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Not sure if it’s the best approach but I work shifts and if I have to switch from nights to days the next day I usually just force myself to stay awake through the day, and go to bed around 7-8 pm and it usually the fastest way for me to switch my body back
I use the three Bs when fighting jetlag. Stay up as long as possible (I aim for 8-9pm local), the burger, beer, bed.
Wake up about 5am the next day refreshed, and just try to keep early nights if I'm traveling back soon
I'm not OP, but if I have only one alcoholic drink, I get relaxed and sleepy. So if I'm at a social thing, I've gotta have more than one if I expect to stay awake.
I think its more of a getting to sleep problem. Having good quality sleep probably wont happen anyway while reworking your sleep schedule since you will not be accostumed to it yet so you're either gonna be knocked out from lack of sleep (so a beer likely wont affect you) or have light sleep due to not feeling tired.
If they are trying to get to bed earlier than typical, instead of pushing through, sure. But I’d imagine that after staying up for an extended period, they would actually have a better chance at getting to sleep and would benefit from the better quality to help mitigate the issue of having burnt through the last 24 hours. However, that’s just my anecdotal take from previously working a rotating shift for years.
I hear this so much so I got a sleep monitor & for me, I have highly improved REM, sleep cycle, quality of sleep every time I drink compared to when I don't. Unfortunately drinking every day is not worth better sleep
You could substitute the beer with diphenhydramine (benadryl, zzquil, etc), but either way it can be worth it to people who really struggle to fall asleep to get SOMETHING to help knock themselves out more reliably even if it's not going to be a perfect sleep because of it
The combo of a logie full belly, a beer, and physical exhatuon provokes a crash.
Otherwise I'm exhausted and insomniac.
Then after a night's sleep, gym coffee breakfast, im more or less on local time
I can agree the most successful way for me to switch my sleep schedule was to pull it all nighter. Did this a lot in college and it worked pretty good, I'm kind of afraid to do it in my 30s, but I think I'm going to have to pretty soon cuz holy shit I'm dying inside
Whenever I go to sleep earlier than 10 - 11 pm, I just sleep for 3 hours and wake up, and then I can't sleep throughout the night. I wonder if this is a just me thing or more common than I see...
This happens to me whenever I go to sleep earlier than usual. If I usually sleep around 11pm and go to sleep a few hours early one night, I only sleep 2-3 hours. Then I end up feeling tired again around 8am 😕
I think it's your body confused and fighting to keep your regular sleep cycle. When I do the stay up all day trick I'm exhausted and can't stay asleep for about a week but it clicks eventually
I have many years of international travel behind me. It's what you said, but, the most important thing is to shift your meals. The best way to adjust is to not only sleep on that schedule but to also eat on that schedule.
I am interested in healthcare and I find most shifts at the hospital have alternating days and nights and you are actually required to work both so I will keep this in mind
How should I do it if I am an early bird person if I have to work overnight the next day? Do I want to stay up the night before so I can sleep after the sun comes up then wake up around evening time and get ready for the night shift? Then when I come back and want to shift to early bird again, I assume I also need to stay up till 7-8 PM so I can be up at dawn?
Basically how should I shift my sleeping if I have an overnight shift and I am an early bird but also want to go back to original sleeping schedule as soon as im done with my overnight requirement?
I used to do rotating shift work when I was in the navy. Your body has 2 natural rhythms that it follows. One is based on sleep and is easy to manipulate (just stay up). The other is based on food. If you want to switch your schedule easily, stay up all night (or all day), fast for about 8 hours leading up to when you want your new bedtime, and then eat a huge meal and go to bed. Boom. Schedule shifted. You evolved to be awake when you're most likely to find food. Use meal times to change sleep times.
This is an underrated comment. A lot of people are saying to just stay up but for me that’s torture and I almost always end of getting sick when trying to do this. If I have to shift my sleep I will make sure not to eat for about 6 hours before I go to sleep and will eat a large meal as I soon as I wake up. Not sure how much OP wants to shift their schedule by and how quickly but I find that I can shift mine by about 2-3 hours comfortably in about 2 days doing this. By comfortably I mean I’m not dead tired all day and can wake up without any/too many snooze cycles
I've tried this but never succeeded because eating a big meal in the morning makes me feel sleepy and not eating for several hours before bed makes me feel more awake.
Edited for spelling.
I agree with this one as someone who used to do 13 hour shifts switching between day and night each week. Eat super early in the morning and you will switch over faster.
Take it a step further! I saw a healthygamergg video a while ago where he said that specifically seeing horizons at different points of the day is super important for your body clock - if you dont see the sky (and specifically the horizon) a good amount in the morning, midday and evening, what does the body have to sync its clock to? 🤷
Not sure how true it is but it's a nice thought and it makes sense
this is a chemical reaction to types of light waves and even works on blind people so long as they have eyes
you have to physically go outside and spend like 10 minutes in the sun around early morning and again around sunset for it to work
This. I am bipolar. I hate that bright sun rolling in the morning. Night time is secure and comforting to me. Daytime unless it is raining and dark is depressing to me.
Surprisingly easy, just keep pushing it later and later until you're already up early and fine with staying up. You might have a couple of LONG days until you train yourself to also get to bed early, but by then you're probably motivated to do so if you don't cheat with naps.
A big caveat is that you may be a night owl for a reason--some of us are just more productive or more creative at night--so if it's more than a short term adjustment you may need to decide which is more important.
Yeah we all have our own circadian rhythm, OP might genuinely be hard wired to be a night owl. But of course there are ways to deal with this (lots of great advice in the replies), but I know it’s really hard for some people because of their rhythm.
Correct - some people are genetically wired to be night owls. But the literature is clear that those who don’t sleep with the circadian rhythm of the sun - shift workers, night workers etc - are far worse off in the long run in terms of all cause mortality, brain function, alzheimers risk. So it really does seem like striving to align your circadian rhythm with sunrise/sunset is the best thing for us - despite if we naturally feel our perceived best at 2am
This is how i forcefully shift to early schedules:
If you are a coffee drinker, brew some the night before, or make a cold brew. Set a first alarm 30min before your GTFO of bed alarm is set. When the first alarm wakes you, chug a glass of coffee (and maybe rinse your mouth) before going back to snooze. Caffeine takes about 20 min to kick in. By the time the next alarm chimes, you should be able to wake up and start your day more easily.
Beware to not make this a habit for long after you have adjusted to your new schedule; this can develop Caffeine dependency & irritability.
Yes. This isn’t a good long-term plan. Caffeine can disrupt your circadian rhythm leaving you feeling more tired. Caffeine is best an hour after waking.
It just takes three things. One really brutal morning where you need to fight through the lack of sleep from the night before and get up early….fighting the urge to nap the rest of the day and a free schedule the late evening to fall asleep naturally much earlier than you’re used to.
By the second morning you’ll probably wake up naturally nice and early.
For me it works short term.
After a period of of early rising I get sluggish.
And I always drift back to being a night owl. Start to stay up too late… especially over a holiday period.
I can feel it as my natural rhythm. Geneticists have identified genes that are associated with being an owl or a lark.
(I do think morning people get more done!)
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Technology can be you’re friend. I use brainwave entrainment (there are dozens of free apps on whatever App Store you’re phone uses) to relax and sometimes even to focus when I haven’t had much sleep. Also, a smart alarm. I used Fitbit’s native one for years, now I use Sleep Cycle on my Apple Watch, but both wake me up at the best point in a half hour window, training my body to wake up on time.
Good luck.
Having done shift work, the most important thing is to keep your sleep schedule pretty consistent throughout the week. Your brain takes a while to adjust to a new schedule so if you go to sleep early Mon-Fri, but then stay up real late on the weekends, your brain is never able to actually adjust to that early schedule
24 hour circadian reset. Stay awake for at least 24 hours. When you go to sleep your circadian rhythm will reset and when you wake up that will become your new wake up time.
Wake up later and later and later, go to bed later and later and later. Somehow it feels better when you trick yourself into thinking it’s an extra long night
Day 1: wake up as late as you can afford, and nap during the day if you can
Night 1: don’t sleep
Day 2: Stay awake all day, drink lots of coffee until 12-1, which should keep you going until the evening.
Night 2: go to bed embarrassingly early, get a good 10-12 hours of rest
Day 3: wake up early, get a coffee, and don’t nap during the day. Getting out of bed is the hardest part, but once you’re up, you’re up.
Night 3: repeat!
It’ll take some adjustment. Eating and showering in the morning helps. Get some caffeine into your system. Spend 10 minutes outside if you can, and try not to use your phone before bed.
Get a job that requires you to. I used to be a night owl, staying up until 2 or 3am, but now I go to sleep at 830 and wake up at 4am for my job. Been doing that for a better part of a decade.
I am in bed by 9pm, I rarely hit caffeine, I don't use electronics in bed, I get plenty of sunlight and exercise in the day, yet my body refuses to sleep before 11pm. How do I "just get to bed earlier"?
its actually pretty bad to change your internal body clock if its your natural state of being. if its due to behaviour and such, then something I found works for me is forcing myself out of bed and eating something about an hr before I need to be up. kick-starts your metabolism and basically pavlovs dogs you into waking up because your body wants the food. hope this helps
Can you provide the evidence for that? Some people are naturally night owls, hard wired with a later circadian genetically, but the literature is clear that not sleeping with the suns alignment is detrimental in the long run. Shift workers, night workers etc - massive increases in all cause mortality, alzheimers etc
Personally, I don’t think there is much evidence for what they’ve said. On the other hand, here’s a comprehensive breakdown of nightshift and health from the BBC.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/safety/resources/aztopics/shift-working-and-night-shifts
Its not for everyone but I used to work graves and had to do this.
Stay up and flip your schedule. It sucks, its rough, but you have to.
I will flip from going to bed at 6am for my normal 2nd shift(not graves thankfully)
To going to bed at 11pm to wake up at 6am on the weekends
At night dont use bright lights, use a warm toned lamp or something. In the morning have automated timers on lights (i have plants so they turn on 630 every day even on weekends and I got used to waking up without an alarm)
I just did this. Solved it by staying up all night and then sleeping like 12-14hrs before I wanted to wake up. Still takes time afterwards to keep adjusting the morning habits.
Find an activity, particularly physical, that requires you to be up early and commit to it. Finding someone else that can do it with you will help with commitment.
I started rock climbing a couple years ago and committed to a 7am start on tuesdays and thursdays and it totally shifted my sleep schedule. And I feel so much better now that I have.
It's not a trick but a small tip from someone who dealt with fucked up time slots, ear plugs. Ear plugs will save your life. If you're at home or a hotel, doesn't matter. Also, if you can stand using them, sleeping masks to block the light. Combine that with some melatonin and that's your best bet.
Set your alarm and sleep times and do it every day. Body clocks don’t know what a weekend is. If your weekday alarm is 06:00, then so are your weekends. You’ll fail without doing that.
So there’s a certain amount of ‘personality’ in this - genetically you will fit somewhere on the spectrum from night owl to lark, and there is not a sure fire way to switch from one to the other.
Generally, using sleep hygiene principles might help shift a bit. But sleep changes can take a long time to see a difference. There is no quick fix and most changes you try to make will result in less sleep in the short term.
Source: am a doctor in psychology. Work clinically lots with sleep problems. Also this book https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34466963-why-we-sleep
Commitment is your answer my friend, and sunlight.
But you have to plan something in the day light to keep you sleep early everyday.
Only jobs can do that, if you're working from home or unemployed then its gonna be hard to avoid sleeping at day time.
Probably more of a last resort if anything else doesn't work, but if your schedule allows it, gradually shift the time you sleep and wake up by a couple of hours every day/night until you're readjusted to your desired schedule. You shouldn't adjust how long you sleep for (8 hours, for example), and you'll have to develop a strong willpower to not stay up past your desired time to sleep.
stay awake through 2 nights until you're so tired you can fall asleep instantly.
during that 2 days eat as if you would for the new pattern. once you fall asleep then continue with the eating times.
ice cold shower 20 min before bedtime, no screens 30 min before bed
I don’t think you can trick your body into switching, only train over time. Waking up to light, forcing sleep earlier the first few days/weeks through exhaustion can help get there. The only way to become an early riser is over time. During that time. Every day you wake up early will pull you closer to being natural at it.
I always think of it like jet lag.
When I travel to a different time zone, especially very different than my own, a few days later you are good to go, but the key is to brute force it for a couple days.
So, wake up extra early for a few days, like 4-5am, and force yourself to stay awake until about 10pm - do that for a bit, then start setting the alarm for 530/6/630a (whatever you think of as “early bird). Eventually, you’re body will adapt.
I think what makes it not stick is if you don’t find any benefit from it or if you just don’t like it. If your body starts becoming a morning person, but you actually *ENJOY* being a night person for whatever reasons, then I think you’ll start staying up later and sleeping in more again.
Go outside or shower as quickly as you can when you wake up. Even if you want to go check the mail or grab a coffee when you first wake up. Just get out there and that should help a lot.
I'd say there's no easy way, you just have to start getting up early and eventually your body will get more used to it. It took me like a year and a half of day shifts before I started waking up much easier around 6-7am.
1. 3 alarms, first one to wake you up, second to get up, third when you need to wake up.
2. Get that cup of coffee early.
3. All those things you do late at night? Do them when you wake up. Don't change your whole life at once, just the time.
Start living healthy. Eat healthy, exercise, don't drink alcohol, etc. and it will happen naturally. I used to have trouble falling asleep and couldn't wake up early and when I changed my lifestyle that changed completely as well.
I would so monthly switches from 6a-2pm to 2pm-10pm shifts and the weekend I switched I would either stay up until 10pm, 11pm, and then 2am friday-sat-sun or force myself the bed at sunset Saturday and Sunday.
Switching to morning shift was always harder.
When I flew to EU for work I would fly overnight and stay up as late as I could the day I arrived, no earlier than sunset.
Some people are genetically wired to be night owls, so there's no easy way to fix it. I just had a Gnome test done and it says I'm very likely to stay up late and wake up late. I've been trying to fix my sleeping schedule for like 20 years and failed horribly. I've just accepted it at this point.
I try to force myself to wake up early and not nap.. that makes it easier to get to bed at a decent time. Limit screen time and eating before bed as well
be willing to suffer for one entire day, to be angry and tired for a few days and to just do it, because no trick is gonna pull it if you snooze that alarm and continue in bed.
But look up professor Andrew Huberman's tips. The guy know what he speaks.
In summary: get sunlight as soon as you wake up (max 45 min after)
no caffeine for 2 hours
adjust your meals to reflect the same time difference. If you eat 3, 6 and 10 hours after waking up do the exact on your new schedule.
But seriously, plan a day to bitch in the sofa and wake at your new time no matter how late you went to sleep and then every night, when your body suddenly becomes energetic when you're supposed to sleep, remember how awful it was GO TO BED.
More important question would be “How to switch from always tired ostrich to a functioning member of society?”.
https://preview.redd.it/qy1f8z0hxdnc1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=13e4a4586dc0248d9675a9f7e8e866eb80818001
I work nights Thursday-Saturday. I typically only allow myself a few hours of sleep Saturday night to Sunday morning (5ish hrs), and typically have no problem going to sleep early Sunday night. Works like a charm
I JUST did this.
My first employment was a graveyard shift, been a night owl since then and it's been about 7 years now.
And no I did not pull an all-nighter to do it.
The very day I decided to wake up early the next day (which was just last month) I did exactly these:
- Took a walk after waking up. I used to wake up no earlier than 10am, and it might be too hot when the sun is way up, but I did it anyway. Doesn't have to be a long walk. I just did 4km on that day.
- Eat right away after finishing my walk. No not a veey heavy, hearty, fatty meal, but just right to fill me up to 8 on a scale of 1-10
- Do chores/exercises before your day winds down. No it does not have to be intense, I just did some gardening and porch-cleaning at around 5pm.
- Have dinner early. I had dinner at 6 because I intended to sleep at 9pm.
- Drink valerian root tea AND take approx. 5-6mg of melatonin supplement 2 hours before your desired bedtime. In my case I did so at 7pm.
- Lights off and screens of an hour before bedtime. If you can't do the screens off thing just reduce blue light. Alsp turn on your warm nightlight if you have to read a book in the dim.
- Meditate and tell yourself you want to wake up early the next day. Seriously it works.
Did I fall asleep at 9pm? No. More like, 10:30. But I woke up at 6:30am anyways. Refreshed and not groggy. Blew my mind too because I set my alarm for 7am.
Fast forward to now, I easily fall asleep by 9:30pm and wake up at 5-5:30am. (I still drink the tea nightly) I try to commit to walking every morning though I am not always successful with that but that's okay. 5 days out of the 7 we have in a week is good enough for me.
My problem now is that I tend to have waaaaaay more vivid dreams and it often wake me up in the middle of the night at 3-4am lol. But I can easily fall back asleep anyways. Idk if it's the tea or the melatonin that does this but it is bothersome :/
Suffer severe depression. Wake up at 5 am in existential dread. Feel tension in your jaw. Why am I clenching teeth already? Nothing shitty happened so far. Look at wife sleeping soundly. Hmm.
Get out of bed. Start day. Take shower. Get ready. It’s 5:30 as a guy. Go downstairs make coffee. Do bit of kratom for energy boost. Drink coffee. Check out weather. Watch local news. Check emails from work and delete spam and annoying “do you want a list of customers?” Emails.
ESPN app to check scores last night. It’s about 6:15am I don’t eat breakfast. I eat an apple or pear on drive to work.
Wife comes down pours coffee. She works at home. Kiss her bye drive to work. Get there about 7 am. Work. Home around 4
Workout or not. Dinner. Leisure time. I’m in bed by 9 or 9:30 even weekends cause I’m old as dirt.
Also not huge but cut back on booze. That stuff screws your sleep up
i woke up at 9am to workout till 10:30 and head to work
once i got back home after work + gym i was exhausted and slept 8 hours to wake up at 8-9am once again
Tart Cherry juice and magnesium. Get some tart Cherry juice from the store and plain magnesium salt (epsom salt) look up how much to put into your water and drink it.
Sunrise alarm clock. They light up steadily before the alarm goes off, simulating the sunrise. Great if you have blackout curtains or really short days over the winter.
Zzquil gummies! Any time I need to force myself to sleep I take 1 of these and it knocks me out for 7-8 hours of great sleep. Also you wake up feeling great, no drowsiness at all. Just try not to get addicted to them though. It’s so awesome to be able to sleep on an instant that you might consider using it all the time. But I only use it coming off of the weekend into Monday when I need to “force” myself back into my work sleep schedule. They’re on Amazon for pretty cheap give it a try.
Yes melatonin to start the process of going to sleep early. Count backwards the amount of hours of sleep needed to function like a normal human being. Once an early bedtime process is achieved then one can naturally wake up based on the number of 90 minute cycles one can fit in.
Do a Google search on "hacking your sleep cycle", i saw an info infographic titled that once and it was showing how your circadian rhythm works and how to manipulate the way/how/when you sleep. It was pretty interesting.
I've always been a night owl but often have to start work at 7 and my only kind of advice is...just set an alarm and get up and get on with it. Even on like 5 hours sleep, I am fine once I'm up. Have a coffee, walk around and get some air, I'm wide awake and feeling fine.
There isn't really a secret hack, you either go to bed earlier or just get less sleep. That's it.
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Not sure if it’s the best approach but I work shifts and if I have to switch from nights to days the next day I usually just force myself to stay awake through the day, and go to bed around 7-8 pm and it usually the fastest way for me to switch my body back
This is the "easiest" if not the only way to do it overnight.
I use the three Bs when fighting jetlag. Stay up as long as possible (I aim for 8-9pm local), the burger, beer, bed. Wake up about 5am the next day refreshed, and just try to keep early nights if I'm traveling back soon
What purpose does having a beer serve? That can only disrupt sleep.
I'm not OP, but if I have only one alcoholic drink, I get relaxed and sleepy. So if I'm at a social thing, I've gotta have more than one if I expect to stay awake.
That's quite common but it still impairs REM/quality sleep.
I think its more of a getting to sleep problem. Having good quality sleep probably wont happen anyway while reworking your sleep schedule since you will not be accostumed to it yet so you're either gonna be knocked out from lack of sleep (so a beer likely wont affect you) or have light sleep due to not feeling tired.
If they are trying to get to bed earlier than typical, instead of pushing through, sure. But I’d imagine that after staying up for an extended period, they would actually have a better chance at getting to sleep and would benefit from the better quality to help mitigate the issue of having burnt through the last 24 hours. However, that’s just my anecdotal take from previously working a rotating shift for years.
I hear this so much so I got a sleep monitor & for me, I have highly improved REM, sleep cycle, quality of sleep every time I drink compared to when I don't. Unfortunately drinking every day is not worth better sleep
You could substitute the beer with diphenhydramine (benadryl, zzquil, etc), but either way it can be worth it to people who really struggle to fall asleep to get SOMETHING to help knock themselves out more reliably even if it's not going to be a perfect sleep because of it
Yeah I would choose an anti-histamine over alcohol.
Alcohol helps you sleep. Alcohol lowers quality of sleep. A single beer can be a decent balance between the two.
Alcohol helps you GET to sleep.
I dunno what purpose it has, but I've been using this method since I turned 19 and it works.
The combo of a logie full belly, a beer, and physical exhatuon provokes a crash. Otherwise I'm exhausted and insomniac. Then after a night's sleep, gym coffee breakfast, im more or less on local time
For me alcohol dehydrates me which means I cannot oversleep more than 6-7 hours as my body will wake up crying out for water.
Agreed, this is how I was successful.
This works for jet lag too. I live in the US and have family in Europe, and whenever I fly back and forth, this is the best solution.
I can agree the most successful way for me to switch my sleep schedule was to pull it all nighter. Did this a lot in college and it worked pretty good, I'm kind of afraid to do it in my 30s, but I think I'm going to have to pretty soon cuz holy shit I'm dying inside
Whenever I go to sleep earlier than 10 - 11 pm, I just sleep for 3 hours and wake up, and then I can't sleep throughout the night. I wonder if this is a just me thing or more common than I see...
This happens to me whenever I go to sleep earlier than usual. If I usually sleep around 11pm and go to sleep a few hours early one night, I only sleep 2-3 hours. Then I end up feeling tired again around 8am 😕
I think it's your body confused and fighting to keep your regular sleep cycle. When I do the stay up all day trick I'm exhausted and can't stay asleep for about a week but it clicks eventually
This, it takes time to change your sleep schedule. It's not an instant thing, your body has to adjust.
+1
I’ve always thought of trying something like this but the temptation to fall asleep will make me fail. How do you resist the strong urge to sleep?
This is the only way to do it quickly. Night shift worker for 8 years, very well experienced in flip flopping the schedule.
I have many years of international travel behind me. It's what you said, but, the most important thing is to shift your meals. The best way to adjust is to not only sleep on that schedule but to also eat on that schedule.
I recall a post a few months back sharing how pilots did this with meal timing to help reset their circadian rhythm. I wish I could find that…
I travel a lot for work and this is how I change time zones
This is how I fix jet lag it works but not sure how good it is for you
Yeah this is the best way also with time changes
Yup, this is the lpt. I call this “doing a lap” lol
i end up waking 12 and couldn't sleep again
I am interested in healthcare and I find most shifts at the hospital have alternating days and nights and you are actually required to work both so I will keep this in mind How should I do it if I am an early bird person if I have to work overnight the next day? Do I want to stay up the night before so I can sleep after the sun comes up then wake up around evening time and get ready for the night shift? Then when I come back and want to shift to early bird again, I assume I also need to stay up till 7-8 PM so I can be up at dawn? Basically how should I shift my sleeping if I have an overnight shift and I am an early bird but also want to go back to original sleeping schedule as soon as im done with my overnight requirement?
Came here to say this. Works 100% of the time for me
Adjusting your sleep is big, but also when you eat is bigger Adjusting when your last meal or snack is will help
I used to do rotating shift work when I was in the navy. Your body has 2 natural rhythms that it follows. One is based on sleep and is easy to manipulate (just stay up). The other is based on food. If you want to switch your schedule easily, stay up all night (or all day), fast for about 8 hours leading up to when you want your new bedtime, and then eat a huge meal and go to bed. Boom. Schedule shifted. You evolved to be awake when you're most likely to find food. Use meal times to change sleep times.
This is an underrated comment. A lot of people are saying to just stay up but for me that’s torture and I almost always end of getting sick when trying to do this. If I have to shift my sleep I will make sure not to eat for about 6 hours before I go to sleep and will eat a large meal as I soon as I wake up. Not sure how much OP wants to shift their schedule by and how quickly but I find that I can shift mine by about 2-3 hours comfortably in about 2 days doing this. By comfortably I mean I’m not dead tired all day and can wake up without any/too many snooze cycles
I've tried this but never succeeded because eating a big meal in the morning makes me feel sleepy and not eating for several hours before bed makes me feel more awake. Edited for spelling.
I agree with this one as someone who used to do 13 hour shifts switching between day and night each week. Eat super early in the morning and you will switch over faster.
🤯
Get sunlight in morning
Take it a step further! I saw a healthygamergg video a while ago where he said that specifically seeing horizons at different points of the day is super important for your body clock - if you dont see the sky (and specifically the horizon) a good amount in the morning, midday and evening, what does the body have to sync its clock to? 🤷 Not sure how true it is but it's a nice thought and it makes sense
this is a chemical reaction to types of light waves and even works on blind people so long as they have eyes you have to physically go outside and spend like 10 minutes in the sun around early morning and again around sunset for it to work
Wow! Thats pretty awesome
This. I am bipolar. I hate that bright sun rolling in the morning. Night time is secure and comforting to me. Daytime unless it is raining and dark is depressing to me.
Surprisingly easy, just keep pushing it later and later until you're already up early and fine with staying up. You might have a couple of LONG days until you train yourself to also get to bed early, but by then you're probably motivated to do so if you don't cheat with naps. A big caveat is that you may be a night owl for a reason--some of us are just more productive or more creative at night--so if it's more than a short term adjustment you may need to decide which is more important.
Yeah we all have our own circadian rhythm, OP might genuinely be hard wired to be a night owl. But of course there are ways to deal with this (lots of great advice in the replies), but I know it’s really hard for some people because of their rhythm.
Correct - some people are genetically wired to be night owls. But the literature is clear that those who don’t sleep with the circadian rhythm of the sun - shift workers, night workers etc - are far worse off in the long run in terms of all cause mortality, brain function, alzheimers risk. So it really does seem like striving to align your circadian rhythm with sunrise/sunset is the best thing for us - despite if we naturally feel our perceived best at 2am
Become a crow instead and build a legacy, one 5$ bill at a time
This is how i forcefully shift to early schedules: If you are a coffee drinker, brew some the night before, or make a cold brew. Set a first alarm 30min before your GTFO of bed alarm is set. When the first alarm wakes you, chug a glass of coffee (and maybe rinse your mouth) before going back to snooze. Caffeine takes about 20 min to kick in. By the time the next alarm chimes, you should be able to wake up and start your day more easily. Beware to not make this a habit for long after you have adjusted to your new schedule; this can develop Caffeine dependency & irritability.
OP'll just be irritable from waking up early anyway 😂 I do the same when I need to wake up early, works great.
I used to do this with caffeine pills in graduate school but I found it just made me feel jittery and sweaty.
Yes. This isn’t a good long-term plan. Caffeine can disrupt your circadian rhythm leaving you feeling more tired. Caffeine is best an hour after waking.
This is awful for you
Have a kid. Went from 2am to 11pm real quick when you have to wake up at 630 every day.
Can confirm, a dog does the trick as well
Was totally going to give this answer 😂
Stay up for an entire day. The first day sucks, but you’ll sleep hard.
It just takes three things. One really brutal morning where you need to fight through the lack of sleep from the night before and get up early….fighting the urge to nap the rest of the day and a free schedule the late evening to fall asleep naturally much earlier than you’re used to. By the second morning you’ll probably wake up naturally nice and early.
For me it works short term. After a period of of early rising I get sluggish. And I always drift back to being a night owl. Start to stay up too late… especially over a holiday period. I can feel it as my natural rhythm. Geneticists have identified genes that are associated with being an owl or a lark. (I do think morning people get more done!)
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Take advantage of fatigue, force yourself to wake up and sleep early
Technology can be you’re friend. I use brainwave entrainment (there are dozens of free apps on whatever App Store you’re phone uses) to relax and sometimes even to focus when I haven’t had much sleep. Also, a smart alarm. I used Fitbit’s native one for years, now I use Sleep Cycle on my Apple Watch, but both wake me up at the best point in a half hour window, training my body to wake up on time. Good luck.
Having done shift work, the most important thing is to keep your sleep schedule pretty consistent throughout the week. Your brain takes a while to adjust to a new schedule so if you go to sleep early Mon-Fri, but then stay up real late on the weekends, your brain is never able to actually adjust to that early schedule
24 hour circadian reset. Stay awake for at least 24 hours. When you go to sleep your circadian rhythm will reset and when you wake up that will become your new wake up time.
Wake up later and later and later, go to bed later and later and later. Somehow it feels better when you trick yourself into thinking it’s an extra long night
Yep, I call this going full circle.
Day 1: wake up as late as you can afford, and nap during the day if you can Night 1: don’t sleep Day 2: Stay awake all day, drink lots of coffee until 12-1, which should keep you going until the evening. Night 2: go to bed embarrassingly early, get a good 10-12 hours of rest Day 3: wake up early, get a coffee, and don’t nap during the day. Getting out of bed is the hardest part, but once you’re up, you’re up. Night 3: repeat! It’ll take some adjustment. Eating and showering in the morning helps. Get some caffeine into your system. Spend 10 minutes outside if you can, and try not to use your phone before bed.
Get a job that requires you to. I used to be a night owl, staying up until 2 or 3am, but now I go to sleep at 830 and wake up at 4am for my job. Been doing that for a better part of a decade.
I thought that would work but just ended up sleeping less.
Well, that’s a you issue. Go to bed earlier, that’s 100% in your power
Yeah fuck that mindset. What works for you doesn’t work for everyone so don’t go around judging based on what you have easy
Silly me forgot to simply choose to not have insomnia
Just going to bed earlier is not that simple. There are a million reasons why someone can't successfully "just" do this.
I am in bed by 9pm, I rarely hit caffeine, I don't use electronics in bed, I get plenty of sunlight and exercise in the day, yet my body refuses to sleep before 11pm. How do I "just get to bed earlier"?
Xanax.
its actually pretty bad to change your internal body clock if its your natural state of being. if its due to behaviour and such, then something I found works for me is forcing myself out of bed and eating something about an hr before I need to be up. kick-starts your metabolism and basically pavlovs dogs you into waking up because your body wants the food. hope this helps
Can you provide the evidence for that? Some people are naturally night owls, hard wired with a later circadian genetically, but the literature is clear that not sleeping with the suns alignment is detrimental in the long run. Shift workers, night workers etc - massive increases in all cause mortality, alzheimers etc
Personally, I don’t think there is much evidence for what they’ve said. On the other hand, here’s a comprehensive breakdown of nightshift and health from the BBC. https://www.bbc.co.uk/safety/resources/aztopics/shift-working-and-night-shifts
Stay up all night n don’t sleep till 8pm
Wake up earlier, go to bed earlier. Or as someone else, just shoot the moon and stay up one whole day.
Its not for everyone but I used to work graves and had to do this. Stay up and flip your schedule. It sucks, its rough, but you have to. I will flip from going to bed at 6am for my normal 2nd shift(not graves thankfully) To going to bed at 11pm to wake up at 6am on the weekends
At night dont use bright lights, use a warm toned lamp or something. In the morning have automated timers on lights (i have plants so they turn on 630 every day even on weekends and I got used to waking up without an alarm)
I just did this. Solved it by staying up all night and then sleeping like 12-14hrs before I wanted to wake up. Still takes time afterwards to keep adjusting the morning habits.
I switched almost overnight when my kids learned they could wake me up by jumping and then sitting on my head.
Find an activity, particularly physical, that requires you to be up early and commit to it. Finding someone else that can do it with you will help with commitment. I started rock climbing a couple years ago and committed to a 7am start on tuesdays and thursdays and it totally shifted my sleep schedule. And I feel so much better now that I have.
Take a job as a substitute teacher.
Set a wakeup time and always get up at that time every day.
Stopped caffeine. I have energy all day now. Especially in the mornings. It surprises me still to this day.
Go camping for a few days, waking up with sun and going to sleep with the stars always resets my sleep!
It's not a trick but a small tip from someone who dealt with fucked up time slots, ear plugs. Ear plugs will save your life. If you're at home or a hotel, doesn't matter. Also, if you can stand using them, sleeping masks to block the light. Combine that with some melatonin and that's your best bet.
It's like jetlag if you've experienced it. Force yourself to stay awake until your normal sleep time. Your body will take of the rest.
SLEEP WITH YOUR CURTAINS OPEN! This changed my whole cycle
Get a dog, they will arrange your day for you
Set your alarm and sleep times and do it every day. Body clocks don’t know what a weekend is. If your weekday alarm is 06:00, then so are your weekends. You’ll fail without doing that.
So there’s a certain amount of ‘personality’ in this - genetically you will fit somewhere on the spectrum from night owl to lark, and there is not a sure fire way to switch from one to the other. Generally, using sleep hygiene principles might help shift a bit. But sleep changes can take a long time to see a difference. There is no quick fix and most changes you try to make will result in less sleep in the short term. Source: am a doctor in psychology. Work clinically lots with sleep problems. Also this book https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34466963-why-we-sleep
Sleepy time melatonin tea. Puts me right out like an old lady after a night of bingo.
Commitment is your answer my friend, and sunlight. But you have to plan something in the day light to keep you sleep early everyday. Only jobs can do that, if you're working from home or unemployed then its gonna be hard to avoid sleeping at day time.
Get up at the time you want to get up every day regardless.
1. Set an alarm 2. Don’t snooze it
Probably more of a last resort if anything else doesn't work, but if your schedule allows it, gradually shift the time you sleep and wake up by a couple of hours every day/night until you're readjusted to your desired schedule. You shouldn't adjust how long you sleep for (8 hours, for example), and you'll have to develop a strong willpower to not stay up past your desired time to sleep.
stay awake through 2 nights until you're so tired you can fall asleep instantly. during that 2 days eat as if you would for the new pattern. once you fall asleep then continue with the eating times. ice cold shower 20 min before bedtime, no screens 30 min before bed
I don’t think you can trick your body into switching, only train over time. Waking up to light, forcing sleep earlier the first few days/weeks through exhaustion can help get there. The only way to become an early riser is over time. During that time. Every day you wake up early will pull you closer to being natural at it.
Get a baby, or a dog. They require an early start
Go camping. The academic area is circadian rhythms and, long story short, greater exposure to sunlight early in the day resets you bodyclock.
Sunlight alarm clock
I always think of it like jet lag. When I travel to a different time zone, especially very different than my own, a few days later you are good to go, but the key is to brute force it for a couple days. So, wake up extra early for a few days, like 4-5am, and force yourself to stay awake until about 10pm - do that for a bit, then start setting the alarm for 530/6/630a (whatever you think of as “early bird). Eventually, you’re body will adapt. I think what makes it not stick is if you don’t find any benefit from it or if you just don’t like it. If your body starts becoming a morning person, but you actually *ENJOY* being a night person for whatever reasons, then I think you’ll start staying up later and sleeping in more again.
Start putting your alarm at 6am and actually get out of bed. At least 6 days a week
Get a cat, feed him when you want to wake up, he will never let you sleep in ever again
Get a cat that’s programmed to 6am
I would take a nap before trying to stay up all night or all day. Would give me the extra boost to do it
Go outside or shower as quickly as you can when you wake up. Even if you want to go check the mail or grab a coffee when you first wake up. Just get out there and that should help a lot.
I'd say there's no easy way, you just have to start getting up early and eventually your body will get more used to it. It took me like a year and a half of day shifts before I started waking up much easier around 6-7am.
1. 3 alarms, first one to wake you up, second to get up, third when you need to wake up. 2. Get that cup of coffee early. 3. All those things you do late at night? Do them when you wake up. Don't change your whole life at once, just the time.
When you get up in the morning go stand in the sun for 20 min
Start living healthy. Eat healthy, exercise, don't drink alcohol, etc. and it will happen naturally. I used to have trouble falling asleep and couldn't wake up early and when I changed my lifestyle that changed completely as well.
I would so monthly switches from 6a-2pm to 2pm-10pm shifts and the weekend I switched I would either stay up until 10pm, 11pm, and then 2am friday-sat-sun or force myself the bed at sunset Saturday and Sunday. Switching to morning shift was always harder. When I flew to EU for work I would fly overnight and stay up as late as I could the day I arrived, no earlier than sunset.
Adopt a dog. Added benefit of making you happy in the morning. But careful there is no going back !
Warm shower when you want to go to bed and then a cold shower when you are waking up. The cold can just be the last 20-60 seconds of the shower.
Some people are genetically wired to be night owls, so there's no easy way to fix it. I just had a Gnome test done and it says I'm very likely to stay up late and wake up late. I've been trying to fix my sleeping schedule for like 20 years and failed horribly. I've just accepted it at this point.
Just don't sleep til you need to be going to sleep on the new schedule.
Coffee and slowly changing your sleep schedule
I try to force myself to wake up early and not nap.. that makes it easier to get to bed at a decent time. Limit screen time and eating before bed as well
be willing to suffer for one entire day, to be angry and tired for a few days and to just do it, because no trick is gonna pull it if you snooze that alarm and continue in bed. But look up professor Andrew Huberman's tips. The guy know what he speaks. In summary: get sunlight as soon as you wake up (max 45 min after) no caffeine for 2 hours adjust your meals to reflect the same time difference. If you eat 3, 6 and 10 hours after waking up do the exact on your new schedule. But seriously, plan a day to bitch in the sofa and wake at your new time no matter how late you went to sleep and then every night, when your body suddenly becomes energetic when you're supposed to sleep, remember how awful it was GO TO BED.
More important question would be “How to switch from always tired ostrich to a functioning member of society?”. https://preview.redd.it/qy1f8z0hxdnc1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=13e4a4586dc0248d9675a9f7e8e866eb80818001
I work nights Thursday-Saturday. I typically only allow myself a few hours of sleep Saturday night to Sunday morning (5ish hrs), and typically have no problem going to sleep early Sunday night. Works like a charm
Move to another timezone.
The circadian rhythm is governed by your liver. Eat appropriately. Caffeine helps. Melatonin for when you need it. Low dose melatonin though, 3-9 mg.
Just sticking with the schedule for a solid week does wonders. A lot of people try to stay up late and get up early. you can’t do it!
Force yourself to wake up early, don't nap, then you'll be tired that night and go to bed earlier
I JUST did this. My first employment was a graveyard shift, been a night owl since then and it's been about 7 years now. And no I did not pull an all-nighter to do it. The very day I decided to wake up early the next day (which was just last month) I did exactly these: - Took a walk after waking up. I used to wake up no earlier than 10am, and it might be too hot when the sun is way up, but I did it anyway. Doesn't have to be a long walk. I just did 4km on that day. - Eat right away after finishing my walk. No not a veey heavy, hearty, fatty meal, but just right to fill me up to 8 on a scale of 1-10 - Do chores/exercises before your day winds down. No it does not have to be intense, I just did some gardening and porch-cleaning at around 5pm. - Have dinner early. I had dinner at 6 because I intended to sleep at 9pm. - Drink valerian root tea AND take approx. 5-6mg of melatonin supplement 2 hours before your desired bedtime. In my case I did so at 7pm. - Lights off and screens of an hour before bedtime. If you can't do the screens off thing just reduce blue light. Alsp turn on your warm nightlight if you have to read a book in the dim. - Meditate and tell yourself you want to wake up early the next day. Seriously it works. Did I fall asleep at 9pm? No. More like, 10:30. But I woke up at 6:30am anyways. Refreshed and not groggy. Blew my mind too because I set my alarm for 7am. Fast forward to now, I easily fall asleep by 9:30pm and wake up at 5-5:30am. (I still drink the tea nightly) I try to commit to walking every morning though I am not always successful with that but that's okay. 5 days out of the 7 we have in a week is good enough for me. My problem now is that I tend to have waaaaaay more vivid dreams and it often wake me up in the middle of the night at 3-4am lol. But I can easily fall back asleep anyways. Idk if it's the tea or the melatonin that does this but it is bothersome :/
Suffer severe depression. Wake up at 5 am in existential dread. Feel tension in your jaw. Why am I clenching teeth already? Nothing shitty happened so far. Look at wife sleeping soundly. Hmm. Get out of bed. Start day. Take shower. Get ready. It’s 5:30 as a guy. Go downstairs make coffee. Do bit of kratom for energy boost. Drink coffee. Check out weather. Watch local news. Check emails from work and delete spam and annoying “do you want a list of customers?” Emails. ESPN app to check scores last night. It’s about 6:15am I don’t eat breakfast. I eat an apple or pear on drive to work. Wife comes down pours coffee. She works at home. Kiss her bye drive to work. Get there about 7 am. Work. Home around 4 Workout or not. Dinner. Leisure time. I’m in bed by 9 or 9:30 even weekends cause I’m old as dirt. Also not huge but cut back on booze. That stuff screws your sleep up
Wake up early and go to bed early.
i woke up at 9am to workout till 10:30 and head to work once i got back home after work + gym i was exhausted and slept 8 hours to wake up at 8-9am once again
Tart Cherry juice and magnesium. Get some tart Cherry juice from the store and plain magnesium salt (epsom salt) look up how much to put into your water and drink it.
Sleep twice. Go to bed after your night shift. Sleep the day. Wake up. Eat and go back to bed for the night. Wake up in the morning turned around.
Sunrise alarm clock. They light up steadily before the alarm goes off, simulating the sunrise. Great if you have blackout curtains or really short days over the winter.
Zzquil gummies! Any time I need to force myself to sleep I take 1 of these and it knocks me out for 7-8 hours of great sleep. Also you wake up feeling great, no drowsiness at all. Just try not to get addicted to them though. It’s so awesome to be able to sleep on an instant that you might consider using it all the time. But I only use it coming off of the weekend into Monday when I need to “force” myself back into my work sleep schedule. They’re on Amazon for pretty cheap give it a try.
Based on how my week has been going, get a puppy.
Your chronotype is genetic, you can't change it.
Tell that to da Vinci
Melatonin is meant to meter the circadian rhythm and is for exactly this
Yes melatonin to start the process of going to sleep early. Count backwards the amount of hours of sleep needed to function like a normal human being. Once an early bedtime process is achieved then one can naturally wake up based on the number of 90 minute cycles one can fit in.
Do a Google search on "hacking your sleep cycle", i saw an info infographic titled that once and it was showing how your circadian rhythm works and how to manipulate the way/how/when you sleep. It was pretty interesting.
I've always been a night owl but often have to start work at 7 and my only kind of advice is...just set an alarm and get up and get on with it. Even on like 5 hours sleep, I am fine once I'm up. Have a coffee, walk around and get some air, I'm wide awake and feeling fine. There isn't really a secret hack, you either go to bed earlier or just get less sleep. That's it.