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LESLEY HEART: The early bird gets the worm – whether her hair is brushed or not

After weeks of burning the candle at both ends, Lesley Hart is giving 'early to bed and early to rise' a try.

Early mornings are Lesley Hart's latest love. Image: Shutterstock.
Early mornings are Lesley Hart's latest love. Image: Shutterstock.

The last few weeks of my life have been kind of crazy.

I’ve been opening a theatre show, commuting between Glasgow and Edinburgh at extreme ends of the day, then doing quite a bit of small-hours karaoke in Lanzarote. All of which has involved burning the candle at both ends.

And, like any fire hazard, I wouldn’t trust me with either end of a candle – especially when chronically sleep deprived.

This week’s project is to reset my circadian rhythms, and for me, that can mean only one thing: early to bed – crazy early. I’m talking, bedtime of a seven-year-old.

You see, I am an early bird.

I do everything better in the morning – all my best thinking, writing, exercising. Probably my best acting too, although, it’s hard to tell, because for all that I feel better in the morning, I don’t look better.

Mascara-eye-bogies can’t stop early birds flying

My face belies my morning vim, and I look as hellish as most people feel at 7am. So, even if I am doing my best acting first thing in the morning at River City you’d be hard pushed to see it through my eyebags and marshmallow cheeks.

It’s just as well they do my hair and make-up for me, or ‘peak Lou’ (my character name) would be obscured by bedhead and mascara-eye-bogies too.

Lesley as Lou Caplan on River City. Image: BBC Scotland/Alan Peebles.

The very best thing about the early morning is the quiet. I need that. In the morning, I can hear myself think, which is just as well because I can’t think any other way.

Background noise drowns out all my thoughts. I can’t read with the radio on. Can’t really talk with the telly on.

When the world wakes up and there’s the noise of traffic to compete with, and hairdryers, lawnmowers, washing machines, coffee machines, phones, buzzers, doorbells, or – god forbid – road works and building works, my brain starts to melt and I can’t concentrate.

I’m a ‘noise-cancelling headphones after 8am’ kind of girl.

‘Witchcraft to conjure brilliance after 10pm’

As an early bird, I find night owls fascinating.

How is it possible for the last thing you do all day to be your best thing? Have you not had three glasses of wine by that point? A heavy dinner?

Are you not tired from all the stress and strife and over-stimulation of the day? Do you not just feel like vegging out? Is it witchcraft to conjure brilliance after 10pm?

Genuinely, I want to know.

The one thing early birds and night owls must have in common is the love of quiet and solitude – channelling inspiration in the smaller hours, alone, when everyone else is asleep.

This makes me wonder if there is such a thing as an afternoon-bird? A ‘post-lunch pigeon’, say, who works best when everyone else is having mid-afternoon dips (or siestas in more civilised countries/home-working circles).

I would be very interested to meet someone whose best ideas bubble up at 2pm, when most people are merely bubbling up gas.

I’m on day two of the circadian reset and, challenging though it is to leave a bank holiday barbecue before the marshmallows hit the grill, I’m feeling the benefit, and the vim, at 7am as I type this – even if I do look like a bed-headed, mascara-bogied marshmallow right now.

So much so, I might even wash my face and brush my hair.

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