8 step guide to on how to wake up early and not skipping mornings

Some people can wake up early without even trying.

Ariful Huq is a broker who starts his day at 4.30 AM.

“Energy flows through me as the sun rises.” Says Ariful, “At least that’s how I feel when I wake up early”.

Waking up early has made Ariful highly productive. For example, he does his weekly groceries by 8 AM on weekends, before the crowd starts to form in the wet markets.

Ariful is not alone in waking up early. Apple CEO Tim Cook wakes up at 3.30 AM. Elon Musk rises at 7 AM. LinkedIn’s Jeff Weiner? 5.30 AM.

Oprah, Richard Branson, and Dwayne Johnson are all early risers (just to name a few.

But not everyone is like them.

Even though our bodies are more attuned to waking up early as our body’s internal clock is attuned with light, waking up early doesn’t come naturally to many people.

Even though there are numerous benefits, it’s often hard to get out of bed in the morning.

But being clear of the benefits can eventually steer us in that direction. Let’s see some of the benefits of being an early bird.

How to wake up early-6 ways waking up early benefits us

“Wake up early and tackle the day before it tackles you. Be on offense, not defense.”

— Evan Carmichael

• Get a head start by waking up early. Before others wake up, you can get your exercise done, have a good breakfast, get some personal work done and even read for a while.
• Be more proactive with waking up early. According to renowned biology professor Christoph Randler, proactivity is more prominent in early risers.
• Buy some extra time by adding extra hours to your day. Those extra hours will make you more relaxed yet productive. Imagine if you had 15% more time, wouldn’t any work be easier to complete?
• Enhance your organizing skills with uninterrupted morning time. You are unlikely to get disturbed in whatever you do in the morning. That will allow you to do some deep work if you want to.
• Beat the traffic to work, in stores, and in almost most places. You can get to your workplace faster and do some work by yourself. Or you can make an early trip to grocery stores to shop for fresh goods before it starts getting crowded.
• Be happier. According to a National Library of Medicine Study, researchers found that adults who woke up early had a more positive state of mind compared to others

How to wake up early

Start with why

By waking up early, you sacrifice sleep for some extra hours. Why?

What are you planning to do with those extra hours?

If you don’t have a clear goal, it will be hard to wake up.

The goal can be to study for an exam, exercise/walk, work on your side hustle, or something else.

But if it’s not something you are not passionate about, you’ll feel more passion for sleep instead.

Go to bed earlier

Your daily routine builds fatigue that needs to take care of with sleep.

Without fixing parts of the daily routine, waking up early remains difficult.

The amount of sleep you need would remain the same. So you’ll need to adjust your bedtime routine.

By adjusting when you go to sleep, you will make it easy for your to wake up earlier than usual.

Watch what (and when) you consume

Food, caffeine, alcohol.

It’s not recommended to eat food too close to bedtime or have any drink. Ideally, you should eat three hours (at least) before bedtime.

Caffeine can stay in your body for up to 8 hours. Do that calculation and decide when you want to have your last cuppa.

Your eating pattern will help you fall asleep faster.

Use light to sleep early & wake yourself up

Light tells us the time.

Usually, light means it’s time to wake up or stay awake.

Turn on the light in the room or get close to the window to give your body that signal.

There are some lights with timers which you can program to turn on when you want. Some of them can gradually increase the brightness to make the process seem natural.

While checking phone notifications and emails might have a similar effect, that’s not recommended as you’ll lose a bit of your morning freshness with that.

Similarly, avoid devices before sleeping and keep the room dark to fall asleep fast.

Keep your alarm slightly far from you

If you are used to sleeping with your phone, maybe you can use another device to set alarms.

Otherwise, the risk of hitting the snooze (or dismiss) button is too high.

There are some crazy alarms that require you to do maths to stop it. It’s better to not overdo with them. A regular alarm (placed a bit far) should be fine as long as that forces you to get out of bed.

Then you can quickly turn on the light or peek through the window to alert your mind.

Get out of bedroom quickly

Our environment plays a big role in setting our behaviors.

When you wake up and are still in bed, it’s easy to fall back to sleep. The bed seems cozier than ever.

But that changes if you are in the washroom or some other room.

Force yourself to move to another room. By changing the environment, you will also change the habit of falling back to sleep.

Make gradual progress

It’s possible to wake up at 9 AM every day and wake up at 5 AM one fine morning.

But it’s hard to sustain a sudden change that’s not backed by other adjustments in daily routine.

A gradual change is easier for the body to accept.

Start making smaller changes (30–60 minutes) to waking up, get used to that for 3 weeks and then move it again.

Reward yourself for waking up early

Forming habits is easier when there’s a clear reward.

Waking up early is a tough habit that you are training yourself to do. You deserve a reward for that task.

Maybe you can treat yourself to a flavored coffee, or a small dessert if you wake up when you want to.

You can even keep the room slightly chilly and keep warm and comfortable clothe close by. Wearing that in the morning to get some extra warmth can be an extra motivation.

Or you can give yourself a weekly reward of a nice meal or a book or some form of entertainment (buy a game) if you maintain your weekly streak.

Over time, you won’t need rewards to wake up. Until that happens, the reward can work as your motivation to wake up.

Final thoughts– How to wake up early

Waking up early is tempting, yet daunting.

It doesn’t remain the same when you get used to it.

Till then, try cracking the code using the methods discussed in this article.