How to wake up early and not hate yourself [v1.0]
“First one to get the egg (naughty word), cock-a-doodle-doo”
- 2 Chainz
There are few things that will impact the flow of your day as much as changing your wake up time a couple of hours earlier. Unfortunately, at the beginning it will feel like someone is strangling your brain. To pull it off successfully you need a multimodal strategy that accounts for;
The first minute after your alarm goes off
The next 29 minutes after that
60 minutes later
Noon-ish
and Sunset
We’ll work backwards, like many morning routines, a truly effective one begins the night before. For shifting your wake up time, you should watch the sunset since your eyes and brain will receive those evening rays of light and register that it’s time to unwind. After that you should do absolutely everything you can to get to bed 9 hours before your alarm. It’ doesn’t matter if you don’t think you need 9 hours of sleep, the mere act of being in your bed and reading will give you the opportunity to become sleepy, which is something bright lights and activity can easily push off.
The time of day I’ve found to be the hardest to push through when adjusting my sleep schedule is the lunch hour where that afternoon slump takes a swing at all of us. I’ve learned that I do siginficantly better when I don’t have any carbs at lunch and even better when I skip lunch. Be very careful about caffeine consumption around this time, if you have it at 12:30 or 1 then the damage may be moderate, but if you push it later than that then you’ll just be making it harder to fall asleep at your new bedtime.
When you’ll really appreciate caffeine is 90 minutes after you wake up since that’s when your adenosine levels will begin to rise (that’s what creates sleep pressure). Caffeine is the tool to combat that pressure but before adenosine is released it won’t have any effect on it. You can still have a coffee after waking for the sake of dopamine and endorphin release.
Before that cup, ideally you can do two things in conjunction, get sunlight and do some exercise (an outdoor run is perfect for this). If increased productivity was the aim of waking up early, you have to accept its postponement for some time while you adjust. The short term goal of this process isn’t to be productive, your brain won’t be sharp enough yet, its to create a mind and body that is awake and alert at your new waking hour.
At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: “I have to go to work — as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for — the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?”
- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
All of this is a moot point though if you snooze your alarm, or wake up then accidentally fall back asleep. Having a plan for what you’ll do in the first 60 seconds after your alarm goes off is crucial, or else every second you spend in that bed will act as a plea for staying wrapped up in your sheets. My suggestion; immediately upon waking trade your warm bed for a warm shower giving you a pleasant transition out of bed.