LONDON: When the alarm goes off at 6am and I reach blearily for the dubious health supplements I was suckered into buying on Instagram, it doesn’t feel like a formula for winning at life. It feels, in fact, very bad.
Imagine my delight, then, to learn that a new study suggests there are real health benefits to be gained from sleeping in until 7am (at least). Rising when it’s actually light, exercising in a morning window that suits you – it all sounds too reasonable to be true. And yet, according to research just published in the journal Obesity, exercise between 7am and 9am – in my case clocking up 9,000-odd steps on the way to and from outdoor swimming sessions – is apparently the key to staying trim.
I hope this perfect morning exercise window will, finally, dent the dominance of the extremists, the “early risers” club of CEOs and other try-hards who rise in the actual night to move, meditate, manifest and generally pretend that they aren’t mortal. I realise my own alarm is still early, and if it weren’t for the day job I’d stay in bed and swim later, but almost-dawn looks positively normcore against the superhumans’ exercise regime.
A bunch of these C-suite executives, bio-hackers and “thought leaders” get up at 4am or thereabouts. The club includes Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan, Tim Cook of Apple and Michelle Obama of a Keynote Near You.
Reassuringly, the man I’d judge to be king of the health optimisers, the podcast host and Stanford University professor Andrew Huberman, wakes up at a reasonable time for a health influencer: Between 5.30am and 6.30am. And sometimes, if he doesn’t feel well-rested, he even stays in bed later to perform some yoga nidra – although “perform” is a strong word for this mellow form of yoga which can easily be confused with sleep.
Related:
Commentary: Waking up at 5am is more posturing than productivity hack
Commentary: Why do university classes start so early if it is bad for sleep and learning?
EARLY RISERS ARE LESS ETHICAL AS THE DAY GOES ON
So far so good, but there’s even more welcome news for later risers: It turns out that getting up too early makes you immoral. I have paraphrased slightly but 2014 research summarised in the Harvard Business Review is published under the startling headline: Morning People Are Less Ethical at Night. It shows that these “larks” – the people naturally (or possibly unnaturally?) up with the dawn get more unethical in their decision-making as the day goes on. So, my question is: Why risk it?
Because of the benefits of exercising later, early risers may now feel obliged to delay their run. The parents among them could instead use the pre-dawn hours to help with the kids, who tend to wake up as early as any TikTok influencer with a “5-9” pre-work schedule.
Adhering to a rigid morning regime has always had sexism and privilege baked into it: It suggests you have someone else, whether that’s a spouse or paid help, doing the caring shift at home. (I’ll never stop marvelling at the fantastically selfish morning routines of the self-proclaimed successful men – and they are nearly always men – on LinkedIn.)
In the interests of maximising sleep, all I want for Christmas is a backyard ice bath (essentially an expensive inflatable barrel) so I can enjoy some cold water immersion only metres from my bedroom. Only after 7am, of course. So if my family is reading this, take note: It’s not just a bougie luxury, it’s essential for my health.