I’m a confirmed night owl and I will wake up early only if I need to. But I am curious. Whether it be myth or fact, most likely you’ve heard that early birds are more productive and more successful. Is this true? Is it possible to reset my long established patterns of sleep and wakefulness to be an early bird?
Being an early bird might be the envy of some night owls, who want to be more productive and live longer and healthier lives.
My goal of becoming an early bird was motivated both by wanting to be more productive, and also for my career: I have a job that requires an early commute to the office (one and a half hours to be exact).
It’s the summer so I thought that with the sun rising earlier, it would follow that trying to wake up earlier would be easy. With the added bonus of getting enough sunlight to kick start the production of vitamin D, the summer would be the best time to stay fit and healthy.
I’ve been training my body to go to sleep early and wake up early. As someone who is used to waking up at 8:00 AM, I was determined to do a hard reset of my sleep/wake schedule and to be up and moving by 6:20 AM, and out the door by 6:50 AM. I have to improve my morning routine, which mostly involves skipping breakfast until I get to the office, and the hour and half long commute. I know it’s detrimental to skip breakfast, but I can only focus on one lifestyle change at a time. So what happened during the rest of the day?
Well, it’s no surprise that I was tired. Dead tired. By 11:00 AM, I was tired and sleepy, craving a soft pillow to fall asleep on, and extremely irritated, which was compounded by a craving for caffeine. Alas the caffeine didn’t help.
But within a few days, I was adjusting to waking up early, and the morning tiredness and sleepiness started to ease. I was more alert and ready to work, and less reliant on caffeine.
From this experiment, there were several questions that I wanted to answer. Are early birds more productive than night owls?
It’s been backed by scientific research that early birds are more productive, the reason being that there are less distractions very early in the day, so there are more opportunities to get things done and check off the items on your to-do list. However,studies also show that night owls are associated with greater creativity.
Do I have to choose between being more productive or being more creative? I’d choose both, but as you probably concluded, it’s not possible to be both an early bird and a night owl. The point is, there are trade-offs to being an early bird or night owl, which is why I think it’s faulty to conclude that being one is better than the other.
There are multiple factors that can determine whether you are productive, some of which have nothing to do with whether you are an early bird or night owl. Society and culture can both be at play here instead of something that is determined by your biology. Cultural norms and upbringing are factors that play a role in your productivity and work habits.
Furthermore, productivity can be seasonal. People report that they are more productive in September. This is probably the effect of memory and social customs: school starts in September. Remember the excitement (or dread?) leading up to the first day of school? And after a restful summer, people are recharged, their energy levels are higher, and they’re ready to start working again.
It would be interesting to study whether productivity is also affected by geographical location, for example, in regions where it is constantly daylight or constantly nighttime.
Are people naturally early birds or night owls, and do I have a choice between being one or the other?
There’s strong evidence that there is a genetic component to being an early or late riser. Your circadian rhythm, or biological clock, regulates sleep, blood pressure, body temperature, and metabolism. Also, your melatonin levels are a contributing factor. The release of melatonin causes you to fall asleep. Early birds have higher levels of melatonin earlier in the evening whereas night owls stay up later because their melatonin doesn’t kick in until later in the evening.
Studies have shown that disturbances in your circadian rhythm can lead to health problems such as heart disease and diabetes.
It might motivate you to be an early bird upon hearing this, but if you’re hard wired to be one or the other, it seems like a long shot to beat your genetics at its own game. If you’re a night owl like me, don’t think of it as being faced with the impossible task of beating your own genetics. Think of it as implementing small changes that will work in your favour and not against it.
It might be true that early birds are more successful, but getting enough sleep is better than trying to wake up early in the morning if you are naturally inclined to stay up late. Be the one that best suits your personality and lifestyle.
Some will say it’s better to be an early bird, others will say a night owl. There’s another camp that will tell you that it’s not right or wrong to be one or the other.
Making lifestyle changes, and making good choices instead of bad ones, will go a long way to improving your health.
There are the obvious measures that you can take to achieve this: cut back on alcohol, nicotine and caffeine. Exercise regularly. Get enough sleep.
There’s always room for self-improvement. As a night owl, my motivation to be an early riser is to ideally have a more organized morning routine with exercise, breakfast, self-reflection, either meditation or journaling, and to rely less on caffeine to wake me up.
Was it hard to change and did I succeed in being an early bird?
The answer was yes and no. I was able to get up on time on days when I had to be at work early, though I was just as tempted to sleep in on days when I didn’t.
Did I see any benefits?
Not yet, I conclude that it doesn’t matter how early you get up, if you don’t have the motivation you won’t be able to see the benefits. Even though I became an early riser, if the motivation to make good use of my time is missing, then there would be no benefits.
This experiment taught me that it is possible to reset my sleep/wake schedule to be an early bird, even if I was a night owl my entire life. But since my commute takes up most of my morning routine, I will have to try to squeeze in an extra hour where I can focus on getting things done. I found that my productivity stayed the same, though this could be the effect of other factors such as motivation.
So if you’re a night owl, give this a try and you might find that this changes your lifestyle for the better along with getting you motivated to work on other areas of self-improvement.