Over the last two weeks, I’ve altered my schedule in a very simple way: on most days, I get up earlier and go to bed earlier.

At one point, I was a morning person. Sleeping 'til 8 or later was a rare treat; most days, I got up at 6:05 AM sharp. For the first two years I was in college, I made the radical change of getting up at 7 instead of 6, but otherwise kept the same schedule. In my last two years of college, though, I fell apart. Most college students sleep from about 2 AM—10 AM, and if you want to socialize—or even worse, date—that’s got to be your schedule, too, so slid everything in my day back by three three hours. Because Fog Creek has flexible hours and I had a college-attending girlfriend through July, I kept my 2—10 schedule when I began work as well.

For the last couple of weeks, though, I changed that, sleeping most nights from 11 to 7. On the surface, there should be no difference. I’m awake the same total number of hours. New York stores are open plenty late enough that I can get done everything I want to get done regardless of my hours. Tyler runs on the same schedule I ran on, so there’s no reason my work should’ve been affected. Empirically, there should be no difference.

But…there is. I’m better about praying and meditating regularly. I get more exercise. For heaven knows what reason, I eat more healthily, get more done at work, and am generally in a better mood. I used to think that the old adage, “Early to bed and early to rise/Makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise” was nothing more than a saying, but I’m beginning to think that, at least my body, the statement holds more than a bit of truth.