
How I became a morning person - ingve
https://medium.com/@jazer/how-i-became-a-morning-person-and-why-i-decided-to-make-the-change-eb1b012a16e5
======
kelnos
I always roll my eyes a little bit when people say they get extra "free hours"
by waking up earlier. In this case it works for the OP, because he has another
motive, which is syncing his schedule with his wife so he can spend more time
with her. But the extra hours don't come from nowhere... you need to
compensate by losing a comparable amount of time at night.

My waking hours are usually 10-11am until 2-5am. It's not a perfect schedule,
by any means, and sometimes I consider trying to hack myself into getting up
earlier, but it's usually not worth the effort. I'm lucky that I can work
flexible hours, and I get some of my most productive work out in the evening
and late at night. Not saying that I don't have the potential to be just as
productive in the early morning (but I suspect I wouldn't; even on days when I
do go to bed early and wake up early, I feel foggy for longer after I wake
up), but being a night owl is just how I am.

I just always am baffled that "becoming a morning person" seems to be
considered such a laudable goal. It's not. It's just your sleep schedule. If
you're changing yours to sync up with a partner, or to be more available at
work, or something like that, good on you, but I don't see how it's somehow
special. I was curious enough about the OP's method to read the article, but
when I see something like "How I became a morning person", I think "Aww, poor
guy; glad I don't have to do that".

~~~
outlace
We're products of evolution and thus we have physiologic reasons to have our
sleep/wake cycles tuned to the sun. There's a decent amount of scientific
evidence in favor of "sun-conscious" sleep patterns.

e.g. this review article
[http://www.nature.com/nrendo/journal/v12/n1/full/nrendo.2015...](http://www.nature.com/nrendo/journal/v12/n1/full/nrendo.2015.219.html)

~~~
HCIdivision17
This is a sane idea, but sunrise is often far later than when people are
expected to get up 'early'. And add the crazy that DST is to one's schedule,
and waking up early becomes a very strange, shifting ideal. (Lately, I've
heard 4am to 5am match this ideal; personally I like to have attainable goals,
like slouching into work before the crack of noon.)

~~~
codinghorror
Yeah DST throws a huge wrench into this whole plan. Good luck waking up with
"sunrise" for work.

------
LifeQuestioner
To him a night owl is up till midnight. To me, midnight is super duper early.
I struggle to sleep before 5am. At midnight I wake up and have been known to
gut clean the entire house then. Even if i've been awake for over 24 hours i
wake up at night. I cycle around my sleeping pattern often, i'll get up at
3am. I'll try and get it slowly to 5am wake up, then 7am - normal time. I can
usually keep it there for about a week then my sleeping goes back to normal.
No matter what I do, what time i woke up or went to sleep I still struggle to
function before 2pm.

Camping and being in the outdoors with natural light definitely helps, but it
still never solves the problem for me, i'm always the last one to sleep and
wake up.

~~~
enobrev
I have a similar sleeping pattern. Over time it tends to shift a couple hours.
For instance, I slept from 9am until about 330PM today. By Tuesday it will
likely be closer to 11am until 5 or 6pm.

It will occasionally adjust itself to something more "normal" but never for
more than a week before it starts rolling again.

I work remotely and my wife is a bartender, so it's never much of a problem
for me. When I interact with clients I usually end up with a multi-sleep
schedule where I'll sleep for 3-4 hour stretches. As long as I don't force it
in any direction it doesn't really have an adverse affect besides the
occasional weirdness of not being sure if it's 6am or 6pm at certain times of
the year because the sunlight is about the same.

It normalizes for me when camping as well. I went on a 3 week road trip this
summer with just under half our nights in a tent and pretty much fell asleep
by midnight at the latest every night.

~~~
LifeQuestioner
Have you tried melatonin? Again doesn't solve the problem for me and still
makes waking up difficult, but it means I can generally get to sleep by 1am
with good sleep hygiene and keep it there a bit longer than a week. But yea
one night out and it all messes up. I also use a sunrise alarm clock, that
helps with morning waking especially in winter. Again, none of these all solve
the problem,but combined I'm having my first manageable year and not needed to
take any time of work.

~~~
enobrev
I have not. Generally I truly appreciate my schedule. It works very well for
both focusing on work and enjoying my late-night social life, although I
usually have no idea what day of the week or month it is. I spent two years in
Seattle where I had an apartment way up on a hill with huge plate glass
windows and an inescapable amount of sunlight. My schedule regulated a bit
more while I was there, although when I was really into a project it would
start shifting again.

I try not to fight it much without having a valid reason - like a tight
deadline. And in those instances, coffee will generally put me to sleep within
an hour. And if I fight it for longer than, say, a couple weeks, I end up
sleep deprived. The only time coffee "works" for me is when I'm not stressed,
which is to say not when I "need" it.

That wasn't the case in my twenties, though. I could work on something for 36
hours, sleep for 4-6 and do it all over again for a couple months at a time
before I'd start losing my way. I was also drinking a LOT more alcohol back
then.

~~~
LifeQuestioner
I love the quiet of the night :). I will spend some time every few months
reverting to an entirely nocturnal pattern, just to be able to enjoy the peace
of the night and not have to fight against myself at all :).

Melatonin has helped me to keep a bit of a balance though (not that you need
one, it depends on your life :)), living half in this real world and half in
mine has helped me order life a bit and i'm no longer constantly cycling
around my sleeping. It's well recommended for circadium disorders.

But I'm lucky to have a job I can start at 11am, even if that's tricky. But
with the use of melatonin and loads of other things I don't have to fight
myself as much as I used to and can generally get to sleep before 2am(sorry
not 1am as above, that would be a miracle). Acceptance definitely helps :).

Haha, I used to do the same with working! I remember once after about 2 weeks
straight working 24-40 hour stints I turned to my friend and said "I think
i've forgotten how to sleep.". I realised then that sleep takes concentration
and if I was overtired I don't have the concentration to get to sleep.

~~~
enobrev
Being overtired can definitely be a problem as well. I'm on a bit of a stretch
right now, as a matter of fact, but I'm planning to avoid my office until late
tomorrow to balance it out.

On the other side of the same coin, I've learned not to bother trying if I'm
not ready to sleep, and so when I do go to bed, it's because it's time. My
wife gets annoyed with my ability to fall asleep about around the moment my
head hits the pillow, as it takes her at least 30 minutes.

As for the job schedule, I recently rejoined the freelance world and I'm
elated by the idea of going back to MY normal schedule. The company I was
working with gave me plenty of [relative] slack because I was productive, but
there were still a few too many meetings that kept me on a schedule that
didn't really jive. I think that very schedule inadvertently contributed a
great deal to my reasons for leaving.

------
smhinsey
After years and years of trying anything that came my way and seemed credible,
the only thing that ever worked to change me into a morning person was living
in an apartment that was so bright in the morning that even drawn blinds and
an eye mask wasn't enough to keep the light from getting to your eyes. A few
exhausted weeks after moving in, I was getting up with the sun naturally and
feeling great about it. Since moving away, I haven't been able to replicate
the effect in my new, dimmer apartment, no matter what I've tried.

~~~
paulddraper
Yep. This works.

~~~
Joof
Can confirm. Have a circadian rhythm disorder where I pretty much can't wake
up earlier intentionally; very common in teens, but occasionally it sticks as
an adult. In my case I actually cycle around, living >24 hour days left
completely unchecked, which is probably worse than it sounds (but
extroidinarily unlikely; guess I'm just lucky). The prescription is to get
bright blue-spectrum light-box and have it within the field of view for 15-40
minutes in the morning. Or stare at the sun. I also cut out blue light at
night (f.lux and custom arduino-controlled lighting.) People were built for
the light; some more than others, but it still holds true.

I go camping on occasion to reset it as well.

Edit: For those without disorders it works similarly. Doing my routine would
have you comfortably waking up a bit earlier each day, but just getting some
sunlight in the morning and toning down the blue at night would work.

~~~
jasonszhao
Please DO NOT EVER stare at the sun

~~~
Joof
Not literally.

------
jaggederest
There are still only the same number of hours in the day, though. You're
making pretty fundamental alterations to your habits in order to 'reclaim'
time that isn't really lost.

~~~
djsumdog
That's what I really had trouble with. There have been times in my life when
I've been exceptionally motivated: pet projects, new girlfriend, etc. I'll
wear out, get to bed at 8pm, wake up early and keep working or go to the gym.

But I'm also really productive between midnight and 4am. That's where I got my
best work done during University and when I quit my job last year and went on
a 9 months sabbatical.

How about we get rid of this horrible idea that we all need to be up early? If
you're a morning person and that works for you: great. You should keep that
shit up. If you don't think you are, then you should at least try it. Maybe it
would work better for you. Don't discount it.

But if you try it and don't really like it, then why the hell should you have
to be at work at 8am? Especially in IT. Our morning commutes clog up our
motorways. If people adjusted and spread out office work schedules, it would
make our transportation systems that much more flexible.

We don't all need to be morning people.

~~~
petke
For me night time is lazy time. The world is asleep and it doesn't demand
anything of me. So I take it easy and dont get much work done. I wake up late
and have to play catch up with the world again.

The few times I wake up early I have a head start on the world for once. Feels
good.

~~~
rev_bird
> The world is asleep and it doesn't demand anything of me.

I really like night time for the same reason, but I think I interpret it in
exactly the opposite way you do: Nobody is bothering me with things (or
distracting me with interesting conversation and fun group things to do), so I
can finally get some quiet, unbroken work time in, where I can get in the zone
and work for four hours without any interruptions.

------
daxfohl
I'm _decent_ (not awesome) at choosing one and going with it for a few months.

I find that when I'm a morning person I'm much better at getting "needed
stuff" done and also take better care of my health. When I do the night-owl
thing, I'm far better at the more forward-thinking things but struggle more
with taking care of myself and can procrastinate on short-term requirements.

I also find that night-owling can make me feel depressed after a while, not
taking care of things that I should, whereas being a morning person can make
me feel trivial after a while, not really putting any deep thought into
things.

There's some quote the origin escapes me like "they wake up so early because
there's so much to do, and go to sleep so early because there's so little to
think about" (I'm thinking Middlemarch, but can't find it), which pretty much
sums it up. You can't win. (That said I'm pretty happy when on a multi-week
solo bike tour and waking up early every day).

------
sergiotapia
In all my years as a software developer the morning hours were just absolutely
perfect for me to get the hard stuff out of the way. I reserve afternoons for
the drudge work, but in the morning I have much better cognitive ability.

Better yet, if you work from home you can wake up at 6am, start your workload
early and you have the entire afternoon off for whatever you need, it's a
sweet system!

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
Exact opposite here - more or less severe brain fog until the sun sets. Then I
can start getting things done.

~~~
rev_bird
I've had "brain fog" in small spells over the years, particularly when my
depression went unmanaged. I can't imagine having it every day, I'd get
nothing done and hate myself. It sounds like you have more self-awareness than
I did though.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _I can 't imagine having it every day, I'd get nothing done and hate
> myself._

Yup. You'd do exactly that. You learn to live with it (while putting down fire
after fire that lack of productivity causes). Source: personal experience.

------
emptybits
The author comments, "We enjoy dark chocolate after dinner most nights, but I
learned the hard way about its surprising caffeine content."

It's worth noting that some people find (fortunately?) that caffeine does not
disrupt their sleep.

Caffeine's relationship to one's chronotype (and genotype and sleep quality)
will hopefully receive more study, since it's becoming clear that not everyone
needs to heed the "don't consume caffeine before bed" common wisdom.

Here's a short article in Scientific American on one such study.

[http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/caffeine-
disrupts-...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/caffeine-disrupts-
sleep-f/)

The paper referred to is behind this paywall. Didn't pay; can't read. It
claims preliminary evidence.

[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1389945712...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1389945712000093)

~~~
elwell
Interesting. My personal experience is that I can usually 'choose' if coffee
will make me be more awake or make me sleepy. I just wonder if it affects
sleep/REM quality regardless.

~~~
mentando
Maybe there is a certain amount of the placebo effect for you in there. For me
it does not disrupt my sleep, but it certainly makes me more awake.

------
tokenadult
There is a good research base showing that there are gene variants for human
response to light in resetting the circadian rhythm. The evolutionary history
of this is so deep that the same gene variant appears in fruit flies, where it
was first discovered.[1] But even at that, light influences everyone's
circadian rhythm, and a smart, timed use of light can help you reset your
biological clock. This article is an interesting account of one person's
effort to do a habitual reset that seems to have worked. Benjamin Franklin
wrote, "Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise,"
and there seems to be a social and economic advantage in being a morning
person in many life circumstances.

[1] [https://global.oup.com/academic/product/how-genes-
influence-...](https://global.oup.com/academic/product/how-genes-influence-
behavior-9780199559909)

------
jhaand
Waking up early means going to bed early. That remains the hardest to do.

~~~
kelnos
That's my thing too -- I very much enjoy going out evenings & nights, often
fairly late, most weekdays. Getting up reliably before 9am when I'm out until
12-2am (perhaps followed by working for a couple hours, or just winding down),
is difficult enough to be not worth trying for me. I'm single right now, but
when I'm with someone who goes to bed much earlier, I suppose I do sometimes
shift my schedule earlier as well. (I guess that's similar to one of the OP's
justifications of doing this to have more time with his wife.)

------
mbrock
Lots of people seem to have significant "difficulties" with sleeping and
waking, or at least a strong preference that demands willpower and tricks and
habituation to steer away from.

My body just doesn't really seem to care. If travel or work demands it, I can
pretty easily get up at any time in the morning. Usually I enjoy it. I almost
always wake up right away if I've set an alarm, and have little inclination to
snooze unless severely sleep deprived. But usually I just go to bed 8.30 hrs
before I need to be up, and things take care of themselves.

Here in Thailand where I'm staying there's a custom of waking up before
sunrise, so I've been going to sleep around 9 to wake up at around 5.30,
enjoying the sunrise with a cup of Nescafé and some reading.

I think the fact that my 3G is metered, plus the warmth and the dark evenings,
make it rewarding to sleep early. And I do love the early mornings. Walter
Benjamin has a quote that I can't help but agree with (in One-Way Street):

> Anyone seeing the sun come up in front of him while awake, dressed–out
> walking, say–will retain throughout the day above all else a sense of the
> sovereignty of an invisibly crowned king, and anyone having the day break
> over him at work will feel, around noon, as if he had crowned himself.

I can't identify with being either a night owl or a morning person; I just go
to bed when I find it reasonable and wake up 8 hours later. The struggles some
people have with sleep seem tortuous; I feel blessed.

However, if someone is snoring ever so quietly... Or a clock is ticking... No
sleep for me until the infernal noise is silenced. Rain audio works too.

~~~
collyw
I always find people who claim they can't function before a certan hour kind
of dumb. Suggest that they go to bed an hour or two earlier, and they claim
that they can't sleep. Yet twice a year we shift our schedules by an hour and
usually after a couple of days no one notices.

I used to came out with the same sories until travelling in Chile and Peru.
There is a two hour time difference at some points of the year, even though
they are on the same longitude. After a couple of days I didn't notice, and I
realised it's just a number that you are becoming attached to.

------
147
I've become a morning person very recently (past two weeks). The hardest part
for me was waking up earlier. I started researching sleep trackers and decided
they were too expensive. I thought the sleep tracker apps for your phone where
it uses your microphone or accelerometer didn't work.

But, with the app Sleep Cycle being free, I gave it a shot. And it works.
Surprisingly well.

Placebo? Maybe, but I don't care. The point is the past week I've been waking
up from 4:30 to 5:00 AM easily. Before with my usual double alarm setup of
apple watch on table across from room and phone on night stand, I'd wake up at
5:30 AM, turn off the phone alarm and walk to my apple watch and turn it off.
Then promptly went back to bed because I was groggy. This doesn't happen to me
with the Sleep Cycle app.

Some people in this thread are saying you don't actually get extra hours
because you end up sleeping earlier. While that's true, I've found that I am
much more productive before my work day and can get my side tasks/work out of
the way. Normally, after work, I can't get anything done due to being tired
and constant distractions. Now, I get things done before work and still manage
to accomplish nothing after work. A net gain of a few hours.

Just a final thought, I used to love being a night owl because there weren't
any distractions for me. I'd have to wait til everybody in the house fell
asleep to focus on work, and by then I'd be tired. I'd push on a little bit,
sleep, and wake up for work the next day tired. I'm finding that I get mostly
the same benefits if not more by waking up early.

Long story short, try the Sleep Cycle app. Maybe it'll work for you too.

------
DrScump
In addition to "Pay attention to how food and drink affect your sleep", I
would add Pay attention to how _exercise_ affects your sleep.

In my case, nighttime cardio can keep me awake later. On the other hand,
weightlifting late is a significant sleep _aid_ to me.

~~~
brandonmenc
I've noticed the same thing re: lifting late. I get the best sleep when I go
to bed immediately after lifting.

~~~
psykovsky
You guys should try sex one day...

~~~
brandonmenc
You missed the comment about "nighttime cardio" keeping one awake.

~~~
psykovsky
No, I didn't.

~~~
brandonmenc
You should try getting a sense of humor one day...

~~~
psykovsky
I'll throw that one right back at you. ;)

~~~
brandonmenc
haha touché

------
gkoberger
I used to work hard to be a morning person, but the result was miserable.
Laying in bed wide awake at 11pm, hitting snooze on all my alarms, over-
caffeinating the next day. It never worked. Eventually, I decided to just
embrace it. I don't feel guilty anymore, I don't lose precious work hours late
at night, and I don't spend all day being groggy.

(That being said, the one trick that worked for me was finding a gym with non-
refundable classes in the morning, which forces me to get up.)

~~~
the_economist
Did you try spending the entire day outdoors. Working on a shaded porch or
something like that. If you do that, you'll usually crash the second the sun
goes down.

------
rloc
I tried that but can't fight my need to make the day last longer. I'm also
quite productive late night. It makes me eat more in the evening and skip
breakfast the next day (at the opposite of most nutritionists
recommendations).

The main issue with being a late night worker is that for most of us it means
starring at a screen and this affects sleep in a bad way.

~~~
rorykoehler
There are plenty of apps to mitigate screen caused sleep disturbance. I am
using f.lux on osx at the moment and it works quite well.

~~~
rev_bird
I use redshift on Fedora, which works perfectly for me. The big gap at the
moment is my phone screen -- f.lux and Apple not getting along has made it
much tougher to read on my phone at night without getting stuck awake.

------
brandonmenc
I've given up on this. A single late night will derail your schedule for a
couple weeks (if you're being honest with yourself about how much sleep you
need.)

~~~
dharma1
Yes, you have to be rigorous. Or if you have a late night, compensate with a
daytime nap

~~~
LifeQuestioner
And then have no chance of sleeping that night :)

------
rhpistole
Give up coffee, work out regularly, go to bed at the same time every night,
get tested for sleep apnea.

Changed my life.

~~~
kelvin0
This makes perfect sense, why downvotes? It's maybe not for everyone, but
keeping a regular and consistent 'beat' works for most things.

~~~
whiteshadow
Exactly. This is a much more sane and healthy approach than the whole sugar
and coffee rhetoric, to say the least.

------
shocks
No matter how much sleep I get, I find it very difficult to drag myself out of
bed. I always hit snooze until the very last minute...

I hate going to bed 'early' because I feel like I'm losing out on valuable
time - but I inevitably just sit on reddit/HN until 1am anyway.

------
wslh
How I became a morning person? I had kids! They completely resynced my whole
day. I don't know if this works for everybody but It worked for me and I can't
belive now how I could take lunch at 5pm before.

~~~
danieltillett
Your kids must have been rather different to mine - I didn't become a morning
person - just a perpetually tired person.

~~~
daxfohl
Best comment ever ^-- right here.

------
radicalbyte
Having kids did it for me.

~~~
louprado
And reaching out to my father did it for me. Earlier this year I had a
deadline and asked him to call at 5AM every day for a few weeks. But we since
kept it up as an excuse to talk to each other daily. We barely spoke once a
year prior to that.

The phone call starts off with him ordering me to enable my speaker phone,
then drop and do push-ups and sit-ups while simultaneously reciting a
poem/pledge/prayer/mantra.. basically any low IQ task for about 2 minutes.
Then we spend another 2 minutes chatting. The call is over in 5 minutes but by
then I am wide awake.

Works best if your Dad is a former drill sergeant, in a different time-zone,
is retired, and doesn't like to talk much. :)

~~~
rev_bird
This is beautiful.

------
mafuyu
I've been thinking about buying a light therapy box[0] and adding an esp8266
or similar to connect it to my home network. I could position it above my bed
and have my phone's alarm trip it on. It would be interesting to see if it
gave me a motivation boost throughout the day in addition to helping me wake
up.

[0]: [http://www.amazon.com/Verilux-VT20WW1-HappyLight-
Intensity-I...](http://www.amazon.com/Verilux-VT20WW1-HappyLight-Intensity-
Interchangeable/dp/B0094HBU6I/)

~~~
andthat
I use Philips Hue and am very pleased with it. You can schedule it to lower
the lights at night and raise them in the morning. Sometimes it wakes me
without the alarm.

------
AYBABTME
I usually sleep crazy hours, in bed no earlier than 3AM. I also am affected by
lack of sunlight and seasonal depression (SAD). Both combined were terrible,
I'd get up to the sun setting, and then spend most of my wake hours in the
dark.

3 weeks ago I decided to wake up at 5h30 every morning and go to the gym until
7h, when the sun rises. It's been really good and making the most of light
hours in this season has been a major boost on my moral.

------
vinceguidry
To start waking up earlier, I set my alarm clock five minutes earlier every
week. I gave myself permission to hit the snooze, but the alarm was going to
wake me up regardless. When I'd freed up about 40 mins or so, I switched my
gym routine to go in the morning rather than at night. Totally worth it.

I hope to maybe be able to get some work or chores done in the morning
eventually.

~~~
reitanqild
For me the trick seems to be quite the opposite: set the alarm clock so much
earlier that it actually matters.

I have started waking up at 04 in the morning since May and it works really
well.

~~~
vinceguidry
I can wake up like that pretty easy if I have a real reason to. But once I
don't, I lose motivation real quick. 5 mins a week gives my internal clock
time to adjust.

------
nlh
I successfully transitioned from a night owl (bed at 2-3am, up at 8-9am) to a
morning person VERY easily -- but I cheated:

I moved from NYC to SF, but I didn't change my natural sleep schedule when I
did ;) I just didn't let myself slip -- so the first week, I woke up at 5-6am
every day and started to get tired around 11, and 3 years later, I'm on the
same routine.

~~~
Symbiote
How do you deal with late night events?

I could get used to early mornings, but right now is 3:45 and I'm on the train
home after a concert and nightclub. I can't wake up at 5 with only 1 hour of
sleep, and I doubt I could do it on Monday, even if I was used to it.

------
rukuu001
I switched. Here's how:

I was training martial arts like crazy at the time, after work 5 days a week.

I wanted to compete in a tournament. To qualify I had to attend 'special'
classes early in the morning. They started 6:30AM, and that meant a 5:30AM
wakeup for me.

So I set an alarm and did the first morning. I put the alarm in the next room,
so I'd be forced to get up and turn it off.

Going out in the dark felt as weird as going out without any pants on. I was
convinced no one else would turn up for the training. They all did, of course.

I did this 5 days the first week, and spent all day at work half-asleep at my
desk.

By the end of the following week I felt normal, and it's been my routine ever
since, tho I'm not training any more.

I'm still not a 'genuine' morning person. I can't maintain a conversation
before 7AM, but I am productive.

Speaking of being more productive: if I head to work at 6AM, the couple hours
I get of no interruptions are guaranteed to be the most productive in my day.

------
lobster_johnson
I have considered myself a night owl all my life, ever since I was a kid. I
typically stayed awake until 4am or later. Weekends, always sleeping super
late -- 2pm, often later. Having a 10-6 job has always been hell (and 9-5
impossible), with frequent oversleeping. The last few years I have been going
to bed around 1am, but still struggling to get up early.

About 4 weeks ago I started limiting my caffeine intake. I only drink a bit of
espresso in the morning, then nothing after that. The impact was immediate: I
suddenly found myself waking up before my alarm clock, every day. In the
weekends I am generally up at 8am, which for me is highly unusual. I'm weirded
out by it, actually. Caffeine seems to really mess up one's circadian rhythm.

(I don't think the OP is a night owl; an evening person, maybe, but going to
bed by midnight is laughably normal.)

------
peterwwillis
This is all well and good, but consider that this his just _his_ routine; you
have to find your own routine to be successful at switching your schedule.

I think the most important tip is just start waking up early. Like 5am early.
By the end of the day you are exhausted. It'll get easier to go to bed at the
right time and waking up will get easier. Things like stimulants, diet, light,
sound, etc are all well and good, but nothing trumps just being awake and
active for 18 hours.

It will probably take a week or two for your natural sleep cycle to change. I
find morning exercise helps this process. (Yes, you too can be one of those
crazy assholes at the gym at 6am!)

------
pacomerh
I can't even imagine going to bed at around 9:45pm. It's ingrained in my body
that around that time is still early and the world is quiet so I can work
peacefully. I usually go to bed around 2am and wake up around 9am. I
understand the freshness of working on a new body (morning), but I think the
best I can do is 12am. Idk, I think its up to you how you manage your hours
and how productive you are. 5am's aren't for everybody.

------
edoceo
I became a morning person by having a kid. Once you wake up to screaming its
hard to go back to sleep. Providing for a family is drive I never had as
single guy.

------
daxfohl
It's funny how things like this seem so ... having trouble finding the word
... "meaningful" ... almost "philosophical" ... to non-parents.

Have a kid. Then you get what you can take what you can get of the hours,
minutes, seconds you can find (and/or create) of the hours, minutes, seconds
of the day, and you just deal with it.

------
DigitalJack
I'm a morning person now after years of living on the west coast working for
an east coast company.

The sad part is I don't get any of the "free hours" benefit. If I'm up at 5am,
everyone else is too (8am for them). I'd have to get up at 2am to get any
extra time and that's just not gonna happen.

------
jacquesm
I alternate between being a morning person and being a night owl. The cycle is
a month to several months and usually the appearance of a contracting job is
what forces me back into the 'day' rhythm. But my best stuff gets done at
night, when it's totally quiet.

------
chestervonwinch
I agree on the point about coffee being a wake-up process. I do a pour-over as
well, and the process of preparing and attending to it for 5-10 minutes helps
me wake up and appreciate the coffee more -- not to mention it tastes better!

~~~
brandoncordell
Right now I couldn't even imagine doing pour-over every morning. I struggle
even just using my aeropress in the morning.

------
hnuser123
I always find morning time more productive than late night, but you get the
time pressure of having to finish soon (probably for work) compared to working
at night where your sleep time is the only thing holding you back.

------
kuahyeow
I suppose that will come naturally anyway as age progresses, when one will
need less sleep ?

~~~
0xcde4c3db
As far as I know, the current consensus is that sleep reduces with age because
the ability to maintain sleep is impaired, not because the need for sleep is
actually reduced.

------
cornchips
If you really want to be a morning person: Turn off all lights and machine
sounds

------
TheAndruu
Shorter answer: go to bed 7 hours before you need to wake up.

------
conceit
>How I became a morning person

>I went to bed early

>End of Story

------
NaOH
I spent about four decades as a night person. It seems to be the default for
me. Most notable were how I felt energized, yet focused, late at night, and
how a tired feeling didn’t occur until about 2AM. While maybe tied to the
long-standing late-night practices more than any internal rhythms, I enjoy the
quiet and solitude of night.

But three years ago I launched a business which required working early
mornings or overnight. I didn’t want to work overnight because that’s a taxing
setup for me and, more significantly, I don’t want a schedule so different
from the rest of the world—it makes socializing more difficult and can cause
inconveniences in general living that I didn’t want to regularly face.

After three years getting up daily anywhere from 4–7AM with maybe 8 days off
in that time, I’m quite fond of having to be up early. No, it still doesn’t
feel normal to my body, but the discipline to put myself to sleep is helped
quite a bit by the motivation that comes from being a business owner. In my
setup, I’m at work 30 minutes after I wake up. My work isn’t physically
intense, but I’m constantly in motion. I am always on my feet, moving around
often (never standing still for more than a minute or two), and regularly
working with my arms and hands.

I was never someone who to explicitly did workouts, not to mention anything
particularly active first thing in the morning, yet I’ve found the activity in
my work helps my body and my mind. Despite the lack of off days, I have to be
cognitively busy throughout my days, and the constant physical motion has been
great for me, both in terms of how my body feels and how it seems to benefit
my head (much like how taking a walk helps most people keep a clearer head).

Coincidentally, I happened to quit caffeinated coffee about a year before
starting this business, and that has continued. I only drink decaf coffee and
water when I’m working. I live at a high altitude, so skipping caffeine—which
never had any obvious stimulant effects for me—has helped me stay hydrated.

Definitely, I appreciate being around for all the sunlight in each day. It’s
especially welcome in the winter months. I live in a place with four distinct
seasons, but sunshine is present throughout the year, so getting all of it
even on the short days has been great. All told, rarely missing a minute of
daylight has been invigorating and calming at the same time.

With the hours I have to keep, this schedule has worked great. Work is handled
at the hours the business requires and that doesn’t come at any noteworthy
cost to personal opportunities. I’m old enough that friends may do something
until late at night, but they start early enough that I can participate amply
before having to head home. I’d be able to cheat more and stay out late if my
business didn’t operate 363 days a year, but my lack of off days means I have
to be mindful of pacing myself through the relentlessness. Maybe if the
business grows enough that I have ample staff I’ll get to adjust my schedule.

For me, though, my inclination is still toward the night, but forcing myself
into mornings has been great. I needed to start a business to find the
necessary discipline to make the switch, so I don’t know if the methods to my
conversion are worthwhile for many. But I look forward to mornings and enjoy
them every day, difficult as it still is for me to wake up. But once I’m up…

