How to wake up earlier? See ways to improve the relationship with the alarm clock

I’m a night owl, but during the week I have to get up early for my morning commute to work. What can I do to become a morning person?

Good sleep is difficult to achieve. According to the US federal government, more than a third of adults routinely lack a healthy amount of sleep, defined as a minimum of 7 hours a night. If your nighttime tendencies are ruining your sleep, there are steps you can take to be a more morning person.

The first thing to keep in mind is that your bedtime is, to some extent, influenced by your genetics. Everyone has a personal biological rhythm, or chronotype, that determines the ideal time to fall asleep and wake up. Studies show that there are many genes that cause some people to be morning people, some people to be night owls and others to be somewhere in between.

A study published in the journal Nature Communications, for example, looked at the sleep habits of nearly 700,000 people and identified a large number of genes that play a role in whether a person is morning or not. On average, those carrying the most genetic variants for “morning” tended to fall asleep and wake up about half an hour earlier than those carrying the fewest.

“Your circadian rhythm tendencies are genetic and can’t really be changed,” said Ilene M. Rosen, a sleep physician and associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, referring to the 24-hour circadian cycles that define when we wake up and fall asleep. “But the good news is that we can give our internal clocks some clues that influence a little.”

Just because you’re currently functioning as a night owl doesn’t mean you’re destined to be a night owl. It’s possible that you stay awake beyond your ideal bedtime because of distractions.

Many people who can naturally fall asleep around 10pm, for example, end up staying up until midnight to work, surf the web, or watch movies. This makes waking up in the morning more difficult. But you can become a more morning person by focusing on your routine at that time.

First, decide what time you would like to wake up. So get out of bed at exactly that time every day – no matter how tired you are – and get some sunlight. Sunlight tells your brain it’s time to wake up. Studies have found that morning light can jumpstart your circadian rhythm, which will help your body adjust to an earlier schedule.

As your body gets used to starting the day earlier, you will naturally also start falling asleep earlier at night. Ideally, you should go out in the morning and exercise or do some activity that makes you alert. “A brisk walk outside in the morning is a good way to start telling your internal clock that it’s time to do this,” Rosen said.

If it’s dark outside by the time you plan to wake up, or if you can’t get out, consider trying light therapy, which involves turning on a special lamp for about 30 minutes each morning as you get ready for the day. In this scenario, a regular table lamp or ceiling light will not work. You must use a light therapy lamp because it is designed to mimic outside light.

While exposure to sunlight first thing in the morning is critical, you should also try to get plenty of sunlight during the day as this will help shift your watch in the right direction. So, at night, try to minimize your exposure to artificial light. It’s okay to use dim lights, lamps, and reading lights, but you should try to avoid exposure to devices that emit blue light — computers, fluorescent lights, television screens, smartphones — two to three hours before you’re supposed to be. I would like to sleep.

Studies have shown that exposure to blue light at night can disrupt sleep and suppress melatonin, the hormone that helps regulate sleep. Researchers have found that blue light can disrupt your circadian clock, making it harder for you to become a morning person.

Another thing that can help is taking a very low dose of melatonin, which is found in most drug stores, said Sabra Abbott, assistant professor of neurology in sleep medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago. Abbott recommends taking no more than 0.5 milligram about an hour before bed. It’s important to keep the dose low so it leaves your system quickly.

“We’re trying to provide a little signal that it’s early evening,” Abbott said. “But we want her out of her system by the end of the night, because the melatonin at the end of the night can set her clock back and make the problem worse.”

Translated by Luiz Roberto M. Gonçalves