“Not everyone is hard-wired to wake up at 6 a.m. every day, but that doesn’t mean you can’t change your habits.“
The following written content by Christine Byrne
You already know whether or not you’re a morning person. Some people are able to get out of bed at 6 a.m. and get a few things done before the world gears up for the day. Other people, for whatever reason, just aren’t fully alert until later hours of the morning. You likely fall into the latter category — if you’re already a morning person, why are you reading this?! — and maybe you’ve wondered if it’s possible to train yourself not to hit the snooze button until the last possible moment.
We reached out to Ioannis Koutsourelakis, a physician, sleep researcher, and the associate medical director at Goodpath, for more information on why some people easily wake up early while others struggle. Turns out, it’s not all in your head. Here’s what you need to know about what it means to be a morning person (or not), whether or not it’s something you should aim for and how to gently shift your wake-up habits if you want to.
Your sleep chronotype determines when you feel most awake.
Not being a morning person is nothing to feel guilty about. In fact, it’s not entirely up to you. “You may have noticed that there are certain times of the day when you feel more alert or more tired,” Koutsourelakis says. “That is because you have a personal circadian rhythm called your chronotype.” Circadian rhythm is essentially an internal 24-hour clock that tells your body when it’s time to sleep and when it’s time to be awake. It’s driven in part by light and darkness, but it also varies depending on your chronotype, which is genetically determined. “There are two sleep chronotypes: early birds and night owls. It means people function differently throughout the day,” he explains. The chronotypes exist on a spectrum, so while some people fall at the extreme end of one or the other, most fall somewhere in between. People close to the middle often have no preference for morning or evening hours.
Yes, you can become more of a morning person if you want to.
You can’t actually change your chronotype. But, as with other genetic traits, your lifestyle and behaviors can alter how your chronotype expresses itself. Just because you’re hard-wired to be a night owl, doesn’t mean you can’t train yourself to wake up earlier. Read more from Food Network.
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