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BY THE NUMBERS

Nine Ways to Become a Morning Person

If you're a late-night person living in an early-rising world, here's how to adjust your body clock and make getting up easier.

By Temma Ehrenfeld | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Jun 18, 2008 | Updated: 6:53  p.m. ET Jun 18, 2008

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  • Posted By: hendrika @ 07/15/2008 11:35:40 PM

    Comment: I cqn relate to what so many of you have written -- I've had delated sleep my entire life. College was a struggle, and over the years I have developed several of the problems linked to the sleep issue. It has caused health, social, and career problems. Also, I believe it has affected my mood. I often think back to my days working rotating shifts at a factory, punching a time clock. Day shift wasexcruciating beyond words, but when graveyard rolled around, I was like a different person: calm, cheerful, productive. Ran twice a day, too. I honestly feel my sleep problem has ruined my life. There is not enough help/support for us. Geez, I'd been happy if I could just get doctors' offices and others to quit calling me at 8 am. -- can't they put a little note in my records that I'm a night worker???

  • Posted By: hendrika @ 07/15/2008 11:28:59 PM

    Comment: Enter Your Comment

  • Posted By: hendrika @ 07/15/2008 11:28:55 PM

    Comment: Enter Your Comment

  • Posted By: jeffcali @ 07/15/2008 4:35:08 PM

    Comment: become a grave digger dummy

  • Posted By: nocturnalbynature @ 07/13/2008 11:13:15 PM

    Comment: i have been a night owl since birth. even as a very yong child (4, 5 and 6) i would stay up all night reading or playing in my bed after my parents thought they were putting me to sleep. naturally, if left alone, (like in the summers during my school years) my body naturally reverts to a sleep schedule of falling asleep around 7 in the morning, and sleeping til about 3 or 4pm. this is my NATURAL sleep cycle. as a child my mom took me to our family doctor because i could not sleep at night. his "advice" was horrible: read at night. well, i was doing that anyway. don't drink caffeine. i never had caffeine as a child anyway, and still don't! he basically had no idea how to help a child that is naturally nocturnal, and through my entire life no doctor has ever has any advice other than take sleeping pills at night. this is my only alternative, because nothing else works. but i hate it because i feel foggy and out of it all day. i wish the world recognized that some people are just nocturnal and operated accordingly. i am in college and it's so hard because all the classes are in the early morning and early afternoon. i don't become alert and mentally active until evening hours, even when i am sleeping at night. it's hard to retain information in the morning, EVEN if i've slept the whole night before. my body and brain are nocturnal. sleeping at night through the aid of sleeping pills doesn't change this. i am frustrated and disappointed, but it's life.

  • Posted By: nocturnalbynature @ 07/13/2008 11:12:54 PM

    Comment: i have been a night owl since birth. even as a very yong child (4, 5 and 6) i would stay up all night reading or playing in my bed after my parents thought they were putting me to sleep. naturally, if left alone, (like in the summers during my school years) my body naturally reverts to a sleep schedule of falling asleep around 7 in the morning, and sleeping til about 3 or 4pm. this is my NATURAL sleep cycle. as a child my mom took me to our family doctor because i could not sleep at night. his "advice" was horrible: read at night. well, i was doing that anyway. don't drink caffeine. i never had caffeine as a child anyway, and still don't! he basically had no idea how to help a child that is naturally nocturnal, and through my entire life no doctor has ever has any advice other than take sleeping pills at night. this is my only alternative, because nothing else works. but i hate it because i feel foggy and out of it all day. i wish the world recognized that some people are just nocturnal and operated accordingly. i am in college and it's so hard because all the classes are in the early morning and early afternoon. i don't become alert and mentally active until evening hours, even when i am sleeping at night. it's hard to retain information in the morning, EVEN if i've slept the whole night before. my body and brain are nocturnal. sleeping at night through the aid of sleeping pills doesn't change this. i am frustrated and disappointed, but it's life.

  • Posted By: nocturnalbynature @ 07/13/2008 11:12:36 PM

    Comment: i have been a night owl since birth. even as a very yong child (4, 5 and 6) i would stay up all night reading or playing in my bed after my parents thought they were putting me to sleep. naturally, if left alone, (like in the summers during my school years) my body naturally reverts to a sleep schedule of falling asleep around 7 in the morning, and sleeping til about 3 or 4pm. this is my NATURAL sleep cycle. as a child my mom took me to our family doctor because i could not sleep at night. his "advice" was horrible: read at night. well, i was doing that anyway. don't drink caffeine. i never had caffeine as a child anyway, and still don't! he basically had no idea how to help a child that is naturally nocturnal, and through my entire life no doctor has ever has any advice other than take sleeping pills at night. this is my only alternative, because nothing else works. but i hate it because i feel foggy and out of it all day. i wish the world recognized that some people are just nocturnal and operated accordingly. i am in college and it's so hard because all the classes are in the early morning and early afternoon. i don't become alert and mentally active until evening hours, even when i am sleeping at night. it's hard to retain information in the morning, EVEN if i've slept the whole night before. my body and brain are nocturnal. sleeping at night through the aid of sleeping pills doesn't change this. i am frustrated and disappointed, but it's life.

    • Posted By: hendrika @ 07/15/2008 11:20:25 PM

      Comment: noturnal by nature, I feel your pain. I was the same way as a child and college student -- and am still that way at age 53. I honestly feel it has ruined my life. I have suffered many problemas that are associated with this sleep pattern. The only time in my life I got a glimpse of who I would be if I had normal sleep came when I worked rotating shifts at a factory. When I worked graveyard, I was calm, happy and productive -- a whole different person. There is not enough help for us, and then, on top of everything else, we are labeled "lazy" for not popping out of bed bright and early and ready to take on the day. People have no idea how our lives are a DAILY struggle.

  • Posted By: auntwewe @ 07/08/2008 4:04:02 PM

    Comment: why does health insurance matter when you are reading an article about becoming a morning person anyways? that is a weird change of subject...

  • Posted By: ianhatcher@hotmail.com @ 07/08/2008 9:41:29 AM

    Comment: @ Nins. I don't know where you get your health insurance but I have never heard of individual plans costing $1500 per month per family. My wife pays $350 a month for her and our daughter and that is with maternity included so your numebrs are WAY off unless you are getting outright robbed by them.

    I'll take the lesser of two evils as Obama's idea of the rich that he wants to tax is anything over 50k. He'll screw the middle class like no other president before and he has a liberal congress to do it to.

  • Posted By: Nins @ 07/06/2008 11:45:26 PM

    Comment: Did you know that if McCain is elected you will have to pay income tax on the value of the medical insurance that your employer gives you? Worse still, he is offering a tax break for people who pay their own insurance, BUT only $2,500 for individuals and $5,000 for families.

    Let's say you have a family of four. Your insurance policy costs would be at least $1,500-2,500 per month under a self-pay plan, which cost more than employer group plans. So, you pay $18,000 -$30,000 per year for insurance, and you get to deduct only $5,000 of that. If you paid $25,000 for you insurance, you would be out of pocket $20,000 per year. This is FAR WORSE than the current system, where if you are self employed you can deduct 100% of you medical insurance costs.

    So, if you're not self employed, you would stick with your Employer's plan. Employer plans for a family of four have a value of $900-$1,500 per month totaling 10,800-$18,000 per year. Surprise! On April 15th, you owe tax on all of that as INCOME to you. Say your bracket is 25%, and the value of your Employer medical plan is $14,000. You will OWE THE IRS an additional $3,500, and that's ON TOP of whatever monthly premium you already pay to your employer for your insurance.

    Many analysts say that McCain's new rules would encourage employers to stop offering health benefits. If that happened, then far fewer Americans would be insured than are insured today, because what family of four can afford $18,000-$30,000 out of pocket per year for self-pay health insurance?

    Furthermore, McCain's plan does not require insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions of people who self-pay their insurance. People under employer group plans have all of their pre-existing conditions covered. This is a hugely unfair aspect of the current system. Insurance companies can afford to cover the pre-existing conditions of the much larger pool of people with group insurance, but they refuse to pay the pre-existing conditions on the smaller pool of self-pay customers. They have been allowed to price gouge the self-pay customers, which is a form of market manipulation that should be illegal.

    So let's say one of your kids had diabetes and you have high blood pressure, then your employer stops offering insurance. You now have to buy your own, but you and your child are INELIGIBLE due to pre-existing conditions. Oh, yeah, they will let you buy the insurance, but you can't use it for any pre-existing condition until you have paid on time every month for two years. And you know what happens at one year and 11 months? You get a letter saying your policy has been cancelled. I have many patients this has happened to.

    McCain's plan SUCKS.

    It does nothing to help middle class working Americans afford or obtain medical insurance. In fact, it makes the current system WORSE.

  • Posted By: nbmnbm @ 07/03/2008 7:42:57 PM

    Comment: Now, really, Newsweek!! You have published some excellent science articles; I remember several of them well - and fondly. But this is just garbage. There is a hint in tip #2 that you've talked to someone who knows what Delayed Sleep-Phase is, but you didn't follow up. There are real experts at Johns Hopkins as well as a few dozen others elsewhere. Heck, if you'd even read the Wikipedia article, you should have realized you're on the wrong track. For shame.

  • Posted By: PaulaItaly @ 07/03/2008 7:38:33 AM

    Comment: This is sound - though painfully obvious - sleep hygiene, and larks can benefit from it, but claiming it will help DSPS people is quite amusing. This from someone who has tried everything that is mentioned in the article (including sleeping pills, which simply don't work on DSPS people, we are not insomniacs). I was willing to just brush it off as an unimportant little article when I read that "we'll get better at 60" - yes, probably we will, just after a lifetime of work humiliation from larks like you, who will forever equate DSPS with laziness, considering you want to "cure" us.

  • Posted By: CircadiAbsurdium @ 07/03/2008 1:39:52 AM

    Comment: Nancy Collop has not published a single article or study about DSPS; her specialty appears to be sleep apnea. (The other guy, Steven Brown, has published a few studies related to circadian rhythms.) Why didn???t Newsweek talk to a DSPS expert? Seems like irresponsible journalism to me.

  • Posted By: CircadiAbsurdium @ 07/03/2008 1:39:17 AM

    Comment: Following a daily routine does NOT affect one???s circadian rhythm. People with DSPS who have to work 9-5 become dangerously sleep deprived during the week and can only recover by catching up on the weekend. Not catching up on sleep during the weekend will NOT make it easier for a DSPS sufferer to get up on Monday. There are two reasons for this: 1) sleep deprivation does not make it easier for a DSPS sufferer to go to bed ???earlier??? because the body releases the hormones necessary for restful sleep according to one???s circadian rhythm and not one???s level of exhaustion. 2) When the body is sleep deprived, it spends a greater percentage of time in stage 4 (???deep???) sleep, which is harder to wake up from. I have participate in a mailing list comprised of several hundred DSPS sufferers; the overwhelming (probably unanimous) consensus is that following a routine gets you nothing but sleep deprivation, but catching up on sleep at the time one???s body thinks it should be sleeping (i.e., daytime for a DSPS sufferer) actually makes it easier to resume the arbitrary 9-5 work/school schedule.

    • Posted By: Notnaive @ 07/03/2008 11:23:03 AM

      Comment: to CircadiAbsurdium - THANK YOU for putting into words the facts that early bird people need to know. I am an energetic, conscientious, hard-working, person - but for most of my life I have been ridiculed by "early bird" co-workers (interestingly, people who NEVER accomplished the volume or quality of work I produced every day) - but they felt justified in their self-righteous judgments and sarcastic comments such as "she'll be late for her own funeral . . . obviously doesn't care about her job . . . must have a drinking problem . . . " you get the picture. The "drinking problem" issue is especially absurd as I don't even like alcohol and also have never used drugs. I have tried sleeping pills a few times but they made the problem worse - who wants to walk through life in a fog? I personally love the early mornings when things are fresh and new, but my body will only sleep when it will sleep, so I have to adjust. I've worked in the 8-5 or 9-5:30 world all my life but it has been difficult, and I do have to catch up on sleep on the weekends.

  • Posted By: CircadiAbsurdium @ 07/03/2008 1:38:38 AM

    Comment: The studies on tryptophan are all over the place. The consensus among credible sources is that the typical post-Thanksgiving-meal sleepiness is caused by the large meal and the time of day, not so much the tryptophan.

  • Posted By: CircadiAbsurdium @ 07/03/2008 1:38:23 AM

    Comment: Sleeping pills do not shift the circadian rhythm; when they work at all, they tend to interfere with REM and stage 4 sleep, which are vitally important for optimal health and daytime alertness.

  • Posted By: CircadiAbsurdium @ 07/03/2008 1:38:01 AM

    Comment: Actually, the only points that apply to delayed sleep phase are #2 (sunlight) and probably #9 (genetics, according to a few studies, with more still ongoing).

  • Posted By: NM1977 @ 06/27/2008 1:25:42 PM

    Comment: I'm sick of adhering to the Protestant work-ethic-demanded 8am start time for work. Why not let 'night owls' work when they are most productive? Work still gets done--and more of it at a higher quality level. Surely there's a reasonable compromise possible: say, start work at 10am and finish at 6 or 7pm. Obviously, this works in other countries (Spain springs to mind) to great effect. American employers are too uptight and micro-managing.

  • Posted By: teallake @ 06/23/2008 10:25:49 PM

    Comment: I abhor getting up early.Always have,always will.When I get up early I feel I am in the twilight zone.I often do not feel well.Takes me a few hours to get my thinking clear.Have been told I stay in the alpha state much longer than most people.

  • Posted By: rb31dks @ 06/22/2008 12:40:05 PM

    Comment: All of this is great advise (i am a physiology student) .. the only information that isn't correct is that turkey does not have enough tryptophan to induce sleep.

  • Posted By: nite_owl_vs_chickens @ 06/22/2008 5:38:22 AM

    Comment: I hate getting up early and none of these methods work for me. When I get up early, this brings nothing but a terrible stomach-ache and wasted 3-4 hours of my day hanging around like a ghost.
    When I go to sleep at 6 AM in the morning, I get up like 11:00-11:30 AM. Which means 5 - 5,5 hours of sleep, and my day goes pretty well. But when I try to be an morning chicken and force myself to sleep around 23:00, I can get up at 9:00 AM at the earliest, which counts up to 10 hours of sleeping.
    I hate that this world is run by chickens. I really get pissed off thinking that life is arranged according to their body clock, although I guess we, the night owls, are around or maybe more than 50%.

  • Posted By: Cazador1972 @ 06/20/2008 11:16:28 PM

    Comment: Geez, could the info here be any more obvious?!

  • Posted By: skinnyminny2 @ 06/19/2008 10:49:57 PM

    Comment: No matter what I try I hate being up early. Period. Whether I get to sleep early or not, I sill hate it. I hate it so much I get up immediately just to get it over with (and make my way right over to the tea kettle or coffee maker). Being up around 7 is no problem, but earlier and I'm shivering from cold, miserable.

  • Posted By: heyjudyarts @ 06/19/2008 10:26:49 PM

    Comment: I find it amusing that morning people crusade to convert night owls.
    Early bird gets the worm. You are sleeping you life away. Night owls rarely fight back although they could. Eight hours is eight hours no matter when they occur. If you lifestyle permits, enjoy and just tell the early birds you prefer stardust to worms for breakfast.

  • Posted By: littlechica911 @ 06/19/2008 7:14:10 PM

    Comment: I'll try these...I'll try anything. My sleep disorder seems to go from bad to worse to bad again. I'm a high-strung person that is anxious throughout the night. If I could just shut off the thinking, I'd be OK

  • Posted By: GracieII @ 06/19/2008 5:45:04 PM

    Comment: I've always been a night owl and had a hard time rising. I've noticed lately, it seems easier to get to sleep earlier and easier to rise. I'm 59. How nice of you to point out I've reached the age of early retirement. Good night.

  • Posted By: Culture of Contact @ 06/19/2008 3:17:10 PM

    Comment: Hey, here's one: Cut the work week short like every other 1st world country. Oh. Wait. Then we wouldn't be wage slaves. Never mind. Wake up, suckers!

  • Posted By: lmp15 @ 06/19/2008 1:45:17 PM

    Comment: I was always a night-owl, than this last semester i had 8:30 classes monday-friday (yes most people have already been working an hour before my first class, but 8:30 is early for students!) This meant I had to go to bed before midnight, that along with a 8am weekend job, my entire lifestyle had to change....for the better of course. Getting up early is wonderful, you get so much done and your not resting. The routine also helps if you excerise, than you're doing it at the same time everyday. The best part for me, is listed as #2 - the sun shines in and the birds are chirping, its a nice way to get up in the mornings (other than of course, with sex). and its pretty obvious, but to remain a morning person, at least as a student, you shouldnt take those long naps in the afternoon.

 
 
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