I Stopped Being a Night Owl
Why and how I converted
For most of my adult life I considered myself a night owl, unwillingly compelled to live in a world designed to impose its heaviest burdens on my weakest hours. Mornings were for stumbling groggily out of bed and going through the motions, the aura of lethargy stubbornly trailing me as I rushed out the door. Mornings felt packed with expectations that I was ill-equipped to meet.
Night, however, seemed like an open expanse of peace and freedom where nobody would demand anything. The moonlight hours granted the space to move slowly without judgement, to introvert fully, and to read and reflect without interruption. Admittedly, that frequently meant ignoring my body’s physical urge for sleep, but the heart-tug toward spiritual renewal usually won out.
And then something changed
Maybe, as I entered my forties, my authentic need for sleep became more undeniable. Maybe also, I began to realize that–somewhere along the way–the mental and spiritual refreshment I had been seeking during the wee hours had lost its potency. Years of insufficient sleep had drained away the reserves I used to tap into for my nighttime second wind. I realized that shallow scrolling on my phone had replaced reading books or other reflective content. Though I was still living under the illusion that I needed the late-night hours for my necessary introvert “me time,” they had long since ceased to renew my spirit.
Finding the missing piece
Learning more about my body’s circadian rhythm was an “a-ha” moment for me. According to Dr. Satchin Panda, in his book “The Circadian Code,” (I recommend this book if you want to go deeper on this topic!) it is very rare to have a genetic preference for being a night owl. Most night owls fall into that pattern by becoming habitually disconnected from the natural rhythm we are designed to be anchored by.
Our body’s natural rhythms are controlled by light exposure, as well as the timing of our mealtimes and the amount of movement we engage in every day. As Dr Panda states: “The circadian clock is the internal timing system that interacts with the timing of light and food to produce our daily rhythms. Our job is to maintain the clock so we can live with optimal health.”
It turns out that going outside in the sunlight first thing in the morning isn’t just some inspirational trope that would be “nice to do”. Our bodies authentically need us to view unfiltered sunlight (obviously, not looking directly at the sun) first thing in the morning to suppress melatonin (the sleep hormone) and cue cortisol (the alertness hormone). Our bodies also use this early light exposure to set a timer for melatonin to reemerge roughly 14-16 hours later. So, morning sunlight controls both wakefulness and the ability to sleep later that night.
Even on a cloudy day, indoor lighting just doesn’t compare to the sun’s light waves. We need to be outside for 10-20 minutes, depending on how bright the morning is, within 30-60 minutes of waking, for this essential anchor-point to take hold.
We also need to be extremely consistent. The circadian rhythm is not a flexible system. The rhythms of night and day operate on a perpetual 24-hour clock, and the circadian rhythm’s job is to keep us living in alignment with that. She hates it when we switch up our bedtimes and wake times! Doing that regularly is a sure way to feel like we are always experiencing jetlag.
At first blush, taking the time to greet the sun every morning might seem inconvenient. The demands the world places on mornings are very real. But slogging through the day with impaired energy and suffering insomnia at night when our melatonin doesn’t kick in properly is also pretty inconvenient, as I well know!
How it began
A few months ago, I decided to experiment with picking a regular wake-up time and sticking to it, weekends included. I chose 6:45 am, because that was about when sunrise was at that time. Until then, my bedtime had been hovering between 1-2 am (and sometimes later!) depending on the night, and wake-up was between 7:30 am on weekdays and *as late as possible* on weekends (as I attempted to “catch up” on sleep from the deficit of the previous week), so I can tell you that the 6:45 am wake-up call was not automatically an easy adjustment! I suffered through a few days of transition, while my body learned to balance my new waking hour with a corresponding earlier bedtime.
After the first 3-4 days of catching morning sunlight around 7 am, I began getting reliably tired enough between 9-11 pm to fall asleep. (Due to life and teenagers, bedtime is usually at the tail end of that range, but I try to practice a gradual wind-down during those hours. More on that in a future post!)
How it’s going
I have not yet missed a single day of my 6:45 wake-up time, and that is mostly because I legitimately don’t want to. I often wake up before my alarm has a chance to sound. I get out of bed, freshen up, and head out to the back deck with my glass of water and the dog. While she does her thing, I am allowed to just sit and be. I drink my water and listen to the birds. Some days, I only have time for 10 or 15 minutes, but when I’m able, I sit outside for an hour or more and read or journal and take advantage of that needed introvert-time. (Morning introvert-time is on another level if you can manage it! Who knew that it helps to be awake!)
I still experience fatigue after a long and busy day, but I no longer drag myself through my mornings from the moment I wake up. Mornings are now dependably my most energetic time. I find myself wishing they could be longer!
Early weekend mornings were probably the biggest revelation: I had no idea how uplifting it is to wake up early on a Saturday morning and spend extra time outside with just the dog, the birds and the woodsy critters, always eager to start their days. (You’ll never see any of them dragging around!) My husband and I now often go out early on Saturday mornings to the farmer’s market, or the park, to get a walk in before the Texas summer’s heat turns oppressive. We go out, have an adventure, and return, all by the time we would have just been rolling out of bed a few months ago.
Now that I’ve experienced living with a morning sunlight wake-up call, I definitely won’t be going back to my artificial and dysregulated sleeping patterns of the past. I’ve been truly, deeply converted.
