When you’re a night owl who thrives in the wee hours, springing out of bed come the morning isn’t a natural feeling. In fact, research has shown your body clock is responsible for controlling for many of your daily behaviours. Your chronotype — a person’s circadian typology or the individual differences in activity and alertness in the morning and evening — also decides when melatonin is released.
For example, night owls can experience a release of melatonin around 10pm, which means they might not feel tired enough to sleep until 2am. Morning larks, on the other hand, experience an increase of melatonin around 6pm, which means they’ll begin to feel tired by 9pm.
Other factors that influence your body clock type include your genetics, schedule and lifestyle, as per The Conversation, which means you can make a change to your night owl habits with your lifestyle choices. These simple changes can help you find your inner morning lark…
— Create a morning and evening routine
Establishing a solid morning and evening routine will give you the biggest chance of success when it comes to changing your night owl ways. Using the evening to prep for the next day will make getting up even easier. A few habits you can implement include making your lunch for work (should you be working in the office), picking out an outfit and having your bag packed for the day.
This way, the only thing you have to do come the morning is get out of bed, shower (if you prefer a morning wash) and get dressed. Done!
— Exercise as soon as you wake up
Booking in for an early morning workout class or making a commitment with a friend to go for a walk or run together means you have to get out of bed as soon as your alarm goes off, otherwise you’ll be letting down a friend or missing a class that you’ve paid for. Sometimes we literally have to trap ourselves into a routine, otherwise, we won’t do it.
Getting out of the house first thing and exposing yourself to morning sunlight is also great for your body clock and positively impacts your sleep. The National Sleep Foundation explains: “Exposing your body to the sun will not only help alert the brain and set you in motion, it will also help you sleep later on.”
— Stop pressing snooze
The snooze function is the enemy of night owls as it lulls you into a false sense of security. Snoozing for just five more minutes soon turns into half an hour if you’re not careful. Get out of this habit completely by setting two alarms five minutes apart — the first alarm is to wake you up and the second means you must get out of bed.
— Have something to look forward to
It could be as simple as your morning coffee, but having something to look forward to the next day will make it slightly easier to remove yourself from your warm bed. Organise a coffee date with a friend, buy the ingredients to make a delicious brekkie or simply think of that first cup of steaming caffeine — whatever you need to get going.
— Get up at the same time every day
Training your body to rise at the same time every day means you won’t need an alarm clock in the long run. When you create a routine of going to sleep and waking up at a similar time every day, you might notice that you start waking up a few minutes before your alarm goes off.
This is your internal clock adapting to your lifestyle, which means you’re succeeding in trying to change your habits. While hitting the hay when you still feel wired might be hard at first, stick with it and your body will adapt.
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