Can a night owl become a morning person?

Light and routine are the levers: morning light can shift the body clock earlier and light late in the evening can shift it later (Spitschan et al., 2025). How far your rhythm moves differs from person to person.

How long does it take to become a morning person?

There is no fixed timeline. Moving your wake-up time in steps of 15 to 30 minutes every few days means the schedule itself moves by an hour in about one to two weeks. How quickly it feels normal differs from person to person.

How much morning light do I need?

Research does not name one number of minutes for everyone (Piper et al., 2026). As a rule of thumb, LightOtter suggests about 10 minutes on a clear morning, 15 when partly cloudy and 20 to 25 when overcast, up to 30 with a low sun.

Guide · Mornings

How to become a morning person

Not everyone is an early type, and that is normal. What you can work with is light and routine: they are the levers that move your daily rhythm, step by step.

LightOtter editorial team · reviewed against the sources below · 12 October 2026 · updated 13 October 2026 · Who is behind it

The short answer

How do you become a morning person?

Start with a steady wake-up time, go outside for daylight soon after waking and keep your evenings dim. As LightOtter’s rule of thumb, move your wake-up time by about 15 to 30 minutes every few days. Morning light can shift the body clock earlier and late-evening light later (Spitschan et al., 2025); how far differs from person to person.

Early types, late types

Your body clock runs on a cycle of roughly a day, and it does not run at the same time for everyone. Some people get sleepy early and wake easily, others are at their best later in the day. Most are somewhere in between.

Early bird or night owl? How chronotypes really work.

The three levers

Almost every useful tip comes down to three things. Doing each of them on most days counts more than doing them perfectly.

Morning light: go outside soon after you get up. A 2026 policy brief recommends daylight especially within the first few hours after waking (Piper et al., 2026). The brief explicitly gives no fixed number of minutes for everyone. LightOtter uses its own rule of thumb: about 10 minutes on a clear morning, 15 when partly cloudy and 20 to 25 when overcast.
Dim evenings: an international expert panel recommends dim light in the last three hours before bed (Brown et al., 2022). Use warmer, lower lamps and turn screen brightness down.
A steady wake-up time: the time you get up anchors the whole day. Keep it within about an hour on weekends too.

How fast should you move your wake-up time?

Moving your alarm two hours earlier overnight tends to leave you short on sleep. Small steps of about 15 to 30 minutes every few days are easier to keep up. Move your bedtime along with your alarm, and go to bed when you feel sleepy.

For a day-by-day version, take the 7-day plan in the guide on resetting your circadian rhythm.

Step by step: the 7-day plan to reset your circadian rhythm.

Is it bad to sleep in on weekends?

Sleeping in a lot on weekends pushes your rhythm later again. Try to keep your wake-up time within about an hour, and get your morning light on weekends too.

Can everyone become a morning person?

Light and routine do not replace enough sleep, and not everyone will become an early type. Research does not name one number of minutes for everyone (Piper et al., 2026), so LightOtter’s minutes are a rule of thumb, not a measurement and not medical advice. If you have long-lasting trouble sleeping or staying awake, talk to a doctor. Never look directly at the sun.

Early bird or night owl? Take the chronotype quiz (2 minutes)