Reluctant Morning Person

Sometime last year, I was in a conversation with friends about adult sleep patterns, the kind of sleeper most people are and the disruptions that happen based on life circumstances like having children or a certain kind of job. My friend thought that the feeling of grumpiness or hyperactivity in the morning was not necessarily a factor at play to determine the kind of sleeper you are. “If you are awake and don’t fall back asleep, you are a morning person.” My friend said. “It is more about the waking up, not the feeling after waking up.”
I have never referred to myself as a morning person. In fact, the possibility of being called one utterly terrifies me. I am grumpy in the mornings and if I were a coffee drinker, I would probably be one of those obnoxious people you watched on TV shows who you couldn’t say a word to until they had had their morning brew.

When I first became a mom eleven years ago and people asked what the toughest part of it was, I usually said – “the waking up early”. I considered that my early rising was for the justifiable reason (at least to me) that I had to tend to a new born, not necessarily that it was something that came easily for me. Several years later, despite no baby cry or baby need to attend too, I’m still always awake.
And yet, I would never still wilfully agree to being a morning person.

So, I decided to test the theory. Unlocking perhaps one of the biggest ironies of my life.

There was not much to change. Apart from monitoring the wake time, which was usually between 4 am to 5 am, especially on weekdays. For about six or so months now, I’ve been getting up, i.e. physically leaving the bed as soon as I come to wakefulness. It’s annoying to be descending the stairs at such odd hours and I suspect that even all the art and décor in our home have been discussing my recent errant intrusion on their usual “all-is-calm-and-stil” moments. But I turn on the lights anyway and put water in the kettle to boil. The boiling sound makes for a ceremonious start, cue in – sense of normalcy.

Whether the plan is to get some exercise in or read, I start as soon as the lights are on. Grumpy, frustrated and mouth probably smelling, I start anyway. Instead of looking forward to evening time when I can relax with a book, I read in the early morning. Initially, it felt counter-productive to be ‘relaxing’ first thing in the morning and my brain struggled with this breach. I have found, though, that getting many of these activities out of the way means that I feel far less mental pressure in the daytime about what tasks I have not completed as the day progresses. Even if I read only one chapter of a book before the chaos of the day begins for instance, I would not go through the day feeling like I haven’t read yet because I have in fact, read. It is the same for exercise and everything else I have managed to slot into those ungodly hours.

The most difficult part of the experiment was really the getting up from the bed, definitely not the waking up. As soon as I was able to leave the bed, it all became like performance progression, with the grumpiness dissipating into a flurry of productive activity. This, I guess then supports the idea that morning grumpiness is usually from the frustration of not being able to fall back asleep, and not simply that your body was not ready. My body was clearly awake and ready to go, it was my mind that needed to catch up.

It has taken this long to realise, or maybe the word is accept, that my body clock is set in stone, and hoping for more sleep does not magically produce needed sleep. With getting up to start early, there are far less things to do as the day carries on, and that mental pressure of managing what is still left to do is off. It gives your mind breathing space. And by evening, even if you are not yet in complete shut eye, dream land, your brain is in calm down mode because there are no open tabs screaming, -“you didn’t exercise or meal prep or read!”.

So, all roses and sunshine? Not quite. Getting up and getting the day started may give you back time in the evenings, considering that you almost inevitably become an early sleeper once you identify as an early riser. As a parent, I am no stranger to the early morning chaos of school term time, yet, early sleeping is not the most practical thing if you are a parent navigating a career or business. And therein lies the rub – I am navigating an early riser offer but not getting the early sleeper part of the package deal. My day still mostly ends at midnight as when kids settle in bed is when another round of chores begin.

So here I am, tried and tested, accepting with mild reluctance that I am in fact, a morning person but equally hoping that someone would be so nice to offer me the discount code for whatever this multi package deal is. Please?