Literary Larks: 3 Writers on Why We Should Wake Early

Why I Wake Early: Mary Oliver’s ode to
dawn and starting the day outside.

When it comes to mornings, we’re all very divided. While some us of leap out of bed without any need for an alarm clock, others aren’t quite so keen.

This is normal, researchers assure us: being a night owl or morning lark may be largely dictated by a gene known as Period-3. Scientists at the University of Surrey discovered there are two versions of this gene — a long version and a short version. Those with the long version are larks; the short version, owls. If you always eat breakfast within half an hour of waking, you’re probably a lark.

By looking at the brilliant Brain Pickings infographic of famous writers’ sleep habits, we can see that Haruki Murkami, Twyla Tharp and Vladimir Nabokov were larks (waking up at 4am, 5.30am and 6am respectively).

Virginia Woolf, James Joyce and Scott Fitzgerald were probably night owls (waking at 9am, 10am and 11am).

But let’s focus on one side in this post.

Here are three writers with good things to say about waking up early, each focusing on how it relates to productivity, greeting the day at perhaps its most beautiful point, or starting the day right.

Emily Brontë

Waking up early may well help you out if you find yourself procrastinating or not achieving what you’d like to. As Mrs. Dean cleverly states in Wuthering Heights,

You shouldn’t lie till ten. There’s the very prime of the morning gone long before that time. A person who has not done one-half his day’s work by ten o’clock, runs a chance of leaving the other half undone.

I know I should pay attention to this advice: I work so well first thing in the morning.

The Yorkshire moors, home to Wuthering Heights.

Mary Oliver

When finding books on waking up early, Mary Oliver’s collection Why I Wake Early can’t help but come to mind. It’s a superb series of poems on the beauty of dawn and greeting the day in nature.

The opening poem, of the same name as the anthology, starts as follows:

Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who made the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips…

The poem then culminates in this wonderful phrase: “Watch, now, how I start the day in happiness, in kindness.”

You can hear Mary Oliver read the full poem here, on YouTube.

Lemony Snicket

Finally, Lemony Snicket, the author of the Series of Unfortunate Events books for children, states in Horseradish, his quotation book of “wit and wisdom”:

Horseradish by Lemony Snicket

Morning is an important time of day, because how you spend your morning can often tell you what kind of day you are going to have. For instance, if you wake up to the sound of twittering birds, and find yourself in an enormous canopy bed, with a butler standing next to you holding a breakfast of freshly made muffins and hand-squeezed orange juice on a silver tray, you will know that your day will be a splendid one. If you wake up to the sound of church bells, and find yourself in a fairly big regular bed, with a butler standing next to you holding a breakfast of hot tea and toast on a plate, you will know that your day will be O.K. And if you wake up to the sound of somebody banging two metal pots together, and find yourself in a small bunk bed, with a nasty foreman standing in the doorway holding no breakfast at all, you will know that your day will be horrid.

For more uplifting and cheery quotes, Horseradish really is full of quotable goodies.

Putting it into action

Perhaps the best guide to waking up early – or at least my favourite – is by the talented Leo Babauta from Zen Habits.

For the lifelong night owls, you’ll feel less ignored after checking out B-Society, a Danish group founded by Camilla Kring which is aiming to make society more flexible when it comes to rising early.

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Comments

Brian Joseph
May 7, 2014 at 3:38 pm

Another great post Lucy! You pick such creative and interesting subjects.

Personally I tend to work wildly different schedules so I am all over the place on these issues. I used to classify myself as a night person but I have lately discovered the joys of getting up very early. When I need to be at work at 8 AM ( I am just coming off of a three month period where this was true) I like to get up around 4 AM, go for my morning run, and conduct some business. Now I will be entering a period of several weeks where it is back to nights for me!

Taryn Kelley
May 7, 2014 at 4:51 pm

Great post! I'm certainly a lark!

Rivorniel Tinubelin
May 8, 2014 at 8:36 am

This is such an interesting topic! I used to think I was a night owl, but of course this is what you become if you train your body to stay up until 3 am every night. Just as you can train your body to wake up 5 am every morning, which is what I had to do back when I started my job :p It's probably true though that some things are programmed in your body, whether you prefer mornings or evenings. I personally love mornings! It's so peaceful and there is a lot of room for thought. I also like reading early in the morning.

Camilla P
May 8, 2014 at 12:11 pm

I'm definitely a lark – I love waking up when the sun comes up and lights up my room 🙂 And I just enjoy the thought of having the entirety of a day in front of me, it makes me feel like I have all the time in the world 🙂

tolstoytherapy
May 9, 2014 at 3:03 pm

I'm with you on that, Camilla! I love early mornings, especially when I manage to get lots done before everyone else is out of bed 🙂 More time for reading (and lounging around) in the afternoon!

tolstoytherapy
May 9, 2014 at 3:04 pm

Thanks so much Taryn, I'm definitely a lark too!

tolstoytherapy
May 9, 2014 at 3:08 pm

Thank you so much, Brian. I'm trying to post much more at the moment (well, that and everything I'm reading seems to inspire me to write!)

Waking up at 4am sounds heavenly for me – it's such a wonderful time of day. Although I guess getting to bed early is essential in this. Lately I do need to work on a routine and stick to it, but I know I definitely work best in the morning!

tolstoytherapy
May 9, 2014 at 3:10 pm

Good to hear you love mornings too, Riv! They're so peaceful – I get so much done when I manage to sleep enough the night before. As you say, it's a great time for reading too!

I also went through a phase of going to sleep much later…. Mornings are definitely the way forward for me though 🙂

Hope you're well!

Camilla P
May 11, 2014 at 3:20 pm

Exactly! 😀