How to Become a Morning Person by Default

Are You a Morning Person?

I have never been a morning person, yet I was up by 6:00 a.m. every morning for years, working at office management jobs. I used every trick I could think of, to make waking on dark mornings easier, with a mild degree of success (including setting all my clocks ahead by 15 minutes).

As a freelance writer I no longer struggle with morning-time constrains or pressures, thankfully. However I was reminded of the years spent wrestling with early mornings while reading the AOL Healthy Living article "How To Become A Morning Person" by Tracey Marks, M.D.

What the Experts Say

As stated in her article Dr. Marks suggests taking the following steps, toward the quest to becoming a morning person. All are logical steps which certainly could help many turn away from their night-owl tendencies, and become more enlightened, or productive individuals by morning, and they are as listed below.

1. Light exposure

2. Morning exercise

3. Healthy breakfast

4. Regular sleep times

What Working Parents Say

As good as these suggestions are (probably helping many adjust to a morning routine) you can forget about any of these working on a growing child or on your teen! And yes regular bedtime routines are helpful, if important social obligations such as church, team sports, or homework all end prior to 9:00 p.m.

A parent cannot even begin to think about going to bed until the family is fed, dishes are done, the baby's in bed, homework is finished, showers are taken, work clothes are laid out, sports jerseys are laundered, etc. If there is also a special needs child in the home, count on everything taking much longer, and parental bedtimes will regularly be around midnight.

Weekend Preparations Work Best

Planning nutritious weekly meals and cooking them up ahead of time, will allow you to feed your family without running through the drive-thru. This also works with pre-made lunches as in "How to Build Healthy Brown Bag Lunches for Your Kids", and cook-ahead breakfasts as instructed in "5 Quick & Healthy Breakfasts to Get You Out-the-Door"; because what family has time for a sit-down breakfast in the morning?

Forget about oversleeping, the baby will let you know when it's time to get up, or your dogs will remind you, as they are hungry too. Morning exercise is only achieved by running to catch the school bus, racing into class before the bell rings, and jogging from the parking lot to punch a time card, all before 8:00 a.m. Now you too have become a morning person by default!