No one is a stranger to old adages touting the merits of waking up early, “the early bird gets the worm” and “early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise” are just a sampling of these commonly heard clichés.  However, clichés became such because they must possess some element of truth in order to be repeated so often.  It can be agreed upon that the general consensus is that beauty sleep is important, but the hour at which one rises is often a subject of controversy.  It may not be the most popular belief but I believe that waking up earlier rather than later is beneficial to one’s overall physical and emotional health and sense of well-being.  This is not to say that sleep should be sacrificed, but perhaps that it is more advantageous to avoid burning the midnight oil. 
	It may seem like a contradiction that ending your sleep earlier could be advantageous to your health, but there are benefits for both the morning people and the grumps.  For example, most everyone, doctor or not, agree that there are few things that you can do better for your body in the morning than eating breakfast.  Numerous medical studies have been conducted that show that eating a balanced breakfast in the morning can improve physical performance and mental concentration for the rest of the day.  Simply consuming breakfast reawakens the metabolism after the fast experienced during sleep, and can even lower cholesterol levels.  These are just the facts, but who can argue that rising even just a few minutes earlier to be able to enjoy breakfast is a bad thing?  Another benefit to rising early is that it is easier and more effective to exercise in the morning, and by waking up earlier the time is now available to do so.  In the morning, the body has more energy to exercise and burn more fat as compared to other times of the day because the body doesn’t have other energy stores accumulated throughout the day to pull from.  Some may argue they have no energy to exercise in the morning, or that it is physically impossible to do so without at least a few cups of joe.  In reality, exercise wakes you up physically and mentally, just as much if not more than your morning coffee, but with more health benefits and less expensive!  Exercise quickly increases energy by improving circulation throughout the entire body, especially increasing blood flow to the brain and skeletal muscles to boost mental and physical alertness.  For all the determined “non-morning people”, exercise in the a.m. can chemically change your attitude.  This is phenomenon is explained particularly well by Michael Deschenes, PhD, a professor of kinesiology at the College of William and Mary.  Deschenes says that “as your core temperature rises, hormones and endorphins are released, making your limbs feel looser and improving your mood”.  Another boon for early risers is the enjoyment of cleaner air, by getting outside earlier, the air quality is best because the ozone does not normally reach unhealthy levels until later in the day as the temperature rises.
	When you give yourself extra time in the morning, you reap the emotional benefits of decreased stress levels all day long.  So many of us lay awake in bed for an extra half an hour, hitting snooze periodically, when that time could be spent doing something productive whether it’s work or play.  Waking up a little bit earlier prevents us from becoming stressed by feeling rushed to prepare for work or school, so we begin the day in a more relaxed frame of mind instead of a perpetual late feeling.  It is also harder to make excuses in the morning as to why something can’t be done when the whole day is laid before you, and by using the extra time in the morning to be productive, you can revel in a sense of satisfaction at a job well done for the rest of the day.  Productivity in the morning doesn’t necessarily mean work, rising early gives you the opportunity to create personal time when there are less people awake and less things demanding your attention.  A little extra time in the morning can allow you to focus on being quiet, meditating, or doing any enjoyable activity uninterrupted.  Taking time out for yourself on a regular basis can increase your satisfaction with life and decrease depression.
	The physical and emotional benefits of rising earlier are not hard to see, and the possibilities are endless when you create the time for them.  I’d be willing to bet that after giving waking up earlier a try, there would be quite a few less people claiming that they are “just not a morning person”.