Soledad O'Brien: manages newborn twin sons, two toddler daughters, and CNN morning anchor slot

To CNN anchor Soledad O'Brien sleep is a hot commodity. As the mother to newborn twin boys, Charlie and Jackson, 2-year-old Cecelia and 4-year-old Sophia, O'Brien has managed to keep her "morning person" status despite the hustle and bustle of her family life.

Millions of people wake up to O'Brien's bright-eyes and welcoming smile when they tune in to CNN's flagship morning TV program, "American Morning."

The daughter of a Cuban and African-American mother and an Australian father, O'Brien is a graduate of Harvard University.

A New Yorker, she begins her day at 4 am and is on the air by 7 am five days a week. Even with these offbeat hours she and her husband Brad, an investment banker, are hands on when raising their children. At 38-years-young, O'Brien willfully keeps the energy to fuel a thriving, successful career as well as run a household.

"I don't sleep a lot and I need a ton of sleep; I honestly love to sleep. I really need like 9 hours a night, but I never get it," O'Brien explains to JET, laughing. "I'm a total morning person. All my life I've really enjoyed getting up in the morning. If I'm not working, I get up at 5:30 or 6:00."

Despite her lack of rest, O'Brien is grateful for her early morning start.

"I have a great schedule for having kids, luckily, since I have a lot of them. I've really worked hard to clear my schedule so that I pick [my daughter] up every day from preschool at 2:30. You're just chronically tired, but you're chronically tired with newborns anyway, so, what's the difference?"

She views her job as a "break" from home. "I love working and it's time for myself. It's very easy to shortchange yourself. It's easy to always say I'll cancel my gym, I'll cancel what I need to do, and you can't do that. I need balance. I need time alone to do what I want to do. Last year Brad and I really started carving out time for ourselves as a couple too, so we're going to do three trips a year-not long trips, but little two-day jaunts where we just go alone. It is not easy; it's a juggling act."