I come to the oracle that is SRP for suggestions from the collective on successfully changing a sleep pattern.

I have always been a night owl. I've said for years that if I were independently wealthy and/or had no obligatory reason to wake at any specific time, if left to my own devices, I would go to bed between midnight and 3am; probably closer to the 3am mark.

Other than maintain a full time day job and interact daily with my family, there really are only a handful of other things I'd like to devote time to on a regular basis. Even so, there simply seems to be an insufficient amount of time in the day to accomplish those few extra things.

In addition to my job and family, I would also like to exercise daily, read, practice writing fiction and spend some time in contemplation and prayer. After the kids are in bed, it's too late, for example, for me to exercise. I've tried it and it does not work for me since the energy I get from exercise keeps me up much longer than I'd like.

I believe the only way I can work toward accomplishing the goals I'd like to set for myself based on my current obligations and life is to wake up between 4am and 5 am most days.

I'm not a complete stranger to rising that early since from time to time I have to travel for business which sometimes requires me to wake that early to get on the road in time; however, such early mornings are infrequent and are preceded by getting only 3-5 hours of sleep the night before.

Also, almost ten years ago, I shed an unhealthy lifestyle and started jogging with a goal of running a marathon (which I did). I trained for almost two years prior to the marathon by waking up between 4-4:30am almost every day, running and then getting off to work by 8:00am. In retrospect I can not say how I accomplished and in fact, I'm almost convinced that must have been a different person. That was also "pre-kids" and going for 1-2 hour morning runs and exercising in the evenings would not be possible now.

Back to the goal of changing my sleep pattern to be able to wake up rested by 4:00am-5:00am:

I've thought that maybe the gradual approach would work best? Waking up a half and hour early for a week or so, then a half an hour earlier than that and so on while trying very hard to go to bed earlier (that will be the tough part). I've read that watching TV before bed is not good since the mind stays active. That's not a problem for me. I don't watch TV.

I've also thought maybe a harsh approach would work best for me: Purposely staying up all night, working a full day the next day then crashing between 8-9pm the next night, getting a full night sleep, waking at my desired early time and trying to start a pattern then.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated.

Chris L