Recently, I've been trying to become a Morning Person, and one of the unexpected benefits is this: it makes other Morning People a lot less irritating. I'm still unsettled by those "life in the day" articles, according to which no successful entrepreneur, artist or politician ever gets up after 5am (Leonard Cohen, 2.30am; Dolly Parton, 3.30am; Warren Buffett, 5am; Condoleezza Rice, 4.30am - I'm using the term "successful" loosely here). Broadly speaking, though, there's no better cure for peppy colleagues at 8.30am than becoming one, and you won't be surprised that the self-help world is bursting with advice on how to do it:
1 Don't try to sleep before you're tired. Some experts claim routine is everything - that you should sleep and rise at exactly the same time each day. Others insist you should listen to your body, sleeping from when you're tired until you wake naturally. The blogger Steve Pavlina argues (at tinyurl.com/88qug) they're both half right: the trick is to listen to your body in the evening - don't go to bed until you feel you could drift off in 15 minutes - and your alarm in the morning. If you're accustomed to going to bed at 2am, and set your alarm for 6am, you'll have a few tired days at first. But you'll start turning in earlier, naturally adjusting your sleep time to what you really need.
2 Play tricks with your alarm clock. Hardcore disciplinarians just need to remember to place the clock across the room before retiring. Others can buy Clocky (nandahome.com), an ingenious device that lets you snooze for up to 10 minutes, then wheels itself off until it finds a place to hide, where it carries on beeping.
3 Take walks at dusk. If you're happy with the hours you're spending in bed, but just wish they started and finished earlier, you need more light at both ends of the day, according to the psychiatrist Daniel Kripke. Exposing yourself to fading light will prepare your brain for coming sleep.
Alternatively, though it's unpopular advice in self-improvement quarters, you might consider giving up. You'll rise earlier as you get older anyway. And besides, half of those overachievers who claim to rise at 3.30am may be lying. Several years ago, a University of California researcher attached motion-sensors to his subjects and found that none of the people who claimed to be up at 4am actually was. Using the methods above, I've been getting up regularly at 6am, which is early enough for me. Assuming I'm telling the truth.
A month ago, following the advice of Albert Ellis, I wrote about giving a friend a £100 cheque, payable to the UK Independence party, with instructions to mail it if I failed to go to the gym thrice weekly for a month. Well, at time of writing, I'm still going - although I find myself starting, quite unjustifiably, to resent my friend for "making" me go to the gym. Ukip may get its money yet.
oliver.burkeman@theguardian.com
