To ask if any night owls have managed to become morning larks?

[Atticusblame]

I've always been a night owl. Given my way, I'd go to bed at 4am and get up at 1pm, earliest. Obviously jobs don't tend to work around those hours so in reality I usually go to bed at 1am, asleep by 2, and up at 8:30 for work. I've found that there is no point in going to bed before 1 because I end up lying awake getting increasingly frustrated.

Anyway, I've started running lately. However, I have many evening meetings and don't have time to finish work, run, shower and get ready and back in time for meetings, so I end up missing exercising on loads of days. I would love to get up before work to exercise, but it genuinely feels impossible. I go to bed determined to get up early, but when my alarm goes off there is no chance. Nothing could drag me from my bed.

I have friends who say that once they're awake, they need to get up. I want to be one of those people. Is it possible to change?

I managed it!

Major night-owl for most of my life. Then I took up yoga and started getting up at 6 to bike to the studio. Over the course of about two years, I sort of taught myself to enjoy getting up early and going to bed earlier than I had before.

Now I can't sleep past 9am if I force myself! I wake naturally at 6.

Following with interest. I’d love to become a lark. Can’t see it happening though.

That's interesting, Bezalelle. How did you manage to keep your willpower to get up early at the start?

Also following. I actually used to be Great at jumping out of bed in the mornings. Since I've had dd and she was a crap sleeper I struggle every day to get up.

I have a tendency to look at my phone in bed once my alarm sounds so I think I'm going to buy a little alarm clock instead and leave the phone in another room.

I'm naturally a night owl but I work in an industry where you need to be at your desk by 7am-8am to be successful. So I've trained myself to be a lark. I also love exercise but the work I do means the only way I can exercise on a regular basis is to do it before work. So that means being up at 5am-5.30am to exercise.

It isn't easy. It takes iron discipline (and making sure everything you need is prepped the night before). When I keep the early start routine going, within a few weeks I tend to feel sleepy earlier and want to go to bed early (so 10-11pm). But all it takes is ONE night of staying up past midnight and I switch straight back into being a night owl. I then have to struggle through weeks of early starts again to get back on track.

I actually really like getting up early.....once I've been up a few hours. It makes me feel so virtuous. . However, you'll get a different story from me at 6.30am when I'm in the gym muttering "whose f*ing stupid idea was this?!" and generally being a bitch. I have zero tolerance for anyone and anything. An hour later though and i feel great and everyone suddenly thinks I'm a morning person because I'm laughing and joking and full of energy.

I guess what I'm saying is that it can be done but you may need to fight your owl tendencies all the way, and falling off the wagon is very easily done. It's also essential to have a very good coffee machine.

I agree, it's discipline that does it - no screen time late, go to bed even if you're not sleepy, and eventually it works. But any cheating will screw you up immediately, so there's a very small limit to how far you can push it at weekends.

For me, it was a non-sleeping baby that did it - I just had to get to sleep early or I wouldn't sleep at all. You may not want to go to those extremes...

Also, just to throw it in there - can you not exercise at lunch time? With a bit of planning and a slightly stretchy lunch hour it's a much more civilised option.

Like PPs I'm naturally a night owl but when I started working I was on public transport and had to get up some time the previous afternoon really early to make it to the train. Goodness knows how I did it, but I was young. Now I'm driving and I still prefer getting away early to beat the worst of the traffic.

The answer is yes, you can re-educate yourself to do it but it probably makes a difference if you have to rather than just wanting to.

I've never managed it. Not when I've had early waking kids or anything. It makes logical sense...but I still cant make myself go to bed in the evening, and cant make myself get up in the morning ever

Night owl here. I noticed that a sneeze woke me up, so I started taking snuff.

Yes, I’ve done it! You need to find not only the exercise you enjoy but also someone to do it with or someone to chase you if you haven’t done it, so you have to get up at the agreed time. I always kept your hours and now find it hard to stay asleep past 7 at weekends, at get up easily at 5.30 during the week. It’s shifted my whole body clock and has been very much worth it.

Also, just to throw it in there - can you not exercise at lunch time? With a bit of planning and a slightly stretchy lunch hour it's a much more civilised option.

I wouldn't have enough time to go home, shower and get dressed again afterwards.

It seems that willpower and discipline is the key. It's at its very lowest in the mornings.

Nope. I’ve been a teacher for 14 years so am in front of a class teaching at 8:45am and I still have to drag myself out of bed at 7am every morning. I can barely hold a conversation in the morning, my brain just doesn’t function properly till after 9.

I got one of those sunrise clocks and everything.

Watching with interest, my natural rhythm same as PP, bed at 4am till 1pm, hard habit to break

There is a lot of research on this area - sleep chronotypes. It says that you are largely genetically predisposed to a chronotypes and that you cant change it. So you cant change from being an Owl to a Lark and that if you try, it could upset your body. I am an Owl and my DH and DC are all larks. Not easy. All the world is set up more for larks.
I don't deny people's experiences here but the research seems to tally up with my experience in life.

I'm naturally a bed at 3, up at 11 person, which is difficult when you have normal working hours. I'm reading this thread with interest.

1. Prep as much as stuff for tomorrow as possible the night before. Speeds up the leaving process when you're still a bit dozy the next day & allows max sleep time in the AM. I get home from work and sort out anything I need to take in the next day, set my work handbag up, do my breakfast & lunch box, organise outfit and make-up. I sleep better knowing it's all done!

2. Good wind down routine for about 1hr before. I shower, swap phone for book, lavender roll on. Be strict.

3. If you can, exercise in the evening. 30 lengths in the pool & I'm definitely ready for bed!

Natural body clock here is midnight-8am. I am for 10:30-6:30 or 11-7. Only a minor shift but was a bugger to start with.

Wish I knew!

I think it must be that people who get up early must have something in their morning that they really enjoy or love that is worth dragging their ass out of bed for. Like people who really love running or watching the sunrise or watching CBeebies

I've managed it, but I'm not joyful about it. Far from it! I'm quite the crankypants for a couple of hours, till I'm properly awake. Although it's made a huge difference to my health and life in general and I'm feeling the benefit.

I sign up for early morning classes at the local gym, and make sure I don't cancel them. Late cancellation incurs a fee so I have to go. Roll out of bed, throw on sportswear, at gym for 6:30. On the rare occasion I go for a long run at about 5:30 although I have to stick to roads, don't have the nerve to hit the woods in the dark!

After a whole summer of it I seem to have reset my body clock. It's quite nice, if you have the willpower to get over the initial urghness you can bask in a wonderful glow of smuggery like all the other larks. Or is that just me

I managed it. I used to be a professional musician, so I'd often not be in bed until 4am and then sleep until noon (or 10am if there was a particularly obnoxiously early rehearsal the next day). Kids forced a change and I moved into admin work with regular office hours. I now get up at 6.45am and, when offered a lie in now usually can't sleep past 9am even if I want to (although I will lounge if I feel ok to do so..).

It breaks my heart! I want to be a night owl, I forced the change through sheer force of will, not because I wanted to. I've considered getting up even earlier to exercise but the thought is simply too depressing :p

Work in multiples of 1.5/3 hours.

You sleep around 6 hours a night. Even if you feel like shit, I'm willing to bet that you could get up if the alarm went off an hour and a half earlier or you were up later, but one or two hours either side and nothing would wake you.

2am less 1.5 hours is 11.30pm. Go to bed at 10.45pm and let yourself be bored, stay off the phone, don't switch any lights on at all.

Invest in a daylight clock - the actual brightening is the most useful bit, as not only can you use it to gradually be less deeply asleep before your alarm goes off, many have a sunset function/a low orangey light that won't ping you wide awake the moment you walk into the bedroom and switch the light on.

My natural sleep time was somewhere between 4.30 and 5.15am.

I wake up at 5.45am now because I'm in a job with fucking stupid start times and public transport is shit and go to sleep most nights by 11. Left to my own devices at the weekend, I wake up exactly either 90 minutes or three hours later.

It's never going to feel natural hauling my carcass out of bed at just past sparrowfart, I will always maintain that 5.45am is the time that a good night ends, not that a normal workday begins, but it seems to have worked where very little else made any difference at all.

I was a proper night owl for years, and as a postgrad research student until my late 20s, office hours didn’t really hit for a long time! The Incredible Non Sleeping Baby and more conventional office hours forced me into being more of a lark, but it only take 2 or 3 dats holiday for me to fall back into my natural owlish ways. The one thing I can’t do before midday is run though!

Low-carb diet was transformative for me. I found I needed less sleep, but more importantly, was actually awake when I woke up, and ready to get up and get started on the day, rather than pressing snooze half a dozen times before reluctantly crawling in the direction of caffeine.

I still haven't managed it despite ds who is 6 always being an early riser (anytime between 4am and 6am) and 5am starts for work.

Waking up before about 9am always always makes me feel nauseous and I feel like I haven't slept properly for the whole day, even if I've gone to bed and managed to get to sleep early for a full 8 hours.

There's some research to suggest that it's partly a pre programmed biological thing. A throw back from hunter gatherer days that some people are owls and some are larks so there was always someone awake to lookout for predators and the like.

You need to find not only the exercise you enjoy but also someone to do it with or someone to chase you if you haven’t done it, so you have to get up at the agreed time.

I find paying for a personal trainer works for me. It's an expensive way of getting up early but at least you get fit at the same time. I can drag myself to the gym early (sometimes!) but having a trainer means I MUST get up or it costs me money! And then he makes me work bloody hard whereas as if I was left to my own devices, I'd probably just stretch lie on a mat and feel sorry for myself. It's sad that I have to resort to this but damn it's effective!!

Me! I used to up till 3/4 am regularly. Now I'm in bed and asleep by 10 most nights and wake up at 6.45 without my alarm.

It's taken almost 14 years of having DC to manage this.

I also feel awake and full of energy in the morning and tired at night. I used to be the opposite. I actually like it now.