Rising With the Sun

“Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.” Benjamin Franklin

Remember when, approximately a week ago, I said that I am a night person? Well, I'm not really a night person, or a morning person anymore. I'm in this weird transitional state that I never thought I'd reach, and I've found some benefits.

Environmentally, I am spending more time awake while the sun is providing natural light. This means that I use less energy on electricity. Yay! (Brings me back to the days when we had to use candles when the sun wasn't up. Wait. I kind of want to do that now.)

Time-wise, I don't have to rush to get somewhere on time. School starts soon, and I'm going to be able to work around the traffic. Less stress!

"The time just before dawn contains the most energy of all hours of the day. This has helped me become an early riser and an early doer.... When I wake to see that it's light out already, I feel the world has started without me." Terri Guillemets

Nutritionally, I am hungry when I wake up, but I don't want to eat (weird dilemma?) at 6 AM. Instead, I spend my time getting ready for the day, blogging, or reading, and drinking the full 24 oz bottle of water that I left for myself the night before. Vater eez gud.
I also have more time to prepare myself a sit-down breakfast, instead of grabbing a banana to go. 

Biologically, we are not creatures that have been primed to see in the dark. It would make sense that we spend the most time awake while the sun is up. There has been some speculation that going to bed early and rising early promotes better sleep because we are working with natural circadian rhythms, but I haven't found a study of that yet. The National Sleep Foundation has some interesting information though. (Who knew something like that existed? Amazing!)

Personally, I like to listen to morning sounds. :) Birds chirping, clocks ticking, airplane engines whirring, blenders blending. It is wonderful.


What spurred me to wake up so early, you ask? My boyfriend works an early shift, and I thought it would be easier to have the same sleep schedule so we can Skype. :) Love Skype. And my boyfriend too, I guess. 

How I did it without wanting to collapse in a pile of poofy blankets by 3 PM: I set my alarm clock half an hour earlier every day, and accordingly went to bed a tad earlier every evening. Does going to bed at 10 PM make me old? Nah, I still want to get my groove on till the wee hours of the morning. Just not regularly. (Especially since I'm usually not getting my groove on when I'm going to bed at 3 AM. I'm really just doing nothing.)


TL;DR: "Hi, I'm Emily, and I'm a night person." "Hi Emily." Ha! Not anymore!