Imagine being stuck deep inside a huge cave. For weeks you would have no communication with the outside world, no devices to tell you the time and no idea whether it's day or night. What would happen to your sleep? Would your body completely lose track of time? Would you be able to get a normal night’s sleep? Would you end up in a random pattern of naps and wakefulness?
Believe it or not, this exact experiment has been performed. People lived in a cave for weeks. And, even when they had no way of telling what time it was outside, people in this experiment still woke and slept in a roughly 24-hour cycle.
How can the body know what time it is without a clock or sunlight? You can thank your very own internal clock, known as the circadian rhythm.
How To Be A Morning Person in 2 Easy Steps
1. Understand Your Circadian Rhythm
Every living thing on the planet has an internal body clock. It is the result of evolving on a planet with a 24-hour day/night cycle. For humans, the official timekeeper is located deep in the brain and is called the suprachiasmatic nucleus. One very important role for this clock is to make you feel sleepy and awake at different times of the day.
The typical circadian rhythm makes you feel increasingly awake as the morning passes. But, between 1 and 3 in the afternoon, there is a feeling of fatigue and sleepiness that most people blame on lunch. Even if you didn’t eat lunch you’d feel this sleepiness because it’s due to your body clock’s signals. We don’t know why exactly the body does this, but it’s a common experience among all humans. As the afternoon and evening progress, your clock makes you feel very awake. This explains why you may feel tired just after lunch, and yet you typically feel quite awake after dinner. Thankfully, as the night approaches, the circadian rhythm makes us feel sleepy again, and it keeps us feeling sleepy until the next morning.
For some, the 24-hour cycle is a bit delayed compared to others. These people, deemed “night owls”, feel awake much later into the night than most and have the desire to sleep in. In contrast, “morning people” have an early clock, so they feel sleepy early in the night and wake up very early without difficulty.
2. How to Wake Up Early: Reset Your Internal Clock
Not a morning person? Me either. Unfortunately for night owls, we live in a world that caters to morning people. School and work typically start very early in the day, so it can be an advantage to have a body clock that is set a bit earlier.
So, if you struggle with waking up and are looking for tips on how to be a morning person, we've got you covered! Thankfully you can reprogram your internal body clock with some simply strategies. The key is the simple: proper timing of exposure to light.
By exposing yourself to lights from televisions, smartphones and laptops at night, your brain thinks it’s still daytime outside, so it tries to keep you up even later and delays your circadian rhythm. The key is to avoid bright lights for at least 30 minutes prior to bedtime. In addition, getting plenty of bright lights in the morning helps move your brain’s natural sleep and wake time earlier.
Learning to manipulate your internal clock can be an important part to waking and sleeping at times that are most convenient to you. Adjusting your internal clock to fit your schedule can make a big difference in your sleep and keep you from wondering how to wake up in the morning. Simple remember to unplug your devices at night to help your brain rest, but recharge in the morning with plenty of bright light. Your internal clock will thank you!
