#Wake and late full#

Salas says she’s had patients come into her clinic who got by on reduced sleep in their 20s and 30s, but struggled as they got older, their lifestyles changed and they had kids. So if early rising means cutting sleep, don’t do it. Sacrificing sleep means you may be hit by the many negative effects of sleep deprivation, including moodiness, poor concentration, potential weight gain, anxiety, increased risk of heart disease and higher blood pressure. An even worse scenario? If you’re actually reducing sleep to become an early riser.

#Wake and late full#

Salas says that getting a full night’s sleep and getting the same amount of sleep at the same time each night are both important. “People say: ‘Oh, this CEO is doing his 05:00 regimen, I’m going to hop on and do this on Mondays and Fridays,’” says Rachel Salas, an associate professor of neurology who specialises in sleep medicine and sleep disorders at Johns Hopkins University in the US. Especially if you don’t normally wake up super early and are trying to hop on some kind of productivity bandwagon. In fact, depending on the person, it could end up having a negative effect.Ĭan getting up early ever be counterproductive? The main point: the mere fact of getting up early doesn’t necessarily translate to instant success at the office. So, if you don’t naturally feel alert in the morning but decide to wake up early anyway, you might be sabotaging your actual peak performance times. The large sample size makes the study the biggest of its kind so far, though further research is needed to confirm the results. Looking at data from over 700,000 people, researchers found over 350 genetic factors that could influence whether people feel more naturally energised either in the morning or in the evening.

In fact, a recent study published in the journal Nature Communications provided further evidence that this is the case. You might be more alert and have better cognitive ability in the afternoon, for instance. There’s been lots of research about how some people are biologically more likely to feel more alert in the morning, while others are at their best at night. Whether or not waking up early actually makes you more productive could be in your genes. Yet the early alarm clock may not work for everyone – it turns out there are plenty of caveats around trying to become a morning person if it’s not an easy fit. Early exercise and exposing yourself to light as soon as possible can help stimulate metabolism and body temperature, which gets you going more quickly. If getting up early doesn’t come naturally, there are some strategies you can try.

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People who wake up early are more in sync with the traditional corporate schedule and tend to have more proactive personalities, which might lead to better grades in school or higher wages on the job. Studies have also suggested early rising and success might be linked.