3 Scientific Bio-Hacks To Become a Morning Person
Here is how night owls can learn to get up early, motivated, and energized.
“The Early Bird Gets The Worm,” says an old English proverb.
In his book sequel “The Miracle Morning,” Hal Elrod claims that if you want to experience explosive growth and accelerate your success, you must start your day early.
Some people can get up at 4 am (the morning larks), while others struggle to get up even at 8 am (the night owls — like me). But as I wrote in one of my recent articles, this difference is programmed into our DNA from birth.
In other words, if you were born a “night owl,” it seems impossible to become a “morning lark” later in life. Those born to swim cannot fly.
But the good news: scientists discovered a few bio-hacks that can cheat your nocturnal chronotype. These hacks will help you go to bed early, wake up refreshed, motivated, and empowered for the day.
I organized these hacks into three groups: light, diet, and exercise.
1. Avoid Blue Light in the Evening
Light is the source of life on Earth.
But light is also the most important regulator of our inner clock.
Our eyes have special cells called photosensitive ganglion cells. Their purpose is to tell our brain when it’s daytime and nighttime — thus regulating our daily rhythm. These cells are particularly sensitive to blue light. Bright blue light makes us feel awake and energized.
So if you want to go to bed earlier, simply avoid blue light in the evening.
But this is easier said than done. Smartphone screens, street lights, and even your night lamp produce enough blue light making it very hard to fall asleep.
So here is the trick that helped me fall asleep quicker.
Three hours before bedtime, I wear special glasses that block 98% of incoming blue light. The result was fantastic. I fall asleep earlier and wake up well-rested. I have a better mood, higher energy levels during the day, more motivation, sharper focus, and improved productivity.
2. Carbs in the Morning, Proteins in the Evening.
If blocking blue light helps you fall asleep faster, the opposite is true as well.
Bright blue light in the morning will wake you up faster. As soon as I wake up, I open all curtains, turn on all lights, and even use a daylight lamp next to me on my breakfast table.
Talking about breakfast: Diet is another crucial factor for your sleep-wake cycle.
Our inner clock reacts differently to different foods.
The amount of insulin is naturally the highest in the morning, which helps you convert carbs into energy. Energy warms your body and makes you feel awake. Therefore, eating a carbohydrate-rich meal in the morning tells your body to wake up.
The opposite is true in the evening. To fall asleep, our bodies need to cool themselves down. You can help this by avoiding carbs in the evening. Therefore, sleep scientists recommend protein-rich food in the evening.
So remember this: carbs in the morning, proteins in the evening.
But this section about the morning diet wouldn’t be complete without the most popular morning drug: coffee. 6 out of 10 Americans drink coffee every day. But the thing about caffeine: it remains active in our bodies far longer than we may think.
If you drink coffee at 7 am, you will have 18% of the caffeine remaining in your system by 11 pm. The traces of caffeine in the evening can interfere with your sleep cycle.
I live in Vienna, Austria. Coffee is a part of our heritage, so I can’t imagine skipping my double espresso in the morning. So in order not to compromise my cultural habits, I decided to avoid coffee in the afternoon and replace it with physical activity.
So let’s talk about the third bio-hack: exercise.
3. Cardio: Morning Pain with a Lot to Gain
As a night owl, I feel like I was hit by a truck as I wake up early in the morning.
I keep pressing the snooze button over and over again. I typically need a half-hour or an hour to get fully awake.
One piece of advice I often read is taking a cold shower.
But the thought of standing under cold water early in the morning makes me cringe and shiver. I could never bring myself to do anything that cruel to myself. So no icy showers for me, please.
But before we talk about a more humane way of waking up, let’s check what cold showers do to our bodies. It will help us understand how our bodies wake up.
The cold water running down our skin puts us in a state of shock. Our body reacts to this by protecting our inner organs from overcooling. The blood rushes from the skin towards our heart, liver, and brain to keep them warm. The effect of warming our internal organs along with the release of adrenaline awakens our bodies and minds.
But we can achieve a similar effect using a less cruel method: cardio.
Our muscles produce most of our body’s heat. Muscles are our body’s carb furnaces playing a more important role in thermal regulation than fat. By engaging our muscles, we turn carbs into heat, thus warming our bodies. This heat helps our bodies wake up faster.
A light jog, a yoga session, or some stretching exercise are incredibly effective ways to wake up your body and mind naturally without putting yourself into a state of shock by ice-cold water.
So here is the skinny: 20 minutes of cardio will wake you up faster in the morning.
The opposite is also true for the evening.
A warm shower before bedtime can help you relax and fall asleep easier.
When you take a warm shower, the blood rushes to your skin to increase perspiration in an attempt to cool you down. This reaction forces the blood away from the inner organs, cooling them down. As your inner organs cool, your body falls asleep quicker.
In a Nutshell
Being a night owl in a modern world is tough.
The world wakes up early because 40% of the world’s population are morning larks. I am expected to be in my office by 8:00 am. My kids have to be in school by 7:45 am.
As a night owl, it’s tough to live in a world dominated by larks.
The stereotype of an owl is a lazy and undisciplined person, unable to stick to a “proper” schedule. Unfortunately, most people are not aware of the real reasons — we are owls not because we chose to be them. This is how nature made us. It’s in our DNA.
Luckily, the research into chronobiology is slowly being heard.
The state of California forbids schools to start earlier than 8:30 am to accommodate for different chronotypes among children.
But most of the world still lives by early schedules.
So to accommodate your life to an early schedule, here are the tricks:
- Light: Expose yourself to bright light in the morning but avoid all blue light in the evening.
- Diet: Eat carbs to wake up but avoid carbs in the evening.
- Exercise: Do cardio after waking up and take warm showers before bedtime.
Disclaimer: I am not a certified medical professional, so consult your physician before attempting any of the advice you read.
