A (former) night owl’s guide to becoming a morning person

I love staying up late, but I hate struggling through the mornings. Here’s how I adapted and how you can too.

The world isn’t made for night owls.

You struggle into work in the dark hours before 10 a.m. — or your morning coffee — and you’re greeted by some chipper person who has already been to the gym and is six items into his to-do list. I used to fantasise about fitting punishments for such morning people, but in the last two years I’ve seen the (morning) light, and I’ve become one of them.

If you love staying up late but hate crawling through your mornings in a haze, here’s how you can do it too.

The problem with staying up late

After a long, draining day you finally get home, settle down in front of the TV and throw on whatever season you’re currently bingeing. Heaven. But then, when a reasonable bedtime rolls around, you don’t want to stop. It has been a hard day, aren’t you entitled to just one more episode? So you push play, trade a bit of sleep for more Netflix time and continue the cycle that keeps you tired all the time.

Dr. Alex Dimitriu, founder of the Menlo Park Psychiatry and Sleep Medicine clinic, explained it like this: “Long days leave us tired and exhausted, but the reality is, our days would be less hard, and less exhausting, if we weren’t so tired through them. The trouble with being a night owl is that your sleep gets clipped in the morning hours, where most of the precious REM or dream sleep occurs. Instead of sleeping seven or eight hours per night, most night owls get forced to sleep five or six — with a hard start time in the morning.”

Dr. Dimitriu can’t stress enough just how important REM sleep is. It’s “the key to our emotional and creative energy” and comparable to “self-therapy,” he said, adding that it “balances us out in more ways than I can describe” and that without enough of it, our memory and moods take a hit.

If you have the freedom to wake up when you like, then things are different, but if that extra Netflix episode is forcing you to cut your sleep short, then you should try to do something about it.

Learn to love a good night’s sleep 

Part of the problem with trying to change your sleep habits, Dr. Dimitriu explained, is that “there is a small delay in getting several nights of good sleep and feeling better the next day.” Going to bed early one night won’t cut it, so a lot of people give up before they see any difference. “Patience is key,” he said. “Keep it up for a week. The days get easier.” And once the days get easier, you’ll “learn to love sleep again.”

To get to bed earlier, you also have to slow down in the evenings. Excitement makes it harder to sleep. “Smartphones and laptops are just too exciting,” Dr. Dimitriu said. “So many people find it easier to go to sleep after reading a book than after trawling the internet. Do more quiet, relaxing activities in the hour or two before you plan to sleep.” Books, audiobooks, just listening to music or even meditating are all perfect — though make sure you don’t mess around with your phone too much.

Similarly, exercise, big meals and bright lights — especially sources of blue light like screens — should be avoided an hour or two before bedtime. Not only do blue lights suppress melatonin, which makes it harder to fall asleep, they also diminish the quality of sleep you get through the night.

Personally, I find it much easier to get to bed earlier if I let myself get a little bit bored in the evenings. Sleep is preferable to great literature, at least after 10 p.m.

Have something to get up for 

Dr. Dimitriu recalled one of his mentors, Dr. Rafael Pelayo, asking a patient, “What are you waking up for?” Many people work long, hard days, “and the evenings are the only respite — so why end them early?” Just to return to another day of work all over again?

Instead, Dr. Dimitriu recommends having “something fun or desirable to look forward to in the morning” before work. Things like coffee, the news, social media and uninterrupted smartphone access are all “O.K. once the sun is up.” He has even used video games as an incentive with some youngsters to get them up earlier.

Getting outside into the morning light is also great. Light acts as a “zeitgeber,” a natural cue to our bodies’ circadian rhythms. The more light you get in the morning, the easier time you’ll have falling asleep that night. Top tip: Don’t wear sunglasses first thing.

If you can schedule whatever you’re getting up for in the morning, even better. Having something fun you’ve agreed to do is a sure way to get out of bed. Surfers are some of the earliest risers going; they just can’t miss the allure of a sunrise surf with friends.

What I love most about getting up early is how much more free time it gives me before work. Instead of rolling out of bed and going straight into work mode, I get up slowly and either head to the gym for a workout or go on a long walk with my dog. I also get a head start on the things that normally get (begrudgingly) done in the evening, which gives me more free time later in the day.

Make changes gradually 

Any changes you make to your sleep schedule should be gradual. “You can control when you wake up more than you can control when you fall asleep,” Dr. Dimitriu said. He recommended trying to wake up about “30 minutes earlier each week” and then, in the evenings, to “do quiet, relaxing activities that invite sleep.” Step back about 30 minutes each week, or as much as your schedule (and level of tiredness) allows. Once you’re tired, go to bed and don’t fight it.

Track your mood to see the gains 

Humans are terrible at recognising long-term changes and gains. Dr. Dimitriu suggested tracking your mood, energy levels and sleep habits for about two weeks while you get to bed earlier. It is important, he said, to recognise that there is “a big difference to how you feel in the morning versus how you feel through the day.”

Some night owls will never feel great waking earlier, but as he said: “How you feel in the afternoon is the true test of sleep quality. Adequate sleep should result in improved memory, mood stability, creativity, impulse control and eating and drinking habits. Track these for a good while before deciding that sleeping for eight hours is no different to sleeping for six.”

It might be your chronotype 

If you’re a hard-core night owl and nothing you do can change your sleep patterns, then it might be your chronotype, or whether getting up and being productive early versus sleeping in and being productive late comes naturally to you. According to Dr. Dimitriu, evolution may have programmed some people to sleep earlier and others to sleep later to make sure “the village was being watched as much as possible through the night.” However, he said, “the excitement of our digital world has certainly made matters worse. It is rare, in the absence of electricity, to find people sleeping the extremes we see in our society, of, say, 3 a.m. to 10 a.m.”

While I was a night owl for years, it now seems likely that it was a result of bad sleep habits and lots of late-night screen viewing, not my chronotype. By adding some discipline to how I slept — and learning to love sleep again — I’ve found a more natural rhythm. I still watch Netflix and play video games, I just do it earlier in the evening when I now have plenty of free time — because I’ve been up since 5.30 a.m.

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