Can a night owl become a morning person?

Starting the day early can give you dedicated 'me time', but making the shift requires some hard work—and changing your sleep schedule

- Teja Lele

Internet entrepreneur Ankur Warikoo was always a night person. Until 2015, when he decided to spend more time with his young son. Almost 10 years on, he routinely wakes up at 4:30-5 am. "The biggest benefit is that you get to do things for yourself before you start doing things for others," he says.

Warikoo's mornings are busy—meditation, reading, writing, playing tennis, gymming, getting the children ready. "Before I start work at 9:30 am, I have had nearly five hours to myself, doing things that I love to do. That sets me up for the day," he says. He goes to bed at 9:30 pm.

I get where he's coming from. As a night owl who owned the graveyard shift, I did a variety of times: 5-11 pm, 7 pm-2 am, 9 pm-6 am, midnight to 9 am. Years later, I find that I have also turned into a lark, up between 5-5:30 am, something I never thought was possible. And like Warikoo, I have gifted myself the luxury of dedicated me time.

For long, books like Robin Sharma's The 5 AM Club have extolled the morning miracle—getting up before everyone else and winning the day. From Jennifer Lopez, Jennifer Aniston, Anna Wintour and Gwyneth Paltrow to the Obamas, Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook and Jack Dorsey, global celebrities are part of the #powerhour and #miraclemorning club.

In India, Mukesh Ambani, Rajinikanth, Akshay Kumar, P.V. Sindhu and Deepika Padukone swear by the up-at-5 am habit.

Dr Elizabeth Klerman, a professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School's Division of Sleep Medicine, says one is probably born with tendencies to prefer going to sleep earlier in the evening (morning lark) or preferring to sleep later and do more things in the evening (night owl). "In addition, one becomes more 'evening' as a child through adolescence and early adulthood, then more morning as one passes early adulthood," she says.