The Petri Project

Hello. My name is Brangien. And I’m not a morning person.

Study after study has revealed that much of what determines individual sleep patterns is genetic, which is to say, your status as an early bird or a night owl (and also whether you feel rested after six hours of sleep or require nine) is pretty much pre-programmed.

With that defense in mind (it’s in my DNA!), I should feel okay about my preference for staying up late and waking up leisurely. (I usually go to bed around 1:00am at get up around 9:00am.) But thanks to that pesky 9-5 workday, there’s a societal bias against those of us who don’t spring out of bed singing at the first shaft of sunlight.

To wit, the surfeit of advice on how to transform (aka brainwash!) yourself into one of those mystifying morning people. I recently spotted a list of such tips, courtesy of LifeRemix. Being an open minded owl, I decided to read through all 24 tips (the daunting number reinforcing my belief that waking up early goes against my natural programming) and see if they sounded like something I might try.

The list is too long for me to reproduce here, so I’ll just note the items that jumped out at me, for better and worse.

• Tip #3: Plan your day the night before. Hm. I guess it couldn’t hurt to do more of this. As a freelancer, I’m never sure exactly what the day will hold workwise, and using my groggiest hours (9-11am) for planning doesn’t make much sense. Better to do it when the neurons are rapid-firing (9-11pm).
• Tip #4: Don’t read in bed. Oh no, no, no. I can’t fall asleep without reading in bed, no matter how tired I am. Reading in bed is how I wind down. In fact, if I didn’t read something in bed, it would be impossible to achieve Tip #6: Eliminate stress.
• Tip #8: Exercise early. Let’s not go there. I’ll get up early if I’m doing something exciting, like a hike, but for me, routines like the gym are best left for the end of the day.
• Tip #9. Don’t lie awake in bed (“The goal is to almost literally jump out of bed.”) See, this is where morning people get the reputation for being kind of irritating.
• Tip #20. Plan important events in the morning. This has actually proved helpful for me… provided the events aren’t *too* important. My brain is simply not as spritely first thing, but using those waking hours for coffee meetings is a grand way to slide into the day.
• Tip #22. Tell people about your early rising. Attention all roosters, please see above re: irritating.

If you’re hell-bent on changing your waking ways, you’ll likely find the list useful. But the main theme seems to be finding incentives to wake up. Personally, I already have plenty of incentives to wake up, I just prefer doing so a little later. Perhaps with more and more people telecommuting, the 9-5 paradigm will continue to gain flexibility, allowing for both early birds and those of us who do our best work in the evening hours. In the mean time, I suppose I’ll dream on.

Photo credit: winkelmander on Flickr.