5 a.m. is often heralded as the prized wake-up time for success.

• But that only works for a small minority of people, The Wall Street Journal's Julie Jargon writes (gift link).

Why it matters: For many of us, forcing early mornings means fighting our natural body clocks. That leaves us more sluggish and less productive.

• The money quote: "The trend of waking up at 5 a.m. is the second-stupidest thing I've heard in a long time," Michael Breus, a sleep doctor in Hermosa Beach, Calif., tells the Journal. (The first is the trend of overnight mouth-taping.)

👀 Zoom in: We're born with pre-set internal clocks. We each have 351 genes — expressed in our brains, retinas and beyond — that control when we feel sleepy and when we're alert, a study published in Nature Communications found.

• Most of us — around 60% — feel the most energetic and productive between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., Jargon notes.

Around 20% are night owls, whose energy builds as it gets later, and another 20% or so are early birds, who naturally rise between 6 and 6:30 a.m.

• An even smaller slice of those early birds are 5 a.m. risers.

💭 The intrigue: If you aspire to get up at 5 a.m., here are a few questions to ask yourself to gauge if that's really the best lifestyle for you.

• Does it take you a while to get out of bed?
• Do you typically sleep in later when you can, like on the weekends?
• Do you need coffee to get the morning going?

💡 What to try: If you answered "yes" to any of those questions, chances are you'd help yourself by catching some more z's in the morning. But there are still some research-backed habits to try to make an earlier wake-up more comfortable and achievable, Jargon reports:

1. Get some sun (or some artificial light if it's wintertime) right when you wake up to signal to your body that it's time to start the day.
2. Work out early — not late. Exercise heats up your body, which helps wake you up and keeps you from getting sleepy.
3. Watch your drinks. Sleep doctors recommend having your last cup of coffee by 2 p.m. and cutting off alcohol at least three hours before bedtime.

A foggy January morning begins to clear at Tikal National Park in northern Guatemala, revealing the 3,000-year-old Mayan city of Tikal beneath the dense rainforest canopy.