Waking up earlier isn’t for everyone, despite the Silicon Valley techies who prescribe ‘sleep hacking’ and subsisting on five hours per night.
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‘Our sleep needs are biologically determined,’ says Pradeep Bollu, M.D., a board-certified sleep specialist and neurologist with MU Health Care in the US. ‘In order to feel refreshed in the morning, we need to pay off our sleep debt i.e., the biological sleep requirement every night.’ Most adults require about 7 to 8 hours of shuteye per a 24-hour period. Less than 5% need less than 6 hours, and another 5% should actually get more than 8 hours.
In other words, in order to wake up earlier, you’ll have to go to bed earlier too. Short-changing yourself on sleep can affect your judgment, mood, ability to learn, and in the long run can lead to health problems like obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease, according to Harvard Medical School Division of Sleep Medicine. But if you’re ready to skip your fave late-night shows and join the morning bird crowd, there’s a lot you can do to make the rise and grind easier. Here’s where to start:
Keep a consistent sleep schedule
The key to becoming a morning person is going to bed and waking up at relatively the same time every day — even weekends. ‘This will help our brain understand when to go to sleep and wake up,’ Dr. Bollu says. ‘By doing this, we are letting our internal or circadian clock run during specific hours during the daytime and letting it be inactive during the nighttime.’ Try gradually moving your schedule back 15 or so minutes at a time to help your body to adjust.
Related: 4 unusual sleeping patterns you may not have heard of
