You’re probably doing it wrong. Most people are. We’ve been fed this narrative for decades that the "early bird gets the worm" and that if you aren't at your desk by 7:00 AM, you’re somehow failing at life. It’s a collective hallucination. Honestly, the time to get up isn't a one-size-fits-all number you can just pluck out of a self-help book or a Navy SEAL’s morning routine video.
Sleep is weird. It’s intensely personal.
I’ve spent years looking at how circadian rhythms dictate everything from our insulin sensitivity to how well we can process a snarky email from a boss. If you force yourself awake at 5:00 AM when your body is screaming for 8:00 AM, you aren't being disciplined. You’re being counterproductive. You are essentially giving yourself jet lag without the benefit of a vacation.
Stop Fighting Your Chronotype
Dr. Michael Breus, a clinical psychologist and diplomate of the American Board of Sleep Medicine, famously categorized humans into four "chronotypes": Lions, Bears, Wolves, and Dolphins. This isn't just some personality quiz fluff. It's based on the PER3 gene, which influences your circadian preference.
If you’re a "Wolf," your peak alertness doesn't even kick in until the afternoon. Forcing a Wolf to find their time to get up at dawn is like asking a fish to climb a tree. It’s physiologically painful. Your body temperature hasn't risen enough, your cortisol hasn't spiked, and your brain is still bathed in adenosine—the chemical that makes you feel sleepy.
Bears make up about 50% of the population. Their cycle follows the sun. They should get up around 7:00 AM. But even then, there’s a nuance. If it’s winter and the sun isn't up, a Bear’s brain is going to struggle.
The Cortisol Awakening Response (CAR)
When you finally open your eyes, your body goes through something called the Cortisol Awakening Response. Within about 30 to 45 minutes of waking, your cortisol levels should spike by about 50% to 160%. This is a good thing. It’s your body’s way of prepping you for the stress of the day.
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But here’s the kicker: if you use a jarring alarm clock to rip yourself out of a deep sleep stage (Stage 3 or REM), you disrupt this process. You end up with "sleep inertia." That’s that heavy, limb-weighted feeling where you can’t remember your own middle name for twenty minutes.
The ideal time to get up is the moment your body naturally completes its final REM cycle. For most adults, this happens after about 7.5 to 9 hours of shut-eye. If you’re getting six hours and bragging about it, you’re basically walking around with the cognitive impairment of someone who is legally drunk.
The Science of Light and the 10:00 AM Rule
Stanford neurobiologist Andrew Huberman has been shouting from the rooftops about "viewing morning sunlight." He’s right. The absolute best time to get up is inextricably linked to when you can get photons into your eyes.
When light hits your melanopsin-expressing retinal ganglion cells, it sends a direct signal to the Suprachiasmatic Nucleus (SCN). This is your master clock. It tells your brain, "Hey, stop producing melatonin and start the timer for 14 hours from now to start making it again."
If you get up at 6:00 AM but stay in a dark room scrolling on your phone, you haven't really "woken up" your brain. You’ve just moved your body. You need the blue-green light from the sky to reset your clock. Even if it's cloudy. Actually, especially if it’s cloudy, because you need those photons to penetrate the gloom.
I used to try the "5 AM Club" thing. It was miserable. I was a zombie by 2:00 PM. I realized my personal time to get up was 7:15 AM. That extra 135 minutes wasn't laziness; it was the difference between a functional prefrontal cortex and a brain that felt like wet cardboard.
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Why "Consistency" is a Dirty Word for Some
We’re told to wake up at the same time every day, even on weekends. This is great advice for "Bears" and "Lions." It keeps the rhythm steady.
But for "Dolphins"—the chronic insomniacs or the light sleepers—this can be a nightmare. Sometimes, if you’ve had a night of fragmented sleep, the best time to get up is actually later to allow for a bit of "sleep pressure" to dissipate. However, generally speaking, if you shift your wake time by more than an hour on Saturdays and Sundays, you’re inducing "social jet lag."
You’ll feel like trash on Monday morning not because Monday sucks, but because you shifted your internal clock two time zones to the west on Friday night.
The Temperature Factor
Your core body temperature naturally drops in the middle of the night and begins to rise right before you wake up. This rise is a signal. If your room is too hot (above 68°F or 20°C), your body struggles to regulate this, and you’ll likely wake up prematurely or feel groggy.
People think the time to get up is about the clock on the wall. It’s actually about the thermometer in your brain. If you can't get your core temp to drop, you won't stay in deep sleep. If it doesn't rise, you won't feel alert.
Real-World Nuance: The Reality of Shift Work and Parenting
It’s easy for a health influencer to say "just wake up with the sun." That’s cute. But what if you’re a nurse on the night shift? Or a parent with a toddler who thinks 4:45 AM is party time?
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In these cases, the "best" time to get up is purely about harm reduction.
- If you're a shift worker, you need "blackout" conditions to trick your SCN.
- If you're a parent, you need to prioritize sleep cycles over total hours.
- Use a calculator to aim for 90-minute blocks.
If you have to be up at 5:00 AM, try to go to bed at 9:30 PM or 11:00 PM. Avoid midnight. Waking up at the end of a cycle, even if you’ve had less sleep, is often better than waking up in the middle of a deep sleep phase.
Forget the "Perfect" Time
There is no magic hour. Mark Wahlberg might wake up at 2:30 AM, but he also probably goes to bed when the sun is still up. That’s not a lifestyle; it’s a job requirement. For the rest of us, the time to get up should be dictated by your responsibilities and your DNA.
If you feel alert by 10:00 AM without four cups of coffee, you’ve found your window. If you’re still vibrating with anxiety or brain fog by noon, your wake-up time is out of sync with your sleep hygiene.
Actionable Steps to Find Your Rhythm
Stop guessing. Start testing. Finding your optimal time to get up takes about two weeks of conscious observation.
- The Vacation Test: Next time you have four or five days off with no alarms, see when you naturally wake up. That is your true North.
- The 15-Minute Increment: Don't try to move your wake time from 8:00 AM to 6:00 AM overnight. You’ll fail. Move it by 15 minutes every three days.
- The Light Trigger: As soon as you hit snooze (or better, instead of hitting it), turn on a bright light or open the curtains. This suppressed melatonin production is the only way to kill the grogginess.
- Hydrate Immediately: You lose about a liter of water through breath and sweat overnight. Your "tiredness" at your time to get up is often just dehydration. Drink 16 ounces of water before you even touch the coffee pot.
- Track Your "Middleday": How do you feel at 2:00 PM? If you're crashing hard, your morning wake-up was likely too early or your sleep quality was poor.
Your time to get up is a biological boundary. Respect it, and your brain will actually work the way it's supposed to. Ignore it for the sake of "hustle culture," and you'll just be tired and moderately less effective at everything you do.