Bambi Eloriaga-Amago
For some, getting up before 6 a.m. can be quite a struggle, especially when it’s bed weather and the thought of curling up under the covers all day presents such an irresistible urge. Studies suggest though, that getting up early can help a person turn in a more productive day.
Published in the Harvard Business Review in 2010, Biologist Cristoph Randler presented the results of his study which found that morning persons are better suited for career success because they are more proactive than their night owl counterparts.
It all has to do with body clocks. While evening people tend to have the more creative minds, their body clocks are out of sync with the typical 8 a.m.-to-5 p.m. corporate schedule.
“When it comes to business success, morning people hold the important cards. My earlier research showed that they tend to get better grades in school, which get them into better colleges, which then lead to better job opportunities,” Randler explained.
But like a time piece that can be adjusted, a person’s internal body clock can also be changed. While 50% of a person’s chronotype (a person’s circadian rhythm, or the tendency to sleep at a particular time of day/night; click here to read up more on chronotypes) is dictated by genes, Randler insists that “Much of morningness and eveningness is changeable.
People can be trained to alter what we call their ‘chronotypes,’ but only somewhat.”
So how exactly does one shift from being a night owl to a morning person? The thing to keep in mind is that the number of hours of sleep doesn’t matter, but the schedule or timing of sleep does.
“So you could try shifting your daily cycle by going to bed earlier,” Randler suggests. “Another thing you could do is go outside into the daylight early in the morning. The daylight resets your circadian clock and helps shift you toward morningness.”
