This is exactly the kind of thing people with delayed sleep cycles hear all the time. There is a group of people for which your solution is impossible. Your circadian rhythm is compatible with that kind of schedule, and that's great. Some other people can't do that. I mean, I can wake up early regularly but eventually get into a sort of perpetual feeling just like jet-lag with symptoms of sleep deprivation (even when going to bed earlier and falling asleep early due to exhaustion).
It was actually funny, after one of my recent trips to Europe from Australia, when I came back my (actual) jet lag weirdly landed me in a sort of normal cycle for a week and a bit. It was truely a bizarre experience - I literally cannot remember a time in my life (I'm almost 30) where I could regularly wake up before 9am and being able to go to sleep before 12:30 to 1:30 am and feel normal. But for this little while I was waking up between 7:30-8:30am and going to sleep between 10pm and 11pm. It quickly wore off (discipline doesn't have anything to do with it, you just can't fight your physiology) but it was really interesting and eye-opening experience...
I'm the same way. I've had a couple times in my life where things lined up with the rest of the world. Waking up in the 6 to 7am range and going to sleep before midnight. It was interesting to live on a "normal" schedule for a while. And also very convenient--normally all appointments happen happen after noon which halves the available window right off the bat. But my schedule always slides to my natural rhythm.
For me, either I can’t fall asleep earlier no matter how good ‘sleep hygiene’ I have, how little screen time before bed, how long I avoid caffeine for, etc. or if I do fall asleep earlier because I’m exhausted I seem to get lower quality sleep and it gets harder and harder to wake up on time.
For me, it’s absolutely not a conscious choice, and it hasn’t changed depending on the level of stress I’ve been under, and I’ve tried all sorts of things across living in three different places over the years...
I eventually found sleep science research that suggests that it is just extremely difficult to go against your natural circadian rhythm. I guess the problem for delayed people (and if I recall the statistics correctly, the severity of my sleep cycle delay is such that it only affects something like 2-5% of adults, but I think more than 10 or 20 percent of adolescents) is that anyone can be lazy and sleep in, but it’s far, far harder to go the other way - so the majority of the population with a normal or early cycle can just go to bed earlier and function normally waking up earlier, but it doesn’t work for everyone.
It’s their bodies’ reaction to sunlight. There are plenty of nocturnal animals and plenty of diurnal ones. They don’t have clocks or screens to know when to wake and when to sleep. Neither did we until very recently.
As I grew into the role of a young adult, I experimented and arranged school and/of work to be later in the day. Why not, especially as a “lazy” student, right? Funny enough, the quality of my work increased and I got better grades. I thought more critically in class and clearly when on the job. I didn’t need caffeine to function when I awoke or have to manage screen time before bed. I became a more productive person like the early birds, but in my own fashion.
It can be hard to read comments like this that paint the picture as learned helplessness, especially when it feels like honestly playing to one’s strengths.
It was actually funny, after one of my recent trips to Europe from Australia, when I came back my (actual) jet lag weirdly landed me in a sort of normal cycle for a week and a bit. It was truely a bizarre experience - I literally cannot remember a time in my life (I'm almost 30) where I could regularly wake up before 9am and being able to go to sleep before 12:30 to 1:30 am and feel normal. But for this little while I was waking up between 7:30-8:30am and going to sleep between 10pm and 11pm. It quickly wore off (discipline doesn't have anything to do with it, you just can't fight your physiology) but it was really interesting and eye-opening experience...