I’ve always been a proud, self-confessed night owl. Only the loud, irritating beeping from my alarm clock could drag me, feeling rather sad and sorry, out of bed in the morning. By 5 p.m. I’d start to come to life, and by 9 p.m., I was ready to party.

Fast forward to parenthood, and things have changed somewhat. I’ve become a reluctant morning person, but it’s had some surprising benefits.

Arise

My 5 a.m. wake-up call comes in the form of two toddlers who appear more like playful puppies bouncing on my bed before sunrise. It hurts. But it works.

By 9 a.m. I’ve fed and watered my children, showered, done a load of washing, replied to all the emails in my inbox, and my day is well underway. I feel surprisingly satisfied.

Success

It seems I’m not alone: in 2010, Christoph Randler, a biology professor at the University of Education at Heidelberg, found that early risers were more proactive and more likely to spend time identifying long-term goals. Nice.

And it’s no coincidence that some of the most successful people in the world are early risers. So, how do you become a morning person? Well, according to this article in The Sydney Morning Herald, step one is to go to bed early (well, thank you, Captain Obvious. But not always possible when you have a million things to fit into a measly 24 hours!).

Think peaceful thoughts at bedtime so you’re more likely to doze off quickly, and prepare a schedule the night before so you wake up as a ‘mother on a mission’ and nothing, including sleep deprivation, can stop you!

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Originally published at Mum Daily. Photo by Karolina Grabowska.