[hunvreus]

Same as for working out or cooking, you can always find time.

I cut alcohol years ago and tend to go to bed at reasonable hours: the feeling of waking up at 5:30, getting a good workout and two to three hours of work before you even start to get ready for the office is pretty empowering. It feels like you already had a day worth of productivity in.

So, to recap:

1. Don't drink (or drink in moderation). It leads to late nights, difficult mornings and wasted hours on (often) empty discussions/interactions.

2. Go to bed early. Avoid screens in the bedroom (they keep you awake) and work out in the morning (helps to feel tired at the end of the day).

3. Wake up early.

Where there's a will, there is a way.

[dikaiosune]

Regarding your second (sub) point about screens, I've found that f.lux and redshift (on linux) have been a huge help for me being able to get to sleep quickly after an evening of side-projects and homework.

[hunvreus]

I've used f.lux for a while but I tend to simply not have my laptop in my bedroom anymore. I get bored more quickly to read stuff on my phone or tablet, and tend to simply go to sleep instead (as opposed to a laptop where I multi-task, chat with folks and open a gazillion browser tabs).

[dikaiosune]

Yes, I agree, I think that color temp tools are best used to even further remove the sleep effects of screens. Most of my usage is on a desktop in my living room office area, and my laptop never goes to the bedroom. I would advocate for using those tools on top of banishing screens from bed.

[kbart]

"Getting up early" advice definitely doesn't work for all people. I, for example, am more productive at evenings/nights and my brain doesn't work at until 9-10am despite of how much did I sleep a night before. The better advice would be "adjust the routine to your natural rhythm".

[pc86]

Has there been any scientific evidence suggesting this is the case?

In college I struggled to wake up in time for 8am classes (that I had no interest in taking). Not surprisingly, a big part of the problem is that I was staying up until 11, or 2, or 4 every night. My typical schedule now (29 years old) is asleep around 9, up at 4:30 and gym 5-6:30 or so. Weekends are only an hour or so later than that, and it's been that way since about 3 years ago.

My point is I think it is as much why you're waking up early as it is a "natural rhythm" or something like that. I would much rather go to the gym at 5:30 than to a liberal arts gen ed class at 8:00. Yes it's possible my circadian clock shifted I suppose, but I think it's as much desire or habit as anything else.

[toomuchtodo]

> Has there been any scientific evidence suggesting this is the case?

Yes. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/1185131...

Before the age of 55, the circadian rhythms of adults are completely out of sync with normal 9-to-5 working hours, which poses a "serious threat" to performance, mood and mental health.

Dr Paul Kelley, of Oxford University, said there was a need for a huge societal change to move work and school starting times to fit with the natural body clock of humans.

Experiments studying circadian rhythms have shown that the average 10-year-old will not start focussing properly for academic work before 8.30am. Similarly, a 16-year-old should start at 10am for best results and university students should start at 11am.

[kbart]

I can get up early and do things, but I feel best when going to bed at 2-3am and getting up at 10-11am. By "natural" cycle I meant that if woken up without an alarm clock and go to bed when feeling sleepy (i.e. during lazy holidays) I tent to align to the mentioned hours.

Has there been any scientific evidence suggesting this is the case?

Can't find it after quick googling, but I've read about a study which claims that there are no such things as "night owl persons", but it didn't convince me as it was talking about extreme cases as staying up all night long and sleep during the whole day.

[mitola]

But yes, I remember reading in science journals regarding the natural rhythm of averagely around 10-11 o'clock in the morning. As the person mentioned before it was naturally for him to wake up later, or it was harder for him to wake up, until he god used to the unnatural rhythm.

But there was also some evidence regarding the era before modern technology and electricity about the time when people go to sleep naturally. which is actually surprisingly due to instead of spending time on screens they spent it socially or with other activities and still ended up in bed quite a bit later

[jhildings]

One great advantage by staying up late rather than waking early is the amount of people active. More people are outside, or want to communicate with you, traffic is louder and so on. In the night after 12-01 those things calm down

[taurath]

Unless you're young and everyone is on the same schedule - I still get a lot of friends poking me at like 11:30 before I go to bed.

[hunvreus]

I thought I was a night owl as well for years. I even had insomnia through college.

But we're all wired to sleep at night. Once I started going to bed early, waking up early got easier first, and enjoyable later.

So no, I think I would still recommend people to try and sleep early to wake up early.

[nibnib]

I thought the same until I started a job that required an early start. Even after years of extreme night-owl scheduling I didn't find it difficult after a the first month or so.

[kbart]

Well, my work starts at 8am for more than 5 years now, still can't get used to that.

[hunvreus]

Go to bed earlier.

[peteretep]

    > Don't drink (or drink in moderation)

This was the key ingredient when I had two jobs and was doing an MSc.

[Chris2048]

I don't go out and drink as much as I do, but ironically, spend more time planning how to make cocktails as a hobby.

I consider it an upgrade of quality over quantity ;-)

I agree you should avoid working in the bedroom tho, or you might find it harder to sleep.

[bostonvaulter2]

Just curious, what time do you go to sleep to get up at 5:30? Do you get around 8 hours? I'm guessing at least a little bit less.

[hunvreus]

Well, kinda depends. Right now, because of some crazy traveling between DC and China, I've managed to mess up my sleeping schedule a bit.

Usually, 10:30 or 11:00 (PM), especially in the summer. I also found out that I sleep in two chunks when I'm on a proper schedule. I first thought I had a problem until I read about segmented sleep [1].

It seems that there is evidence that before the industrial revolution (and ubiquitous artificial lighting), people would simply wake up in the middle of the night, read, eat or be intimate for 30 minutes and then go back to sleep.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segmented_sleep

[kevingoslar]

The secret to getting up early and it not feeling like torture is going to bed early. I'm getting sleepy around 9pm, and am in bed between 9 and 9.30pm. Depending on my need for sleep I naturally wake up between 5 and 5.30am. Melatonin has initially helped me get to bed early, now it happens naturally.

[pc86]

I am on a similar schedule, and I will start getting tired around 8:45 or so. I'm usually in bed by 9. My first alarm is 4:27 but if I'm particularly tired or don't have anything extra to get done in the morning I will turn that one off and let the one at 4:55 wake me up.