Ask HN: Has anyone switched from being a night owl to being a morning person?

Have you ever spent a full day in the outdoors? The moment you lay your stuff for sleep before sunset you’re out like a baby till sunrise. That’s because you’ve been walking and being active all day. There’s also less distractions.

Having said that, I do believe that if you were to wake up at 6 am, go to the gym and work daily, you would be ready to sleep like a baby at 9-10 pm.

Most of the time when I become a night owl it is because I’ve been physically lazy and eating like Fat Bastard. I’ll just sit by my computer till 3-4 am wasting away. Change the activity level and eating habits and you’re back to a normal routine.

Yes, I was forced to in my late 30s, and seems like it's just natural now in my late 40s.

Looking back, it would've been easier if I cut way back on the caffeine, stopped work way earlier (rather than working at 8pm), and just worked on converting slowly by slowly changing my habits. Alcohol also impacts my sleep. I also found my eating and exercise both had huge impacts on my sleep. All these things should've been obvious, but I only noticed after they had to change for other reasons.

I took a job in my mid 30s that required me to get up around 6am. It took my 2 years to adjust, it was brutal. Then I had kids, this ruined sleep for nearly a decade. Then, just as they started sleeping in, I wake up with the sun, no matter what. Luckily I seem to need less sleep now.

I have, and I also have done a lot of shift work too and easily switched regimes many times.

The trick is very simple - if you want to wake up and have breakfast in 6 am, your last meal must be 14 hours before that - which is 4 pm on the previous date. No snacks, no dinner not anything like this. You will be hungry but you will find yourself falling asleep at about 10 pm. If you don't stay in front of a screen you can go to sleep easily. You will then wake up at 6 am - fresh, but hungry. Its important to have a quick breakfast or you will fall asleep again. Try to keep this eating/sleeping schedule, you can relax it a bit (i.e. have dinner at 6) after the first week.

People are of course different, so while 14 hours work for me, some people do it with 12 or 16 hours, but the idea is the same.

This tip/lifehack also works for jetlag: https://hbr.org/2009/05/a-fast-solution-to-jet-lag

Have a child, you'll change.

I have multiple times. I came to believe that night owls and morning people both want to achieve the same thing; a few hours of uninterrupted work. I had success with both. The difference is that morning routines take more discipline, while being a night owl just takes a bit of willpower and stimulants. Ultimately I found that I preferred being up early and watching the natural world waking up, beating everyone else to the start of the day, and feeling ready to sleep at a reasonable hour. Learning how to go to sleep was the hardest part and probably varies a lot per person. For me the trick was getting in bed and reading with bedtime tea for a while before I wanted to sleep.

P.S watching the sunrise is a secret reward morning people get, and it’s beautiful.