Build Your Day Around Who You Are, Not Who You Wish You Were
Photo by Solving Healthcare on Unsplash
TL/DR:
Fighting your body clock works for short stretches, then your nature wins.
Building systems around who you are beats building them around who you wish you were.
You don't owe anyone a 6am journaling and meditation practice.
Not being chipper in the morning isn't a personal failing.
But there are ways (described below) to thrive as a night person in a morning person’s world.
The Whole Shebang:
Confession time: Waking up has been the hardest part of my day since kindergarten, or at least, that’s as far back as I can remember. I hate waking up. With a passion. And it’s not that I don’t want to BE wake. I quite like being awake. I love my life (most of the time).
But the waking up part, ugh. The actual worst. Every morning, same thing. Brutal.
The alarm goes off, and I snooze it. Max 3 times. I know the “last minute” that I can get up and still be on time for my first client session of the day.
And those snoozes? Delicious. I revel in them. In knowing it’s not quite time yet to wrench my bleary eyes into the world. (Or, to “regain consciousness” as my youngest once said when we woke him up and tried to talk to him before he was fully awake).
My husband, for his part, puts up with it, even though he’s 100% the type of person that either 1) wakes up without and alarm (What? This is real? Still seems fake to me.) or 2) if he does wake up to an alarm, just, gets out of bed as soon as the alarm goes off.
But that? It’s not me.
When I was in high school, my mom used to wake me up before she left for work, I would (apparently) have a full conversation with her and then go back to sleep so hard I would still sleep through the alarm and then get mad at her for “not waking me up” because I’d completely forgotten it happened.
My sister, I believe, still harbors a grudge for all the times I made her late for school (because I was 5 years older and drove us both).
Why not just turn myself into a morning person?
Because that’s not really a sustainable option. I’m a night person, though and through. It was only in the last few years that I learned about “delayed sleep phase disorder” which I, and apparently lots of other folks with ADHD, have. This means I don’t get tired until much later than the average bear (actually, I have no idea what a bear’s bedtime is).
In fact, my natural sleep cycle (which I tried to reacquaint myself with when I took a sabbatical a few years back) is about 2-3am to 11am. (Not super-surprising in that my dad, after he retired, returned to his natural sleep cycle of going to bed around 3am and waking up at noon. And that’s my sister’s natural rhythm as well.)
Can I get up early?
I mean sure, if I have to. There’ve been times, of course, that I’ve been able to push against my nature for short stints. There were the 6 months in high school that I left the house at 5am to go to the gym, shower and get to school on time(ish). There was the bagel shop job when I was 19 with the 6am start. And the job shortly after college with the 7am start. And there was a year I spent in South Korea and Taiwan, during COVID, where we worked a vampire schedule, sleeping at 4pm and waking at midnight. And then, of course, the early years of parenthood, because kids don’t give a damn about your body clock.
I was able to do it…for a little while. But my nature always interfered in the end. And I didn’t get enough sleep. As a night owl, just because I was getting up early, didn’t necessarily mean I was able to get to sleep earlier.
But, just like a lot of things in life, it’s much, much easier, and, therefore, much more sustainable in the long run, to build systems around WHO YOU ARE, instead of WHO YOU WISH YOU WERE.
Yes, humans are malleable. But some things, like body clocks, are built into our biology.
And you’re gonna be happier if, whatever it is, you work with it, work around it, and/or make it work for you.
So, if you’re like me, a night person, living in a world built for morning people, what can you do to make it easier on yourself? Because, unfortunately, going to live on a planet built for night people isn’t an option. Yet.
Manage Your Energy Levels
We all have points in the day when our minds are clearest, more focused. If you are a night owl, that’s not going to be the early morning. Learn when those times are for you. (i.e., When do you lag? When do you yawn?) As much as is possible, try to structure your day and work so that you are able to match your tasks to your energy levels.
And if you are lagging, figure out what you need to do to get back in the focus zone. Take a walk, take a nap, eat some protein, caffeinate. And if you can’t, then work on your more brainless, rote, tasks when your energy levels are low.
Find a Job with the Right Hours
Try to find a job with flexible hours (obviously this is a privileged place to be in, I know) or freelance so you can work on your own time.
If that’s not possible, try to find a job with night time hours (bartender, chef, etc.).
Lobby Your Boss for Flexibility
Let your boss know what schedule works best for you, and that she’ll get better work out of you if she lets you manage your hours accordingly.
If you aren’t good with people in the morning, try to avoid early morning meetings.
If you’re the most creative between 10pm and midnight, ask your boss to let you do your thinking work then.
Minimize Your Morning Routine
The above tips are all well and good if you can swing it. But sometimes, you’re in the situation you’re in, and there’s not a lot you can do to change it. The job market is, let’s just say, not exactly hot right now.
So if you have to get up early to be at work at a certain time, then do whatever you can to minimize your morning routine.
Shower at night. (I can count on 1 hand the number of times I’ve taken a shower in the morning. There’s just no way that, in that sleep/wake state, after I’ve hit snooze the first time, that I can convince my brain that a shower is a better idea than snoozing for 10 more (delicious) minutes.
Pack your lunch at night.
Make bulk pack-and-go breakfasts (breakfast burritos, muffins, homemade granola bars, overnight oatmeal).
Pick your outfit at night.
Minimize, or forgo, your make-up routine. (One of the many reasons I’ve never worn makeup, and very likely the reason I’ve seen others do their makeup on the train, or at a red light.)
(My morning routine takes 5-7 minutes (after the snoozing!). Get up, get dressed, brush teeth, put on earrings, out the door or to my desk)
Ditch the shame
Don’t worry that you can’t do what all those self-help books say and get up early with intention. You don’t need to journal, meditate, lift weights and engage in quiet contemplation with your coffee before 8am. I promise. Refuse to feel that your inability to be chipper in the morning is a personal failing. Heck, you may even want to gloat, as there are plenty of studies out there saying that night owls may in fact might be smarter than the rest!
Is there something about yourself that you’ve been pushing against, trying to change, instead of embracing and learning how to work with it? What is it?
(And what if you stopped resisting and leaned into making it work for you??)
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