I wish I was a morning person. Really, I do. I wish that when I got to work, my coworkers didn’t say “Are you okay? What’s wrong?” I wish I woke up with a smile on my face with enough time to run, eat breakfast, get ready, and maybe even blog with a cup of tea. Instead, I push snooze until the last possible minute. My husband, who is The Most Chipper Morning Person Ever, is not allowed to speak to me until I have been up for at least 20 minutes.
I’m a night owl. I would be perfectly content to stay up late every night and sleep in every morning. Sometimes I feel like I get my best work – cleaning, blogging, etc. – done at night. This doesn’t work when you have to be up by a certain time, and the man with whom you share your bed is ready to go to sleep by 9:30pm.
I have several bird and owl knick-knacks around my house {see above photo}. The night owl in me is always at war with the early bird in my husband (and, you know, the American tradition of getting to work by a decent time). I guess what I’m trying to figure out is if the whole morning person vs. night person thing is something one is born with, or if it can be changed. I mean, obviously, I can get up early, I just don’t like it.
Here are my questions for you this (YAWN) morning…
Comments on Early Bird vs. Night Owl
From Ashley:
I have always been a night owl. I hate the morning and literally wake up and have ten minutes to get ready and leave. Luckily I’m a nanny and can wear sweats and a pony tail. And that’s funny about your husband because mine knows I’m grumpy unless I can wake up by myself and not immediately start being bombarded with questions until I’m ready. And I have been known to deep clean the house late at night lol
From Mary:
I’ve never conquered my night-owl-ism. As a baby, I was a night owl. I have gotten up early for years because of work. It has never been easy. My husband is a night owl but can’t live it out. He is always battling fatigue and the desire to stay up. Naps are his solution. The people who tout rising early are the ones who love it and to whom it comes easily. I’m firmly convinced of it.
From SimplySarahJ:
I was going to write a blog post on this exact same thing. My husband is the exact same way, too! Wakes up whistling at like 5 am, goes running, reads, and watches TV before I’m even OUT of bed. It’s sickening. SO, I’m not being much help as to how to change to a morning person, but I would totally love to do it, if you find some miraculous way. I’m afraid it’s just going to be about discipline, though, like most things in life are that are worth having.
From Mary Ellen:
Hi Lauren! I totally understand where you are coming from, but my solution was to have a career (waitressing, if you call that a career, lol) where I didn’t have to get up early in the morning! My hubby is also one of those people that jumps right out of bed at 5 am and plays with the dog, reads while in the bathtub for 30 minutes and and whistles as he heads out the door for work. He doesn’t hesitate to wake me up with all his noise, but luckily I am not really crabby in the morning, I just go back to sleep for an hour or so after he leaves! We do have a problem in the evening though. I like to stay up late and he is ready for bed at 9:30. He gets his feelings hurt if I don’t come to bed with him. :) Even though he is snoring in 5 minutes! I have been known to sneak back out of bed and stay up for several more hours!
From Meg O.:
My husband and I are exactly the same way! I am the night owl and he is the early bird. I’m like you – always being productive late at night. Unfortunately, since I require 7-8 hours of sleep (I teach…school starts at 7:20!), being a night owl will only happen on the weekends and/or the summer.
From Grace:
I have always thought of myself as a morning person but lately I have realize that I am actually an eight hours person. When I get enough sleep I am up and running around but right now I am in law school with finals around the corner and I can’t sleep! Waking up feels like the worst thing that ever happened. I also find that if I wake up to an alarm I am usually grumpy even if I got my eight hours.
From Erin B. Inspired:
I HATE getting up in the mornings, except on weekends. It’s like the foreboding work day just makes me want to stay in bed all day but when I know I don’t have to hurry and can stay in my jammies for an extra hour or so, I don’t mind waking up early.
From Marlena:
I have tried to make myself an early bird. I mean I for real tried…gave that whole body clock resetting a real effort. My conclusion: you are either one or the other. Carl is the chipper freak of nature too. I’m just not. Even if I got ten hours of sleep my body is not leased waking up early.
From Meghan Hargrove:
Lauren!
Oh my word. I’m in the middle. Sometimes (not lately, though) I’ve been known to be up and chipper and vigorously exercise early (EARLY) in the morning…and others, meaning the majority of my life, I’d rather stay up late than wake up early. My problem is I don’t like sleeping in! AT.ALL. Only when I’m sick! How backwards is that? Who doesn’t like sleeping in? ME!!! I’d say both Matt & I are primarily night people. However, I think back when we were young(er) and about all the crazy weekend/band roadtrips we took and went without sleep (willingly) for a couple days on end. HOW did we do that? It wasn’t THAT long ago?! Oh well! I love birds so, whether it’s the early bird or the night owl, we’re good. P.S. I do wish I was more of an early riser!
From Melissa:
I recently switched to early-bird-mode. Like, start work at 6 am early. It takes awhile to get used to, but I remind myself of a few things:
1. It’s really awesome to have the afternoon off
2. Go to bed at a reasonable hour. No, seriously. Ignore your friends making fun of you and just go to bed because it’s 9 pm already!
Just be realistic and get everything possible done the night before. Shower, lunch made, etc. Sometimes I say, “I’ll just shower in the morning” and then my hair is pulled up in a tight pony-tail because I ran out of time (aka: today.)
But before you know it, you’ll be waking up at 7 am on your days off…
From San:
Ok, this is interesting…. I consider myself a morning person, in general. But everything before 7 a.m. is too early, even for me.
I start work at 7 a.m. so I have to be up at 5:40 a.m. every morning and I definitely don’t like it. You can get used to it, but I doubt that you’ll ever be able to like it.
From Sara:
I don’t know where I really fall here now. My man and I are night owls in general. A couple months ago, I was working part time in retail where I would be stuck after close until almost midnight and then I would chill out at home until I pass out around 2am.
When I started my new job, I started going to bed by 11 and waking up 630-7am. It was rough, but I loved the half hour drive with much less traffic and being able to call it a day by 4. I loved having more daytime before the sunset whether it was a workday or not. Last week, for some reason, I felt not myself anymore. So I started “sleeping in” again until maybe 8 and it’s been nice. The traffic though? Not so much.
Maybe it’s just a matter of learning how to embrace the morning better. The avoiding horrible traffic was the best way for me to do that, and just knowing I still had hours of sun after work.
From sarahdotcom:
I’m such a night owl. I can easily stay up all night, and without an alarm clock I’ll sleep all day. But with that said, on weekdays I wake up at 6:15am to work out.
Here’s how I do it:
Plan a work out. Get my shoes and work out clothes ready the night before. And most importantly, get out of bed when the alarm clock goes off.
Snooze is for suckers. I never feel any more ready to get out of bed 5, 10, 15 minutes post-alarm, so why waste that time? And the laying the clothes and shoes out thing is key, because it makes me feel like a tool on the days I sleep in and have to sheepishly put them away.
I don’t think I’ll ever be the type to rise and shine with the birds, but once I’m up, I truly do love having some time to myself in the morning, and getting something accomplished while most are still sleeping feels great.
Good luck miss!!!
From Manderz:
I’m a night owl and my husband is an early bird. Luckily he’s able to sleep through anything, so he leaves my bedside lamp on and I just come up to bed whenever I’m ready. Getting up for work was always a struggle though.
From Lauren:
I’m a night owl too! As a teacher I have to attempt to be an early bird though! But it’s tough. Most mornings I snooze the alarm way too many times and get to work just in time. I need to work on that.
From Kathleen:
I’m a morning person and I think I always have been, but it’s only gotten worse as I get older. I can get so much done by early afternoon, and then I start to crash. After 7 p.m. I’m just done.
My husband stays up super late and has a really difficult time waking up. Logistically speaking it’s not a problem; he tucks me in at night and he’s too deeply sleeping in the morning to wake up when I get up. The hard part is that he wants all my attention and affection at night when I’ve got nothing, and I want him in the morning when he’s dead to the world.
From Jill:
If you learn how to switch, please let me know. I’ve got a husband I need to change…ha, ha, ha.
From Sarah:
here In japan, people don’t freaking sleep. My boyfriend goes to bed at 1 and wakes up at 5 all hyped up and pumping his fists rockyesque. Grrr. Us Africans don’t work that way. (although recently none of us are sleeping. Had two quakes last night. Have had 1034 since the big one last month. Damn)
I’m an early bird who was working a job that ended really late and I HATED it. I would be awake hours before I had to work and would feel
super restless the whole morning and then be exhausted at work, watching the clock and wishing I were home.
Now I’m back in a normal 8-6 routine and I love it.
I think it’s innate. You’re just born that way. That being said, you can change your routine with enough time.
From Nora:
Hi. I’m a night owl.
Especially lately. I’ve not been going to bed until close to midnight. Which means that 6 am alarm? SUPER ANNOYING.
My co-workers know better than to approach my desk before 10 am… everything with me is better than email until after 10am.
I’m trying to learn to be an early bird but it’s just not me. The only thing I like is getting up on the weekends, getting a lot done, and then taking a nap :)
From Virginia:
I used to be a night owl! But then I got a little older and outgrew it to an extent. My body’s always down to sleep though. For me, it’s a mental thing. I think perspective and attitude can be changed. It may be hard at first, but I think you can do it and it’ll just eventually become a part of you.
From MelissaOklahoma:
My husband is definitely a night owl and I’m less so. On “school nights” I’m ready for bed by 10 (11 at the latest) and he won’t get to bed till midnight or 1am.
I wouldn’t say I’m exactly an early bird because I do sleep in a lot. However, this morning, on my day off I was wide awake by 8am.
We don’t really compromise. I try to coax him to come to bed early, but he’d just toss and turn. I go to bed earlier and he comes to bed later. It works out okay most of the time.
From Ivy:
I’m a hardcore night owl. My usual bedtime is around 2 in the morning. Thankfully I don’t have to get up early in the morning. I have never been a morning person.
From Amy:
I’m an early bird and have always been since I was little. I’m up a little after 6 every day to go to the gym, I’m most productive in the morning, start fading midafternoon, and it’s a wild night if I’m up past 10. I’ve tried in the past to be a night owl because it’s not too cool in college to be falling asleep an hour after going to a party, but I always felt like crap and I just cannot sleep past 8:00, even on weekends. Luckily Pete’s an early bird too, although he’s a little crabbier in the mornings than I am.
From Erin Lacy:
I am completely incapable of waking up early, it’s not even in my DNA makeup. OR SO I THOUGHT. I was the person who had an excuse for every work day of the year as to why I was late (even when I was the boss and it wasn’t neccesary). I would hit snooze until it physically made me ill to think about how fast I would have to shower and dress to get out of the house on time-something I never really was able to master and still look cute…cuz I always looked cute ;). THEN I HAD A BABY. We brought Aiden home and I thought I might die. You might be laughing, and I’m even smiling as I write this but I’m not joking. Each time that precious baby woke up as a newborn in the middle of the night or at 4 or 5 as his morning wake up hour I thought I was going to die. I obviously didn’t die, as a matter of fact I got so used to seeing his face and LOVING it that I started to like being woken up at dark o’ thirty for my hungry baby. All of this to say, 22 months later I’m a morning person. What man could not do, my baby boy was able to accomplish ha ha. I am on time in the morning everywhere we go because we get up “early” and I’m ready to go. I also am sleepy, like ridiculosly sleepy at 10p.m. which makes me feel like a loser but I’m ok with it ;). The night owl in me still wins some nights and I force myself to go to bed around 2:30 am and Aiden still wakes up between 7 and 8 and there is basically nothing to do but neglect my child and as I ponder said neglect for 2-3 minutes Aiden is singing, “mama, maaama, my maaama” over the monitor and with a smile my tired, worn out, selfish self gets up with a huge smile on my face to go great my precious boy!
From Katherine:
I’m a total night owl as well :) It’s just a bad habit and i hate working up early….would rather work late. Love the images you chose are representations, by the way!
From sarah marie p:
I’m totally a night owl — and I’m married to another night owl. This may seem like a good thing since we don’t have to compromise … but it also means that we’ll both stay up until midnight, 1 or 2 a.m. every night Maybe if one of us was an early bird we could get to bed at a decent hour! Oh, and your bird and owl knickknacks are adorable!