Early Birds Vs Night Owls –Which Are You?

The larks get all the best worms. Or so they say. But setting your alarm clock for five sharp won’t make you a morning person. And striving to be one might be doing you more harm than good.

- Liesl Robertson

‘IS this about how much you hate me in the mornings?’ My husband, having spotted the title of this article, ventures an educated guess at its contents. I mean, he’s not wrong. Over the past seven years, he has tried his utmost to ‘convert’ me to his way of life. A life that includes sunrises and early-morning workouts, and a chipper, golden retriever-type attitude that will no doubt be the focus of my murder trial.

His efforts have been in vain. Anything that happens before 9 am holds zero interest for me. If we could make it 10.30 am and throw in a coffee, then sure.

In my 20s I had a roommate who would just shuffle past me in the hallway in the mornings without so much as a nod. Come 11pm, however, we would be sitting on the balcony drinking wine and laughing like drains. The joys of cohabiting with a fellow night owl.

For some inexplicable reason, the world collectively decided that being a morning person is the ideal. I’m guessing they had a vote, and scheduled it for 5am.

We hear it all the time: ‘The early bird catches the worm.’ That old chestnut. ‘Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.’ That one is often attributed to Benjamin Franklin, but historians have actually traced the saying back to scripts long predating his birth. Benji probably just trotted it out so often that people assumed it was his expression – he himself liked to get up at the crack of dawn and clearly quite fancied the idea that it was a sign of virtue.