong willed (which
you are probably not).

You may want to reduce the dose to 1 mg and 3 mg if you notice it's enough.

~~~
Jarred
Melatonin's nice, but I can't sleep any more than 8 hours on it (I need around
9.5), and if you sleep less than 8 hours it makes the individual groggy.

~~~
scotty79
I also sleep shorter after melatonine, but I feel more awaken then after more
sleep without melatonine. Of course that's only after week or two of taking
melatonine. First few days when your body clock adjusts might be rough.

------
bad_user
Having a wife that you need to drive to work every morning.

I get up at 7 a.m. ; sometimes even at 6:30 a.m. Even if I have periods of
time in which I go to sleep at 2 a.m. I still have to get up at 7 a.m.

The golden rule in such a case -- don't sleep during the day; ever. If you
worked late last night, and feeling tired, wait at least for 10 p.m. to go to
sleep.

------
3113
I run in the morning on the treadmill to wake up. And take a nap in the
afternoon - I find it makes me more productive like starting a second shift.

I heard about this one guy who mastered never sleeping by taking a number of
power naps per day - and that it makes for more productivity working around
the clock...

------
dmd149
For me, it is just a matter of getting to be early enough to be a morning
person. I tend to wake up when I've been sleeping for about 7 hours. It also
helps if you actually get out of bed when you first wake up. I feel groggy if
I go back to bed.

Hope that helps.

------
AlexMuir
I've started dropping my partner in to her work in the mornings. It's a nice
time to chat and it means I'm up and ready for the day. I do 'real' work in
the morning, house renovation in the afternoon and then more real work after
tea.

------
kjell
People say drink something before you go to bed so next morning the urge to
pee will motivate you straight out of bed. I hate having to pee really bad
when I wake up. But don't shit right before bed for a similar impetus. YMMV.

------
snitko
Best advice you can get in this post: read "The Promise of Sleep" by William
C. Dement. It will change you understanding of how sleep works and, hopefully,
will also change your life.

------
kirpekar
1\. Find wife

2\. Have child

~~~
ljscharen
Yep. :)

Nothing turns you into a morning person faster than the first time you get 6
straight hours of sleep after 6 months of 3am feedings.

------
alving
you might want to check out
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_response_curve> . a light therapy is
mentioned which may help in correcting the sleeping hours.

------
singingfish
having a small child did it for me. Now that they're old enough to know how to
lie in I find that I'm getting up before them. On the other hand, I'm no
longer in a position to pull an all-nighter.

------
aj700
How do you get your username displayed in green like that?

~~~
Mz
As a guess: Create a new account.

(See: <http://news.ycombinator.com/noobstories>)

------
faust6
do exercise before bed time, lift weight, eat a bit more and just before bed
time have a cup of hot milk with banana or just hot milk....

------
cubicle67
get a daughter who's required to be at gymnastics practice at 6am :(

~~~
jtheory
See, that's just sadistic. Growing kids need more sleep than anyone, and
school system schedules and extra-curricular activities end up forcing them
into schedules that are painful even for adults.

When I was a teenager, the schoolbus came at six f#@%ing fifteen in the
morning (because they needed to use the same buses for waves of middle school
_then_ elementary school kids), to a stop about a half-mile from my house.
Waking up was always a horrible experience. Though I did end up doing pretty
well on the track team, with the extra half-mile sprint every morning....

------
georgieporgie
I think I read about a guy on Reddit who conditioned himself to become an
early riser. In the past, he would repeatedly hit 'snooze' and sleep in. His
method was to practice waking up. He did this in the evening by matching
conditions to his intended morning wake time (i.e. wear pajamas, turn off the
lights), set his alarm for a few minutes in the future, lay down, and wait.
When the alarm went off, he would stretch, stand up, stretch again, and begin
his typical morning routine.

After enough practice runs, the poster claimed that in the morning he would
automatically rise when his alarm went off and begin his morning routine. He
claimed that he didn't really fully wake up until later.

~~~
AdamTReineke
A similar response to Pavlov's dogs.

~~~
georgieporgie
Good point. That, with some Googling, landed me at the original source:

[http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/04/how-to-get-up-
right...](http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/04/how-to-get-up-right-away-
when-your-alarm-goes-off/)

------
zackattack
For me, I can become a morning person AND cure my insomnia if I stick to these
rules:

1) Set an alarm clock for 5am, and wake up.

2) No caffeine after 12pm

3) Daily exercise

4) No computer use after 5pm.

5) Go to sleep as soon as I'm tired.

* * *

I wish I were one of the elite who didn't need to adhere to these rules
religiously to become a morning person, but I know that I need ALL of them. No
exceptions allowed.

I think that another one of the reasons that it cures my insomnia is that by
getting up early and setting an intention for my day, I get into my purposeful
mode and my thoughts become organized accordingly. Good karma. Neuroscience in
the Tao te Ching?

Another important component to me being able to stick to these rules is that I
have a significantly personally compelling reason to be awake, something to do
with my time, but more importantly something to fill all the extra hours. i.e.
I need to have a reasonably accurate prediction of how I will spend the next
day's time by the night before.

------
cardmagic
Have a kid. Nuff said.

~~~
frankydp
Another option is join the Marine Corps.

