PLAN TO SLEEP

ow you feel in the morning is a direct result of all the decisions you made the previous night. Develop these habits and you’ll find it easier to become an early runner.

HBring forward your bedtime. This one is crucial. ‘A lot of folks trying to develop a morning running routine neglect that part,’ says Fraioli. ‘As you start to get up earlier, you will get tired earlier and listening to that cue is essential.’ Becoming a morning runner is less about forcing yourself awake and more about listening to when your body needs to hit the hay.

Ban blue light. You’ve heard it a thousand times: no phones for at least 30 minutes before bed. That’s not just because checking your work email can be stressful, but also because the blue light is telling your brain that it’s time to be active. ‘ The central pacemaker in the brain is primarily determined by the light- dark cycle and is extremely light- responsive,’ says Eckel- Mahan. ‘Abnormal light exposure will misalign your clock.’

Eat dinner early ( and don’t eat again). Each cell, tissue and organ in the body has an internal clock that produces its own biological rhythm and in a perfect world all of these clocks will be in sync. Just like bright lights signal to your brain that it’s time to wake up, food tells your metabolic organs that it’s time for activity. That midnight snack you think is harmless is actually telling your liver and kidneys, for example, that it’s time to go to work. ‘Generally, you want your food intake to match your activity phase,’ says Eckel-mahan. ‘That keeps your clocks aligned.’ What’s more, she adds, eating during your body’s rest phase, and thus misaligning your clocks, may promote weight gain.

Don’t bring work home with you. It’s the advice of innumerable selfhelp guides: get your hardest work done first thing in the morning, when your mind is typically at its sharpest and willpower at its strongest. And your morning run could also benefit from it. If you put off your hardest work until the evening, bringing that baggage home with you, it’s a recipe for stressed sleep. Plus, frontloading your work and running in the morning (which is shown to improve concentration) can create a positive feedback loop: run early, feel great, nail your big project, tend to smaller things in the afternoon, come home clear-headed, fall asleep early, repeat.