Waking up early is a challenge for almost everyone regardless of their motivation. The sun is too bright, the air is too cold, and getting dressed for the day feels like an obligation. It feels impossible, a myth even, that anyone could love being awake before the sun. As someone who does, in fact, enjoy being awake before 8 A.M, I can confirm that morning people do exist.

Being up before the sun, in my experience, is a great way to set up the day. A cheerful attitude in the morning, however, receives more than few disgruntled looks from people who aren’t quite as excited to start the day.

Morning people are easily identified by the obnoxious energy they have in the morning and lack of understanding for others who consider themselves night owls. As someone who used to despise morning people, I was understandably shocked when I realized that I was one.

Waking up in the morning used to be a chore for me as I never went to sleep before 11 at night. So, how in the world do I go from hating morning people to being one? Honestly, I’m not sure when I made the shift from being a creature of the night to being overly energetic in the morning, but I don’t necessarily regret it despite it’s many downsides.

Being a morning person can be difficult. Regardless of how late I go to bed now, I still can’t manage to sleep in past 8:30 at the latest even on weekends and holidays. This can lead to only getting something like 4 hours of quality rest. When I do manage to fall asleep at a reasonable time, by the end of the day I’m practically dead on my feet.

With the knowledge that I’ve become what I used to hate the most, I realized that I no longer understand what it feels like to be a true late riser. My energy level in the morning gets me up and ready to work, but other people feel the opposite.

“Waking up early makes me tired, not productive,” wrote sophomore Ratna Unnikrishnan.

Waking up early has never made me anything but productive, though at one point I probably felt just as run down in the mornings as my peers. Finding other morning people at Air Academy has, unsurprisingly, been quite the challenge.

Despite the lack of popularity in the morning person lifestyle, many night owls are attempting to train themselves to wake up earlier. Some of the tips and tricks seem excessive to someone who’s regularly awake and prepared for the day, but there is some truth to their advice.

Being awake in the morning isn’t entirely dependent on a bedtime. For many people, myself included, setting a bedtime is stressful because I’m trying to cram everything in before that set time and when I miss it, it can make it more and more difficult to fall asleep.

To avoid glaring at the time and begging for just five more minutes in the day, I let myself fall asleep when I’m tired. This is directly affected by the time I wake up in the morning. The earlier I wake up, the sooner I’ll be tired in the evening. The sooner I get to sleep, the more awake I’ll be in the morning.

“I just don’t understand how morning people are so peppy and energetic in the morning,” Unnikrishnan wondered during her interview.

Unnikrishman isn’t the only night owl puzzled by the early bird lifestyle. I’m often asked how I can be so energetic in the morning, but it really is because I let myself sleep when I’m tired.

Waking up early might seem like a lose-lose situation at best, but the view of the sun rising and the world waking up? Well, for me at least, it’s more than worth it.