How do I wake up early without feeling miserable all day?

The misery means you're doing the common version: changing your wake time without changing your sleep time — which isn't becoming a morning person, it's structured sleep deprivation, and it collapses in 72 hours on schedule. What actually works: 1. Fix the input, not the output: 6am waking is downstream of 10pm sleeping. Count back 7.5–8 hours from target and defend THAT boundary — the evening discipline (screens off, wind-down alarm at 9:30) is the actual habit; the morning is just its receipt. 2. Shift gradually: 15–20 minutes earlier every 3–4 days, not 2.5 hours overnight. Your circadian rhythm moves like a cargo ship, not a jet ski. 3. Light is the lever: bright light within 10 minutes of waking (sunlight, or the brightest lamp you own) genuinely shifts your body clock and kills grogginess faster than caffeine; conversely, bright screens at 11pm push the clock the wrong way. 4. Give the morning a job: waking early to vaguely 'be productive' loses to warm blankets every time. A specific, mildly pleasant appointment (the gym class, the coffee + book ritual, the project) gives the sleepy brain a reason that competes. 5. Same wake time weekends-ish (±1 hour): the Monday misery is often just jet lag from sleeping till 10 on Sunday. And a permission slip: if your life allows 7:30–8 and you're rested, early rising has no inherent virtue — the goal is enough sleep at a consistent time, not the aesthetic of 5am.