It isn’t easy to wake up early. And if you’re not a morning person? That’s a whole other level of misery.
Now, let me put this out there first: If you’re a night owl, you’re not being lazy. Some of us just aren’t hardwired to be at our peak in the a.m. I’ll admit I need at least three cups of coffee in the morning for my brain to come online. And you’ll never catch me at the gym before work.
So what makes someone an early bird (often called a morning lark) vs. a night owl? And how can a true night person become an up-and-at-’em type? It’s key info to know, living in our morning-oriented world. If you ever have to rise early for school, kids or your job, you may need to nudge your clock forward.
To find out how to do just that, I consulted M. Taruj Ali, MD, a sleep medicine specialist in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and chief medical officer of SOMOS Health Precision Sleep & Metabolic Care, and Brian Gunia, PhD, a professor at Johns Hopkins Carey Business School in Baltimore whose research shattered a huge myth about night people. Read on to learn what determines if you’re a lark or an owl, how your type changes over time, and how to become a morning person—without chugging a vat of espresso every day.
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Why are some people morning people, while others are night owls?
We all have a chronotype, which is a fancy name for your body’s preference for when you sleep and when you wake, says Dr. Ali. Your chronotype reflects your circadian body clock—the roughly 24-hour internal clock that regulates when your body wakes up and sleeps—as well as body temperature and digestion.
Basically, your genes and circadian body clock control whether you hit your stride early or later in the day. “Being a night owl is mostly determined by biology,” Dr. Ali says. “Our brain has a master clock in the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), which is a tiny cluster of cells in the hypothalamus that controls the daily rhythm of sleep and wake cycles.”
Thanks to this internal clock, you have a daily rhythm all your own. “People’s energy naturally ebbs and flows in reliable 24-hour cycles, or circadian processes,” Gunia says. Some of us have peak energy and mental alertness during the morning hours, then drag later in the day. (Um, 4 p.m. slump, anyone?) Others are pretty fatigued in the morning but slowly ramp up their energy and alertness throughout the day, hitting their peak in the evening.
While many of us have a clear preference toward morningness or eveningness, some of us could go either way.
Can you actually change your natural inclination to be a night owl?
We’re not going to sugarcoat it: You can, but it’s no easy task. Since your chronotype is partly genetic and largely controlled by your brain, you’ll have some hoops to jump through. “People can, and do, change their chronotype somewhat,” Gunia says, but he only recommends attempting it for a concrete reason. For example, maybe you need to be up early to take care of a child, or you have a new job that requires you to clock in earlier.
Just keep in mind that you’re most likely to succeed if you follow your new schedule strictly. Translation: No following the rules during the week and then sleeping until noon and partying half the night on the weekends. (Sorry!)
So how do you become a morning person?
To shift your schedule, you need to reset your body’s circadian clock. How the heck do you do that? We’re so glad you asked. With a few simple strategies and a bit of patience, you can learn to seize the day.
Get early light
The single most powerful lever for changing your chronotype is light exposure. “Light that hits the retina is the strongest signal that resets the circadian clock,” Dr. Ali says. Morning light, in particular, shifts our body clock forward. And it’s most likely to make a difference within an hour after waking, according to the CDC’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).
Your best bet is to head outside and soak up natural sunlight first thing in the morning. If you can’t get under the rays within an hour of waking up, there’s a workaround: Sitting near an artificial “light box” with full-spectrum light can also do the trick, Dr. Ali says. The light from one of these special devices hits your retina and triggers your SCN to move up your circadian clock. Look for a light-therapy box that emits 10,000 lux, and sit by it for 10 to 15 minutes after waking (say, sip your coffee by its energizing glow). You can find the devices on Amazon; some even double as alarm clocks.
Microdose melatonin
Melatonin is a natural hormone produced by the brain that helps our bodies know when to zonk out and when to rise. Taking a melatonin supplement—aka a synthetic form of it—can help you fall asleep when you want. To nudge your bedtime (and body clock) earlier, try taking melatonin two hours before bedtime. Stick with a small dose, though, so it doesn’t backfire and throw your system completely off. Dr. Ali recommends 1 to 3 milligrams.
Ban blue light at night
Being around any bright light in the evening will push back your clock, making it tougher to doze off at your chosen bedtime and feel alive in the morning. So it’s a good idea to dim your overheads and avoid devices for at least an hour or two before bed.
Why? Your circadian clock is most sensitive to exposure to light—particularly blue light or full spectrum, which contains blue—at night, when the sun isn’t shining. Even lamplight can mess with your circadian rhythms and make you more of a night owl, so go as dim as you can stand it, particularly close to bedtime.
Overall, it’s a good idea to skip the screens an hour before bedtime. If you have to read on a device or check a quick email, rock blue-light-blocking glasses or use a blue-light filter on your phone. (Yes, they do actually do something!)
Work out … but not too close to bedtime
Getting regular exercise is crucial to sleeping well and being able to get going in the morning. A 2023 study review published in the Cureus Journal of Medical Science found that consistent, moderate exercise may improve sleep quality and cut down on difficulty falling asleep at night. The researchers attributed these benefits to the fact that exercise regulates circadian rhythms and causes your body to release stress-relieving endorphins, as well as neurotransmitters like serotonin that make us more relaxed.
Just one caveat: Don’t do a strenuous session (taking a HIIT class, going for a run) in the evening, because it can make it harder to fall asleep, per this study. That’s likely because intense nighttime exercise pushes back your circadian clock, delaying when your brain releases melatonin (which helps you sleep).
Set an earlier sleep and wake time, and try to stick to it
By being consistent about when you hit the hay and greet the day, you’ll reinforce your earlier-bird schedule. But the transition to becoming a morning lark may be a bit rocky, and that’s perfectly OK. If you happen to have a late night, don’t worry! Just keep on rising on time every day. (It’s hard, we know!)
So what should you do if you fall off the wagon?
First, don’t beat yourself up: It happens. You have a few late nights out. You sleep in. You’re battling jet lag and wide awake at 2 a.m. Here’s Dr. Ali’s advice: First, focus on waking up on time. Don’t worry about your bedtime yet. Just set that early alarm and hop (or drag yourself) out of bed at your desired time.
Then, after a few days of early rising, gradually—over a period of several days—start moving up your bedtime in 30-minute increments. So, for instance, the first night you would move it from midnight to 11:30 p.m.; the next night you aim for 11 p.m., and so on. Before you know it, you should be back on track.
Is it really better to be a morning person instead of a night owl?
The truth is, there’s no best chronotype, and there are pros and cons to both modes. For instance, morning people have better working memories, according to a 2021 study published in Sleep Advances. Meanwhile, “some studies suggest that evening people have slightly greater cognitive ability,” Gunia says. On the other hand, early birds may have a real-life edge, he notes. Night owls get stuck taking their SATs and giving work PowerPoints at 9 a.m., when they’re at a disadvantage.
Health-wise, larks seem to have an advantage. Evening people carry a higher risk for type 2 diabetes, obesity, high cholesterol and heart disease. But Dr. Ali points out that “most of it is because of the mismatch between night owls’ internal clock biology and the morning-oriented world.” Research suggests these higher risks are mostly due to lifestyle habits that are more common in night owls, like eating poorly (and often late), drinking more and not sleeping regularly.
But the real problem with trying to flip your chronotype is that it usually doesn’t fully work—evening people still feel somewhat fatigued in the morning, according to Gunia. So rather than fighting your biology, he says, it might make more sense to structure your workflow to match your tendency. Case in point: Gunia is a morning person and does his most challenging to-do’s, like writing, first thing in the morning. It’s a sound strategy, according to a 2021 study in Nature Communications, which found larks performed better at learning and attention tasks when they knocked them off in the morning, while night owls did better in the evening.
And, weirdly enough, our chronotype may also shape when we are our best selves, according to research co-authored by Gunia and published in Psychological Science. The study found we are more ethical during our peak alertness times. While previous research had suggested that most people are more ethical in the morning—known as “the morning morality effect”—Gunia and his colleagues found this is only accurate for morning people. “Evening people seem to be most ethical in the evening,” he says. “This suggests that people may want to make ethical decisions whenever in the day they feel most alert.”
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At Reader’s Digest, we’re committed to producing high-quality content by writers with expertise and experience in their field in consultation with relevant, qualified experts. We rely on reputable primary sources, including government and professional organizations and academic institutions as well as our writers’ personal experiences where appropriate. For this piece on how to become a morning person, Lisa Lombardi tapped her experience as a longtime journalist who frequently writes about relationships, health and lifestyle for Reader’s Digest. We verify all facts and data, back them with credible sourcing and revisit them over time to ensure they remain accurate and up to date. Read more about our team, our contributors and our editorial policies.
Sources:
- M. Taruj Ali, MD, sleep medicine specialist in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and co-founder and chief medical officer of SOMOS Health Precision Sleep & Metabolic Care; email interview, Sept. 8, 2026
- Brian Gunia, PhD, professor at Johns Hopkins Carey Business School in Baltimore; email interview, Sept. 8, 2026
- Sleep Advances: “Chronotype as self-regulation: morning preference is associated with better working memory strategy independent of sleep”
- Sleep: “Genetic Basis of Chronotype in Humans: Insights from Three Landmark GWAS”
- Nature Communications: “Cognitive functions and underlying parameters of human brain physiology are associated with chronotype”
- The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH): “Effects of Light on Circadian Rhythms”
- Cureus Journal of Medical Science: “The Effect of Physical Activity on Sleep Quality and Sleep Disorder: A Systematic Review”
- Psychological Science: “The Morality of Larks and Owls: Unethical Behavior Depends on Chronotype as Well as Time of Day”
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