To think I can become a morning person?

[walksonthebeach]

I'm usually the type of person that has a lie on at the weekend & only getting up early if I have to but now with this lockdown & not having a routine I'm lazing in bed every day until around 12 every day & then I have no motivation to do anything for the rest of the day. I haven't exercised for weeks which is not like me at all. I'm starting to feel really crap in myself. I'm usually a night owl but I'd love to become a morning person. I feel my day would be so much more productive & I'd feel better in myself & I'd love it to become a habit that I can carry through to when things get back to normal. Any early birds out there that can share their tips?

Tip no 1, go to bed earlier

I'm not a morning person at all, but I read this book called the happiness project and the author decided to become one. She reckoned she stayed up at night because she relished that time when nobody else was awake, so she decided to relocate it. She set an alarm before other people in her house woke up and tried to redefine that time as her special private just for me time. She incorporated nice coffee and fresh air, and she found it worked.

I'm also not a morning person (nor my family) and we are loving lockdown life.
But we do need routine and to get up reasonably. Our rule is Monday to Friday we need to be downstairs for 9.00am. Me and kids do PE with Joe and then it's breakfast. By the time that's cleared and we are washed and dressed we are rarely starting the productive day before 11am.
Usually school work or house chores take us to a late lunch 1/2ish. Then afternoons are for fun stuff with a vague practical angle - gardening, crafts, baking, food prep.
We are much happier doing everything 2 hours later than we would prefer lockdown.
I find that it keeps slipping later and later as the week finishes but I reset on Monday back to the 9am start...

My DH used to be a night owl. He's very much a morning person now.

I asked him how that happened he said "you, you and the children it was forced upon me" he was smiling.

I think the biggest change was realising he'd wasted half the day by sleeping and then doing fun things was ruined because we'd only be ready by about 2pm and things closed at 5pm or 6pm.

You can't really change your chronotype. Why bother? Far better to work with what you have.

do you have children OP?

I'm a night owl but having DD has forced me into mornings, although DH is a lark and a night owl (needs very little sleep!) so lets me have a lie in most days But I generally get up at 6ish with DD and go back to bed for a couple of hours at 7.30 or so while he looks after her!

Anyway, prior to DD I could never get into a good morning routine. I worked nights for years and I think I'm just built to be more of a night person. It's more difficult when you don't have a routine though or commitments.

Going to be early is just so boring

Forcing yourself to stay up staring at a screen or listening to people rattling on is so boring. I'd much rather be calm and still in bed knowing I can be up the next day with all its fresh promise and potential.

I was always a night owl until I had DD when I as 30. She was an early riser (4:30-5:30) for years. She’s now a teen but only sleeps until around 9am at latest and I’m now fully trained into a Lark and I wake up at 6-630 most days. Cannot lie in anymore. Thanks DD

I am the worst morning person. I am grumpy for ages until I finally come round and I just hate getting up.
I have no choice but to get up early though as I have two dc who have never slept past 6.30am.
Me and dh used to take it in turns to lie in but he just loves getting up and active so I ended up stealing his lie in .
I really want to feel motivated to get up and shower etc and be ready to face the day but I just can't. Usually I wrap myself in my dressing gown and drink coffee while faking being all happy for the kids.

One day op.... one day

Why? What's so much more superior about being a morning person?

I have friends who jump out of bed at 4.30 am. I think they are crazy. I wake up at 6am for work and after 15 years I'm still not a morning person. Nothing works.

Sorry should say not a morning person

My mind is a morning person but my body disagrees. I haven't worked out a solution yet.

I’m a night owl, always wide awake after 10pm, but I have to get up early anyway. So I’m neither a night person or a day person really. Just a tired-in-the-mornings person.

Coffee is my friend.

I read something in an article that resonates pretty well.

"Waking up is painful whether it's at 6am or 11am - just get it over with."

BlueBooby you are half way there. My mind and body groan when the alarm goes off at 6am....

"Waking up is painful whether it's at 6am or 11am - just get it over with."

I really disagree with that statement. My ideal 8 hours would be go to bed at midnight and wake up at 8 am.

I am naturally a night owl but being made to change my routine has made me a morning person.
I suffer migraines and discovered too much and too little sleep both trigger them. Through trial and error I've found 6.5-7.5 hours sleep is ideal and the best way for me to stick to this is to go to sleep and wake up roughly the same times each day where I'm working or not.
As a result, I wake at 6:30ish naturally now. It's helped with various things such a eating and excercise - I think it's because when I was a night owl, my free time came after I'd worked all day and I felt tired. Now I do it before work so it's done before I start the day, and a natural consequence of that is that I now eat breakfast (which I didn't before), stopping the eating rubbish at 11 habit.

I don't think one is better / more superior than the other generally but if you know you're starting to feel rubbish, get yourself into a routine.
If I were you, I would start with setting an alarm and making yourself get up at a reasonable time tomorrow, whether you're exhausted or not. Do something physical to tire yourself out during the day and cook yourself something tasty, filling and healthy for tea. Have an early-ish night. Do the same the following day, then see how you feel (for me it helped quickly but it's a struggle sometimes not to go back to late nights and I only manage because the pay-off of almost no migraines is worth it).

I'm a night owl and used to love working 6pm until 2am. I get up early now but it's AWFUL

I was an owl until I did a few years of night shifts - it basically scrambled my body clock, but more importantly, forced me to see sleep as a health thing. I truly learned how much sleep I personally require (seven hours) and how to have a proper routine to fall asleep. It also gave me a horror of being tired - not just a bit tired from a one off late night, but truly chronically underslept. Since then, even after returning to a standard 9-5, I've been a lark.

But then I don't know if that would have happened anyway - I think lark ness comes with age :)

I'm not a morning person, never have been. I'm not sure why this apparently makes me lazier or inferior.

When we first got together OH made some comment about it - he's an early riser and suggested it was lazy of me. I pointed out to him that when he is napping in the afternoon or sitting in the evenings doing nothing, I'm actually doing stuff around the house. I'm no more or less active than he is, I just do stuff at different times.

When DD came along, our different schedules made it all a whole lot easier. He was up early with her in the mornings, I had her whilst he napped in the afternoons. I was doing the late night wakings he was taking over at 4am as he was up anyway. Perfect balance.

I think lark ness comes with age

I'm late 40s and would disagree. As would my night owl mum who is 75.

Nope, I'm 50 and have never been a lark. My mother's the same, age 79.