Sleep schedules are important to the way we live our lives. However, it can be tough for night owls, who function best in the late hours.
The world seems to be made for early birds, as work and school often require early mornings. That motivates countless people to modify their sleep schedules to become morning people.
A night owl can’t become a morning person because the chronotype that makes you a night or morning person is a natural genetic trait. However, it’s possible to alter your circadian rhythm and train yourself to wake up and function better slightly earlier in the day.
Evidence suggests that age and genetics have a role in determining our sleep schedules, and this means that people who were once night owls may naturally become morning people as they age.
What Makes A Morning Or Night Person?
Most of us are either morning or night people in terms of our most energetic periods. According to Nature Communications, 48.4% of women and 39.7% of men self-report as being morning people. However, some people have a more unusual sleep schedule.
Whether you’re a night owl, an early bird, or do your best work at midday, this kind of sleep schedule is called your chronotype, which you can’t change. However, you can alter your circadian rhythm.
According to the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, like a person’s chronotype, the circadian rhythm is partly set by genetics. However, it’s more personal than the chronotype.
Circadian rhythms are the physical, behavioral, and mental changes that occur in any person in 24 hours. These rhythms are intimately connected to the cycles of light and dark. When you try to change from being a night person to a morning person, your circadian rhythm is trying to change.
Can You Be Both a Morning and Night Person?
It’s not possible or advisable to be an early bird and a night owl.
Staying up late and getting up early is a strategy most likely to cause sleep deprivation. This introduces many problems, including an increased risk of health issues. Furthermore, your circadian rhythms and the limited nature of human stamina mean that you’ll become fatigued eventually.
So, even if you can stay up late and get up early, you’ll unlikely be at your best throughout the day. The symptoms and repercussions of sleep deprivation (SD) include:
- Increased stress
- Increased symptoms of depression and anxiety
- Reduced attention span
- Suppressed immune system (Severe/Prolonged SD)
- Slow healing (Severe/Prolonged SD)
- Increased risk of obesity, heart attacks, strokes, and other health issues
- Brain fog
- Poor memory
- Lower inhibitions/risk assessment capabilities
It’s better to focus on getting enough rest and increasing productivity. This can be done by adjusting your circadian rhythms to meet the needs of your daily schedule. Doing this requires many of the same steps needed to prevent or recover from jet lag when traveling long distances.
Can You Turn Yourself into a Morning Person?
Changing your sleep schedule and circadian rhythms isn’t easy, but it’s possible. Before you change your sleep schedule, you should ask yourself why you want to do so.
After all, while people see being a morning person as a more positive thing, each schedule has strengths and weaknesses. There are also pros and cons to changing your sleeping patterns.
Early birds often find it easier to succeed in traditional work and school environments. They have a lot of energy during the day. However, they can struggle to keep up with social events, as they’ll likely become tired far earlier in the evening.
Likewise, night owls might find it harder to get out of bed in the morning because they still feel tired. However, they flourish in social and professional settings that require them to be alert well into the night.
Changing your sleep pattern takes time and effort, so you must do this to make your life easier. It may be beneficial if you have a job that suits your current sleep schedule.
If you need to become a morning person, you can make the transition easier.
How to Change From a Night Owl to Early Bird
If you’re trying to change from being a night owl to being an early bird, there are steps you must take:
Sleep Hygiene
Practicing good sleep hygiene involves healthy habits that help the body achieve restful sleep, including:
- Limiting technology for 30 minutes before bed.
- Stretching
- Ensuring you have a comfortable sleeping environment.
Good sleep hygiene will make changing your sleep schedule more comfortable.
Go Slow
It’s important to remember that you can’t change your sleeping schedule overnight. While you may go to bed early and wake up early once, a long-term shift is all about consistent and sustainable habits.
Making small changes over a longer period until you find waking early comfortable and easy.
Set A Routine
You’ll struggle to switch from going to bed at 1 am and waking up at 9 am to going to bed at 9 pm and waking at 6 am in one night. However, you can start going to bed at midnight and getting up at 8 am.
Focus on gradually moving the time you go to bed and get up. By doing so, you can ensure that becoming a morning person isn’t too stressful.
Create A Nighttime Routine
As you shift your sleep schedule to an earlier timescale, create a more widespread nighttime routine that promotes restful sleep. This includes the following:
- Avoiding coffee after dinner
- Turn off the TV and close social media apps half an hour before bedtime
- Meditating when you get into bed
These practices ensure that your sleep is of the highest quality.
Build A Strong Morning Routine
Ensure you have a robust and enjoyable morning routine, as getting out of bed when you’re tired can be tough. Having something to make it feel a little more worthwhile is important.
Incentivizing your morning routine could make getting out of bed easier. Translational Issues in Psychological Science found that incentives effectively and positively reinforce desirable behaviors.
Can You Become a Morning Person?
You can quickly become a morning person with the right incentives and a consistent schedule.
The incentives you use to make getting out of bed easier are entirely up to you. Set a routine that involves a few things you genuinely enjoy, including:
- Luxurious baths
- Yoga
- Tea
- Reading a book
Your morning and evening routines are undoubtedly the most important part of changing your sleep schedule. However, what you do during the day also counts.
A healthy lifestyle and diet make it easier to get good quality sleep. So, changing your daily habits could be beneficial if you find it hard to feel well-rested as you shift your sleeping patterns.
Exercise
Ensure you’re getting enough exercise. The American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine found that morning and evening exercise, in particular, can help night owls to get good quality REM sleep.
It can even help move their circadian rhythms 30 minutes earlier. So, going to the gym once or twice a week could make the transition into a morning person easier.
Meal Times
It would help if you also considered your meal schedule. Eating earlier can help you shift your sleep schedule and become a morning person because the times you eat impact your circadian rhythm.
If you eat late, you may find it hard to get a restful sleep as your body tries to carry out certain components of the digestive process while you sleep.
Less Caffeine
Consider consuming less caffeine when trying to go to bed earlier.
The Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine found that ingesting caffeine 6 hours before bed can impact the quality and length of sleep.
How to Become a Morning Person from a Night Owl?
Light is intimately tied to our circadian rhythms. Using it strategically can help alter your sleep schedule, and natural light is particularly effective.
So, switching to dim lighting and minimizing blue light in the evening can help you sleep earlier. Likewise, leaving your curtains open to allow the morning sun in could help you get up earlier, especially during the summer.
If you’re a night owl by nature, you may find it easier to shift your sleep schedule in the summer when the mornings are lighter and the days are longer.
Is Changing Your Sleep Schedule Bad?
There’s limited research into the results of effectively changing your sleep patterns. However, according to BMC Public Health, evidence shows that irregular sleeping habits can be detrimental.
In short, there’s no reason to think that changing your sleeping pattern is bad, as long as you’re consistent and get good quality sleep when you go to bed. This is one of the reasons that having a regular bedtime is good for you.
Irregular sleeping patterns are associated with many issues, but the most notable is fatigue due to sleep deprivation. This causes an increased risk of serious health problems but can also cause other issues. The most notable of these are as follows:
- High or fluctuating blood sugar
- Increased risk of accidents as a result of fatigue
- Poor short-term memory
- Brain fog
- Irritability
- Poor emotional control
Sleep Variability
Studies show that this isn’t purely caused by sleep deprivation but also sleep variability.
Sleep variability or sleep cycle variability refers to the process of shifting the sleep schedule frequently. For example, shift workers with little consistency in their work pattern and healthcare professionals switching between night and day shifts experience this problem.
Research has been conducted into the connections between variable sleeping patterns and metabolic abnormalities. Diabetes Care found that for every hour of variability in a person’s sleep schedule, the risk of seeing negative effects rose by as much as 27%.
