Earlier quoted context omitted.
Neither getting up at 5am or daily meditation are all that rare or difficult. And if you take perfection out of the equation, as you should, then aiming to do them 80-90% of the time makes it even easier. I’m a natural night owl, but I routinely (80-90% of the time) go to bed early and get up at 4am. It’s really not that hard.
> It's really not that hard. Based on the current research on chronotypes [0], you seem to be the exception, not the norm. '“If people are left to their naturally preferred times, they feel much better. They say that they are much more productive. The mental capacity they have is much broader,” says Oxford University biologist Katharina Wulff, who studies chronobiology and sleep.'[1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki…
When they wake early, for example, night owls are still producing melatonin. “Then you disrupt it and push the body to be in the daytime mode. That can have lots of negative physiological consequences,” Wulff says, like a different sensitivity to insulin and glucose – which can cause weight gain.
I couldn't find the study where that came from, but I wonder how long it lasted. Even now, if I revert back to staying up late, it can take a few days of getting up early before it feels amazing.
All of which is to say that I suspect that genetics plays a role in our natural preferences, but our bodies seem remarkably adaptable to different lifestyles.
Also, I think it was probably unfair of me to say "it's not that hard", because it took me years to get to the point where getting up at 4am wasn't that big of a deal. In retrospect, the key is almost embarrassingly obvious: go to bed early (9p). I don't take melatonin or anything, but I've always had a really easy time falling asleep, so others might find that helpful in getting over the initial transition of early bedtimes.