How to train myself to be an early riser ? Tips needed for a night owl.

[bushproblems]

I have never been a morning person, and as I’ve gotten older, it seems to be worse than ever. I just love my sleep and but I can not get to sleep before 12ish, then struggle to wake up at a reasonable time.

Ideally, I’d like to be up and about by 7.30am but I snooze my alarm till gone 8.45 some days! Luckily I WFH at the moment.

Has anyone trained themselves out of being a night owl?

Exactly what @Cazzovuoi says. You need to get out into the early morning light as it gives you something that the light at other times of the day cannot.

I think most people just deal with it because they have to. Years and years of school and jobs requiring your attendance somewhere at 9.00 am, I think you just over-ride your natural rhythms. I was always grateful that after the first 6 months, my child was not one who woke at 5 or 6 am. The same for my dog! I think the trouble with WFH is that it does let you get up later, so you go to bed later as you know that there’s no need to be up before 8.30. Retirement is even worse! Is there any chance you could change your working hours so that you start a little later to work with your natural rhythms?

Yes! Lumie alarm clock was a total game changer for me. I have always struggled to wake up in the morning but a gentle sunrise simulation over 30 minutes means I’m pretty much awake by the time my alarm actually goes off.

Yep. I have had babies who wake very early, been a teacher for years and lived off 4-5 hours sleep for a decade. None of it made me a morning person and on holiday I very quickly revert to sleeping about 1-2am and waking about 9.30am. It seems to be an inbuilt innate thing.

Ok so probably not going to do the milking of cows or a baby, but I appreciate the advice 😂

A lumi clock and try to get out first thing in the morning is my first step I think. I sometimes dream about having a physical job so I could feel properly tired at the end of the day, rather than wired.

it isn't - that just means I get 4-5 hours most nights!

Second kids that don't sleep past 6am for years on end & Lumie clock.

Many many moons ago I was on a course and the trainer said get up without snoozing your alarm every day for 30 days including weekends and create a new habit. No idea whether it works coz i'm an alarm snoozer unless i'm going to the airport!

I’m the same, I put an alarm clock across the room so I have to get out of bed to turn if off, then once I’m up, I’m up.

I think people are underestimating how difficult it is to be a proper night owl in a world designed for larks. You can’t jut get on with it and get up earlier. I get up for work, of course, but I still can’t sleep until late, so am exhausted during the day then magically wide awake again at this time. I start work at 9 and like OP get up at the last minute at 8:45. If I went to bed determined to get up at 8:45 on a day I wasn’t working, it wouldn’t happen. I would find it physically impossible to stop myself going back to sleep unless there was some sort of consequence.

I don’t think there’s a solution except for accepting that there is nothing intrinsically better about rising early and sleeping early.

You can’t. You can alter it for a wee while (when DC are young) but you will always revert back to your natural pattern.

it makes evolutionary sense to have some people up late and some up early.

I have 3, it hasn't cured me. I just need my lie ins of a weekend and really struggle in the morning. eldest is 10. probably doesn't help sleeping in weekends but I've got years of sleep deprivation from chronic undiagnosed OSA to work through 😆 so that's my excuse

I have been a night owl all my life, nothing and I mean nothing has worked to make me a lark, the modern world isn’t set up for us so we have to drag ourselves out of bed at 6.00 am but still don’t get to sleep until the early hours so are permanently exhausted. My mother was the same, I think our sleep rhythms are part of our DNA.

Why? Why would you want to be up that early, it’s cold and dark. Just embrace your superior sleeping habits 😁

I don’t think there’s a lot you can really do. It’s sadly not as simple as ‘get used to waking up early’. Some people have melatonin peaks at 9pm, others have them at 2am. It’s just how we’re made. When I have to wake up early I’m miserable for the day, and I still don’t get tired at 9pm - I get a wave of energy around that time. Never once in my life have I woken up at 7am feeling rested. I compare 7am wake ups, for me, to 4am-early-flight-wakeups for my husband!

So, solidarity, OP.

Alternatively, get a puppy. My puppy was an early riser. He’s an old man now and sleeps about 17 hours a day but there was a time…

currently have a 6mo and 3yo and 5am is a lie in!

Lots of research points to our preference for early mornings or late nights being hard wired genetically: https://neurolaunch.com/do-night-owls-have-higher-iq/

I found this really interesting, sleeping in one shift is a modern concept due to the invention of artificial light and industrialisation, the 6.00 am whistle calling everyone to work, we used to have 2 sleep shifts, it would explain why some people wake in the middle of the night, it’s what humans naturally did but we now call it insomnia.

While I was posting the poster immediatly upthread posted more or less the same thing.

Unless you have to be up for some intrinsic reason (children/job etc) I can see no particular virtue in getting up early. One of the joys of retirement is letting the old work habits die and waking and sleeping when your body needs it.

Remember that regularly waking at a set time, particularly at the same time every day regardless of seasonal light changes, is a modern habit closely tied to the Industrial Revolution and the advent of artificial lighting. Before that sleep patterns were more flexible and generally attuned to natural light cycles. In pre industrial European societies an eight hour block of sleep was not the norm, People would go to bed when it became dark, sleep for about four hurs, and then get up for a couple of hours. Then they would take their second sleep until dawn.

I'm a night owl who has to get up at 6.15am on work days, so I'm chronically sleep deprived. Despite having this routine for years, I still can't sleep before around midnight at the earliest.

It's not a question of routine or habit, it's a chronotype that is fixed by genetics, unfortunately. I wish it weren't so, as the larks have set the agenda and timetable for society, leading us lot to be disadvantaged, but here we are.

You need to train your body but it takes time. I often found if i got up when my alarm went off then over time by body/brain would learn this and consistently wake me up naturally only minutes or even seconds before my alarm. Also if you find yourself sleeping through your alarm, switch it up a bit, choose a different sound, something that you are not used to hearing and hopefully you won't sleep through. You can also get apps the will have an alarm that starts quiet and gets steadoly louder, waking you up slowk3y which is apparently better. I too have never been a morning person but I try, that cat is an excellent alarm. She wil sit downstairs and cry, if that doesn't work she will walk on us, if that doesn't work then she will pat our faces, if the still doesn't get us up she will find something papery to rip up. And the very thing she will try is stick her cold, wet nose right in my husbands ear and sniff and purr loadly, at which he wakes up with the words f*ing disgusting animal and i wake up laughing.

There are good reasons why people have different sleep patterns. I am a night owl through and through and despite having two children, it’s not really changed. I’m just tired a lot. My alarm goes off at 7 every weekday morning and I try to be asleep before 12 but it’s difficult

You may only get a few hours sleep the first few nights but your body will get into the routine of going to sleep earlier and getting up earlier. You need a certain number of hours sleep although it varies person to person.

I don't think it's that easy to change because I think it's hard wired. I'm a lark. I'm now retired. I still wake up naturally at 5 am every day. I go to sleep at around 10 pm, and I've rarely slept longer than seven hours at night, that's obviously what I need. I can't have a lie in!

If I were trying to become a night owl, just going to bed later wouldn't work - I probably wouldn't be able to stay awake, I would be utterly miserable and I would still wake up at 5 am. Nothing at all makes me sleep later than that. So using myself as a template, I don't think it's possible to change.

If I go to bed earlier I wake up in the middle of the night for several hours. It doesn't work.