How to Become a Morning Person and Why?

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Although many people consider themselves to be early birds, another as night owls, while some of them are somewhere in between, to be a morning person shows as the most beneficial for our health. Our natural rhythm, known by experts as circadian rhythm, is greatly dependent on periods of light and darkness in our environment. According to experts, our bodies are designed to follow natural day and night cycle. Daily lights keep us awake while darkness moves us to the world of dreams. Our bodies work better if our natural circadian rhythm is followed. It does not mean that we all have to wake up when the Sun is rising. Yet, being a morning person means to be more in accordance with circadian rhythm, i.e. to feel better and have a better health. Studies have shown that early risers are more optimistic and proactive and have a good sense of control. They manage easier their daily tasks, which in turn makes them feel better about themselves. It is not impossible to become a morning person, but this decision needs time and persistence. The article “10 Benefits of Rising Early, and How to Do It” written by Leo Babauta, an author of ZenHabits.net, gives us some useful tips that can help us to adopt this new habit.

• Don’t make drastic changes. Start slowly, by waking just 15-30 minutes earlier than usual. Get used to this for a few days. Then cut back another 15
minutes. Do this gradually until you get to your goal time.

• Allow yourself to sleep earlier. You might be used to staying up late, perhaps watching TV or surfing the Internet. But if you continue this habit, while
trying to get up earlier, sooner or later one is going to give. And if it is the early rising that gives, then you will crash and sleep late and have to
start over. I suggest going to bed earlier, even if you don’t think you’ll sleep, and read while in bed. If you’re really tired, you just might fall
asleep much sooner than you think.

• Put your alarm clock far from you bed. If it’s right next to your bed, you’ll shut it off or hit snooze. Never hit snooze. If it’s far from your bed, you
have to get up out of bed to shut it off. By then, you’re up. Now you just have to stay up.

• Go out of the bedroom as soon as you shut off the alarm. Don’t allow yourself to rationalize going back to bed. Just force yourself to go out of the room.
My habit is to stumble into the bathroom and go pee. By the time I’ve done that, and flushed the toilet and washed my hands and looked at my ugly mug in
the mirror, I’m awake enough to face the day.

• Have a good reason. Set something to do early in the morning that’s important. This reason will motivate you to get up. I like to write in the morning, so
that’s my reason. Also, when I’m done with that, I like to read all of your comments!

• Make waking up early a reward. Yes, it might seem at first that you’re forcing yourself to do something hard, but if you make it pleasurable, soon you
will look forward to waking up early. A good reward is to make a hot cup of coffee or tea and read a book. Other rewards might be a tasty treat for
breakfast (smoothies! yum!) or watching the sunrise, or meditating. Find something that’s pleasurable for you, and allow yourself to do it as part of your
morning routine.

Considering that we cannot easily change old habits, we should develop the most significant factor in establishing a new habit – persistence. Even though we can strive to practice new behavior continuously, occasionally, we can fail. Instead of waking up at a certain time, we can find ourselves pressing the snooze button on our alarms and stuck to the old habit. Fortunately, this phase is completely normal in establishing a new routine. It does not mean that we fail in creating the new practice; we just have a slight step back before we consolidate ourselves as a morning person. This step back should not discourage us. We just need time. If we remind ourselves that we were behaving in the old way for years, maybe decades, then we will be more patient with ourselves. For all of us, there are no shortcuts in consolidating new habits. We all use a method of trial and error until we succeed. Thus, taking a little pause from time to time cannot prevent us from our determination – to become a morning person.