How to Improve Your Life, Every Morning

I am a night owl, and I have been one for as long as I can remember. The funny part is that I also love sleep, quite a bit of it. As a kid, my friends and I would be up until dawn: games, movies, inventing goofy dance routines, or just talking about nothing. Darkness felt charged with possibility, and the moment it fell I came alive. By my early twenties I was working until midnight and then staying out with friends until five. Nobody questions that schedule when you're young. Even once I became a teacher, every summer I slid right back into it, napping in the evening so I could be awake all night.

Then the usual things shifted everything. Age, a career, marriage, children. My body clock staged a quiet rebellion and dragged me into daylight whether I liked it or not. Retraining a temperament you were born with is no small thing, and the adjustment was rough. But somewhere in the middle of college I caught onto something about my own head: I simply thought better in the pre-dawn hours. Stuck on a piece of writing, I would force myself under the covers by 8 p.m. and be at the page by 4 a.m.

The clock didn't change. 4 a.m. had always been my hour. What changed was which side of the day it belonged to. As I grew up, 4 a.m. stopped being the tail end of last night and became the front end of this morning. I hated the alarm, every single time, and yet I always felt wonderful once I got going. I can't pretend that was true during the newborn years, when 4 a.m. meant something very different. But as the kids got older and writing projects started trickling back in, I understood I would have to make myself an early riser all over again.

Calling myself a morning person would be a stretch. Still, the alarm goes off at 4 a.m. and I write. The routine is simple and there is the occasional snooze: socks on, coffee brewing, laptop open. The first stretch I am genuinely annoyed to be awake. Then the words start coming easily, with a clarity I don't get later in the day, and the irritation burns off into something close to energy. On a good morning I finish before the kids stir, and when that happens the rest of the day is pure gold. Every time the alarm sounds I have to talk myself through it by remembering how I'll feel on the other side.

I don't just feel better writing in the morning. I've come to see it as the only honest way to hand my employers the sharpest version of my thinking. The question is why that should be the case, and it turns out this isn't some personal quirk. There's data on how early routines affect willpower and creativity.

Willpower matters enormously to getting anything done. Strip away the drive to push through, and people drift toward whatever asks the least of them. Willpower behaves like anything that wears down with use: the further into the day you go, the thinner it gets. Which is why the tasks that matter most tend to get finished when you tackle them first, before the reserves are spent.

Creativity seems to crest right after you wake. Imaging studies point to the prefrontal cortex, the region behind complex reasoning and decision making, running at its fullest capacity once it has rested. The many neural networks in the brain are firing and talking to each other most freely after sleep, and that cross-talk is where new ideas and fresh combinations come from.

You might roll your eyes at the claim that a morning routine does anything for how your brain flows. It does, though, and it's a real building block for personal growth. Work, school, a private goal, it doesn't matter which. A morning routine tends to seed a string of other healthy habits. A lot of people who've done well for themselves rise early and move through their own set of rituals. Success means different things to different people, so start by naming what you actually want, then set the alarm. The result might catch you off guard.

Step one: do something you like. You don't have to leap out of bed and grind immediately. Stretch through some yoga, read for the pleasure of it, journal to figure out what's on your mind, or just sit on the porch with your coffee. This is prime time for creative work, but even the simple act of beginning the day well tends to carry forward into the rest of it.

Step two: move. Burning off tension through exercise is a solid way to open the day, and research suggests a workout before breakfast squeezes out the most benefit.

Step three: eat. However packed your schedule looks, don't skip breakfast. Short on time? Make an omelet the night before, or keep it simple with yogurt, fruit, and granola. The food feeds your brain and body, and a quiet stomach won't be nagging at you once you sit down to work.

Step four: tend to the inner life. The particular practice is beside the point. People who fold some kind of spiritual ritual into their mornings report less stress and more presence. Meditation, prayer, yoga, breathwork, pick whatever fits you and use it to connect with yourself and what you believe.

Step five: plan. Getting up early and mapping the day takes the edge off the anxiety that comes with it. Glance at your calendar, draft a to-do list, get ready. You might also carve out a minute to plan a single random act of kindness. It tends to leave you happier.

Step six: cut the noise. The first hour sets the key the rest of the day plays in. Don't roll over and start scrolling social media or email. Do that and you'll stew over whatever you read all through your routine, your shower, and the drive in. Let the quiet be quiet. It's a fine way to begin.

- Melissa Lavery, M.S.