My most recent blog was on studies showing a correlation between students who wake up early and those who get good grades. You would think that whether you are a morning person or a night person just came with how you were born. Some people just naturally spring out of bed all chipper and ready to go at 7 in the morning, whereas other people can stay wide awake late into the night and sleep most of the day away. I was surprised by how easily I get up for my 8 AM’s now and even on the days when I don’t have class until late afternoon, my body wakes me up around the same time and I start my day productively. “There’s a genetic component to your circadian clock. But for many people, behavioral changes make a big difference,” says New York City psychiatrist Colette Haward, MD. So in other words, if you consider yourself to be a night owl but want to become an early bird (maybe to boost your grades and become more productive with your day), all it takes is a few weeks to form better habits and get on a beneficial sleep schedule. Not only could this help boost your grades but early birds have also been proven to be happier, healthier people. We as humans were designed to be awake when the sun is out and asleep when it’s dark out. So let’s see how making the change to an early riser can be done. 

For starters, so long as you do not have a sleep disorder, it is important to try and stay on the same schedule whether it is during the week or the weekend. Sleeping in an extra couple hours (or five…) throws off your internal clock and the schedule you’ve been working on all week. Our bodies regulate our sleep-wake cycle by use of the hormones cortisol and melatonin that help wake you up in the morning and calm you down at night.

 

Following the psychiatrist’s advice, it is important to test and find out exactly how many hours of sleep you need a night. While many of us in college don’t have time to spend a week testing out when we naturally go to sleep and wake up without an alarm clock, Haward says you should try out getting a strict 7-8 hours of sleep a night by making yourself go to bed say around 11:30 and waking up at 7:30. Since most of us don’t get near to 7 hours of sleep a night, it is important to give this schedule time to make up for lost sleep before you start feeling the benefits. I personally don’t see this as very practical especially because procrastinating is one of the things I am best at and staying up until 2 AM to finish homework has never been a problem for me. However, I still find it key to not let myself sleep in and keep on the same schedule for waking up so that it does not throw my whole day off.

Others suggest to just gradually start waking up 15-30 minutes earlier than usual, adjust to this for the next few days, and then follow the pattern of cutting back another 15 minutes until you reach your goal wakeup time.

 

Always key in every article I have read, though, is to get to bed earlier. This is a no-brainer. Turn off electronics an hour before going to bed instead of staying up reloading your twitter timeline and checking Instagram until nothing new comes up for a solid 5 minutes… that’s when you know it’s late. If you really feel like you will not be tired going to bed earlier, read a book instead and you might find yourself asleep quicker than you expected.

 

Put your alarm clock far from your bed so that you have to get up to turn it off. DON’T HIT SNOOZE. Hitting snooze and falling back asleep for another few minutes only leaves you more drowsy when you actually get up. Turn on the lights and walk away from your bed so that you can’t even rationalize falling back asleep. 

Reward yourself with something like the accomplished feeling after an early morning workout or a nice, big breakfast to start your day right. 

So there are some simple and not so easy steps to becoming a morning person. Even if you think you’re forever destined to be a night owl, you’d be surprised at what a decent sleep schedule and some healthy habits can do for you. Also, in the long run it looks like your grades will be better and you’ll be a happier, healthier person overall.