Is it possible for a night-owl to become a morning person? What does it take? Is it just a matter of self-discipline?
I’ve always been a night owl and no matter what I try, getting up early is a struggle. I’m semi-active, in good shape and I have an 8-5 office job. I’d love to become a morning person. The only thing I do late at night is peruse the depths of the internet.
Any personal experiences changing your sleeping habits?
I am a night owl with a 9 to 5 job. I need 8 hours of sleep to function properly but my body simply refuses to let me sleep before 11:30 at the very earliest. I get an average of 6 to 6 and a half hours of sleep per night and am pretty much a zombie all day and if I could change it I would but it simply doesn’t work for me.
For a while I was matching my schedule to my spouse’s. He naturally gets up at 5am and is almost incapable of sleeping past 7am. I did this for several months, getting up to go to the gym in the morning before work just like he does. Those were not happy times, and it did not recalibrate my internal clock to that schedule. After several years of marriage, I have drifted to a slightly earlier/more regular sleep schedule, but don’t think I will completely adapt.
And conversely I have tried really hard to move to a more night owl lifestyle, with no success. It seems as though the world is made for you night owls. Parties start at my bedtime, movie showings likewise (that is if you want to go to a show not filled with and audience full of children) etc etc etc.
I am a freak and am mocked for both needing a lot of sleep (8 hours please) and not being able to stay up in a non-cranky fashion past about 9 PM tops.
I have done so. I used to be at my best from about 11 PM to 2 AM or later (which helped working in the ER on those late shifts) and couldn’t function early in the AM without serious pain.
But for the last decade I’ve worked the 7-3 shift (arising at 5:45 AM every workday), and adapted. I nod off now by 11 PM most nights, and usually am up by 7 AM even when I don’t have to be.
And I like it.
Progressive middle-age may play a role: this came about between age 40 to 50.
I’m a night owl with a 9-5 job. I’ve never been able to adapt. I get 5-6 hours of sleep a night. I’m usually exhausted by the end of the day, sleepy, and I just want to go home and rest. But even if I don’t get any rest, by 9 PM I’m totally wired again and wide awake until 1-2 in the morning. It’s always the same.
I’m a night owl and tried a few times to switch my sleeping pattern to match the rest of the world, especially my kids who get up so early in the morning (they take after their mother). I’ve never had any success with it. I work a swing shift so it isn’t such a big deal for me; I’m one of the few people at work who looks forward to night shifts everyone else dreads it.
I’m a night owl who manages to get up for work by setting an alarm clock. I catch up on sleep on the weekends.
I’ve noticed another difference between me and morning people than when I get up, though. A lot of them say they do their best work and thinking first thing in the morning. That’s definitely not true of me- I try to do the routine, not-too-challenging stuff first while I’m still waking up.
Perhaps I’m just more adaptable than other night-owls.
When I am left to my own devices, I stay up fairly late. This has caused no end of suffering, zombie-behaviour, surliness and frustration in my life.
However, when I was in Kenya for 3 months, I was up at 5:30am everyday. I was in bed by ~10pm every night.
The key, for me, seems to be getting enough sleep no matter what, and light levels. In Kenya, the sun rose every day around 5:15am or so, and I had to be up around 5:30am for cook crew about every six days. So my body just adjusted and I was up at that time everyday. Aside from whomever was on cook crew when I wasn’t, I was usually the only person up and about. It was amazingly peaceful, and some of my best photos came from that time.
Here in Chicago, I’ve been in a position to get up and go to bed whenever I damn well please (this will change, alas, I’m sure). I moved here in December, and quickly started going to bed rather late and getting up rather late.
I’m still not getting up all that earlier, mind you (about 8am), but I’m awake and not unhappy at 6am these days (as opposed to being awake and very unhappy at 6am in January). I roll over and go back to sleep, but I think I could adjust if I had cause or interest in doing so to a schedule that has me in bed at 10:30pm and awake at 6am for the summer.
I just respond to light very well. When I needed to be up before the sun previously (grar!), I eventually bought a dawn simulator. I love it and will never, ever give it up. I’m still not entirely happy about getting up in the mornings before the sun, but the chance of a morning slab of homicide with my cup of tea goes down a great deal.
I’d say get a dawn alarm clock if you can’t rise with the sunlight.
I think you can change, but it’s a process of a long time and it’s never comfortable or truly natural. I blame my girlfriend. I used to be a night owl, she is so not. She’s up and bustling about by 6am most mornings; I think in over a year living together she’s slept in past 9am maybe once.
I’m usually in bed by 10:30 or 11; I used to never get to bed, much less sleep, until 12:30 or later. I used to need 8 or more hours or would be hella cranky, now I can get by pretty comfortably on 6 hours regularly with no real ill effects - I’d like to think that’s one positive part of getting old! I occasionally sleep in, but that’s usually until 10 instead of old-style when I would sleep in easily until 1 or 2pm.
It isn’t a matter of not being able to get up in the morning. I have an alarm clock and I get up and go to work every day like everyone else, but I simply do not start to function beyond very basic, menial tasks until after 12. I wish my job offered a shift where I could work from 10-6. I could adjust to that with more ease and I would have a lot more hours of competency at work while I would still have time after work to do other stuff. The world seems to me to be set up for morning people. Everything shuts down at 9 or 10 pm except clubs and bars and pretty much all jobs except call centers shut down overnight. I wish I could just adjust the rest of the world’s schedule to my own…it would be much easier than trying to get up at 6 in the morning every day.
Never. I’ve tried for years with 9-5’s and never been able to adapt. Feel horrible in the morning, can never get to sleep before 2 a.m. at the earliest. For YEARS with no adaptation.
I’m a night person, which is why I enjoy my 3pm-11:30pm evening shift in the lab. I can get up around 9 or 10, leave for work around 2, then get home just after midnight and watch TV till 1 or 2, then off to bed. It’s a little weird to have my free time early in the day, instead of after work like normal people, but for now, I like it.
I would like a day job, in theory, because then I could be on the same schedule as most of the world, and go see movies and have dinner in the evenings. But I just don’t see myself being able to wake up at 5:30 am to get to work on time, and I know my body won’t fall asleep before midnight without serious coercion.
Yeah, right! Everything in the world closes at 9!
I’ve gotten to where I can wake up for work in the morning, but never happily and I’ve never been able to add extra time in the morning to work out or anything.
You could always move further west. I recently went on vacation in a time zone shifted two hours from my usual. Was up at 5:30 or 6:00 every morning. It helped to have a big patio window facing the rising sun 
Maybe it’s more a matter of task scheduling for you than anything else. I’m at my best in the morning, so that’s when I complete the more complicated tasks that require more brain power and creativity. So I’ll do my marketing writing, touchy calls (i.e., calls that require more discretion, diplomacy or quick thinking) and article development in the morning. That’s also why I’d prefer to get to work earlier rather than later (unfortunately, it rarely works out that way). I reserve rote stuff like e-mail checking, status meetings, scheduling and white-paper writing for the afternoon and leave early when I can. Having me there once I’m all used up is pointless and I usually get a second wind at night and do additional work after I’ve had a chance to wind down in the evening anyway.
I’m not sure what you do, so I’m not sure if your job allows it, but perhaps you could do the same thing in the reverse - schedule all your important stuff for afternoon and get the mundane daily crap done in the a.m. while you’re still powering up.
I used to hate hate hate mornings. I worked the 2p-11p shift just so I could sleep in until noon. I’d stay up pretty late, too, though I wouldn’t be able to do much at night–by 11 PM, most of my friends would either be done for the night, or already out and about.
My latest chosen shift is 4AM-12:30PM. I love it. It took a while to adapt, but it works for me. In a few weeks, though, I’m starting the 9-5:30 shift. I think I’ll like it more, but we’ll see what happens.
On the days when I’m not working, I’m up until about 4 AM anyway being an insomniac and chatting with those who share the affliction. 
I’ve never been good at getting up early, at my current job i’m only up because I have three alarm clocks set over half an hour, followed by another half an hour with the snooze button. I have to be up by 6:30, but if I try going to sleep before midnight it takes me ages to actually fall asleep and then I just wake up every hour or so and feel terrible the next day. At the weekends I end up staying in bed until midday just to try and catch up on sleep. I’ve tried leaving my curtains open to let sunlight in, i’ve tried lying in bed reading for an hour before bed and all sorts of other things to try and help get to sleep. I end up being tired all day, almost falling asleep on the bus home but by 9ish i’m wide awake again until about midnight. I wish I could sleep earlier but nothing seems to work.
I couldn’t. I’ve been getting up at 4:00 AM for the past 7 years… I hate every morning.
I’m a night owl. I used to have to be up at 6:30AM to catch the vanpool across the lake.
Now that I have my own car, over the years I’ve drifted to crawling out of bed at 8-9AM and working until about 10-11PM, then crashing at 2AM at the latest, which suits me pretty well except for a decreased window of opportunity for shooting the breeze with friends online.
I can fall asleep around midnight if given serious thought, but 12-2AM is when I usually crash.