Anyone can become a morning person

YOU really can turn yourself from an owl into a lark in just three weeks, — and without medical intervention. You just need to reset your internal clocks by controlled and strategic exposure to light and the timing of your meals. This should make it easier for you to fall asleep at night, and ensure you are more alert and energetic during the day.

That’s because your main internal clock, the one in the centre of your brain, is mainly controlled by light.

rays of light from the sun hit receptors in the back of your eyes that send messages to a tiny region of the brain (called the suprachiasmatic nucleus or SCN) which control our circadian rhythms.

The light triggers signals to other parts of your body, including your guts, letting them know that a new day has begun and it is time to get moving. The SCN also raises your core body temperature before you wake, so you are ready to get going.

What makes things a bit more complicated is the fact that each of our organs has its own clock, which is linked to the main clock but not necessarily driven by it. The clock in your liver, for example, is not reset by light, but by when you eat.

Like light and darkness, when you eat has a powerful effect on re-synchronising your body clocks, too.

To show it can be done, researchers from Monash University in Australia recruited 22 owls, men and women who normally go to bed around 2.30am and wake up at 10am.

for three weeks they were asked to follow nine simple rules. These were:

To wake up at least two hours earlier than normal, which for this group meant getting up by 8am.

To get outside and expose themselves to plenty of outdoor light in the mornings.

To have breakfast as soon as convenient. To only exercise in the morning. To have lunch at the same time every day. To avoid all caffeine after 4pm. To avoid having a nap after 4pm. To avoid bright lights during the evening and to head to bed a couple of hours earlier than normal (by about midnight).

To stick to this regime every day of the week, including weekends.

AfTer three weeks, the owls had successfully shifted their body clocks forward by an impressive two hours.

Not only were they going to sleep earlier, but tests showed that their levels of melatonin, the sleep-inducing hormone, were peaking two hours earlier.

Having shifted their body clocks they felt far less sleepy during the day and were happier with their lives.

Their depression and stress scores improved, as did their performance in cognitive tests. They even got physically stronger.

This is all part of a pattern I try to follow on a daily basis to keep my circadian rhythms in sync.

I set an early alarm (7am), run through a series of resistance exercises (press up and squats) then when I have time I take our dog out for a 30-minute walk before breakfast.

Part of the benefit is the exercise, but part is exposing myself to lots of early morning light which should reset my internal clock and let my body know the day has begun.

During long dark winters I sit and work by a light box just to reinforce those early morning light triggers (and boost my levels of vitamin D).

I only have coffee before midday, I never nap (even when I’m desperate to just lie down and shut my eyes for a few moments), and I dim the lights around the house in the evening, getting to bed before midnight.

If you are really owlish an even