A weeklong camping trip can help reset a person's internal biological clock, so that it will be easier to wake up in the morning and feel more alert, a new study suggests.

 

After study participants spent more time exposed to natural light and less time in artificial lighting, researchers found their bedtimes and wake-up times shifted, both moving up to two hours earlier. 

 

"After camping, the night owls in the group showed the greatest shifts in the timing of their internal clocks," said study researcher Kenneth P. Wright, Jr., an associate professor of physiology at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

 

"Night owls looked more similar to earlier morning types," Wright said. In other words, night owls started keeping an early-to-bed, early-to-rise schedule, and they said they felt more alert in the morning.