Any tips for other night owls that helped you be able to make the shift to mornings? I'm being forced awake around 7 am now but can't fall asleep before 2-3 am. I just seem to get all my productive energy after about 10pm.
I’m a lifelong night owl in my late 30s and I recently made this transition. Here’s what worked for me, YMMV.
- I read “Why we sleep”. Part of my issue was motivation. Learning more about the process of sleep and our growing understanding of how lack of sleep affects the brain later in life is eye opening.
- Around the same time, I started a morning mindfulness habit. This was really helpful for seeing how my experience shifted over time.
- I thought deeply about why I like staying up late. Realized some of this was a pattern I started as a kid, when the only time I could have alone was after everyone had gone to bed. Being a night owl helped me survive childhood. It wasn’t clear to me that any of the old reasons still applied, and there were negative effects that were impacting my life.
- I stopped consuming caffeine past 9AM. I didn’t realize how much this was affecting me, but it turns out I’m pretty sensitive to caffeine and anything later in the day will keep me awake.
- Stop using screens at least an hour before bed. This was hard until I found new outlets. Audio books and regular books have worked well for this.
- I made a simple goal combo while making the change: try to go to bed earlier than the night before, or at least no later. Try to be earlier at least once/week. Ended up trending earlier at least several days each week.
- Followed advice from the Huberman Lab sleep toolkit [0]
I shifted from an average 3AM bedtime to a 9:30 wind down and 10:30 bedtime over about 3 months, and I’ve stuck with it for about 4 months now, with very little temptation to go back because of how much better I feel. I’ve found that morning solitude can feel just as good, and that the habits I’ve built in the pursuit of shifting this schedule are paying dividends in other aspects of my life.
I had never really embraced the idea of a consistent morning routine, and when I stopped resisting that, everything else got easier.
And I’ve gotten to take photos of more sunrises which is a nice side benefit.
Try to spend fifteen minutes outside getting sunlight close to when you wake up. I’ve read that the day’s first sunlight helps trigger the body’s hormonal response resetting the internal circadian clock. Anecdotally, I like it! And even if it’s placebo, getting a little sun to start the day feels nice.
I do. I used to get more done from 10pm to 2 am than 8 hours
Part of it might have been the complexity of the work I was doing at the time that benefitted from thinking during the day and minimizing keyboard time.
