I have been doing some extra searching on the Internet regarding some of the challenges people have with waking up at 5.00AM. What I found is that that a lot of people are challenged with just waking up on time  or waking up “early”  in general. So this blog post focuses more on the fundamentals hence the Title “How to Wake Up Early”.

Fundamental Habits / Tips

These 5 tips are the foundation steps to waking up early. Without sticking to these steps your 5AM Club will be incredibly difficult.

1.  Sleep at the same time every night and make it a habit to wake up at the same time every morning

2.  Get Enough Sleep – You need to have a reasonable knowledge of how much sleep your body requires Is it 7, 8, 9 or 10 hours?. Without this knowledge you will not be able to calculate you wake up time.

3.  Reduce mind stimulating activities at night such as watching TV, YouTube, Video games at night. Get in the habits of having a tech cool down period 1 hour before going to sleep.

4.  Have a good diet and drink plenty of water – Junk food contains more sugar, caffeine, preservatives which all makes it harder to sleep. Try to eat whole foods and particular have twice as much vegetables as protein (meat). Also make sure you carry a bottle of water with you and sip from it constantly throughout the day.

5. Get Fit – Fitness will increase your willpower, improve the quality of your sleep and increase your energy level.

 

 

Waking Up Early Execution Tips

So your alarm has gone off and you are awake, what do you do next?

1.  Have something to look forward to when you wake up

Think about these thing before you go to sleep. It will create that excitement of getting up early.

 

2.  As soon as you wake up do something that takes mental effort.
I normally type in “Good Morning” in a chat application at 4:45AM every morning. This takes effort and sometimes I have hilarious results- it funny observing one part of the brain say “morning” to find the fingers have typed in something totally different (I am sure maxyted means Morning in another country). I am thinking about turning it up a notch and type the word “morning” in a foreign language like Dutch – “Goedemorgen” (which I did this morning) – this would take additional mental effort.

 

3.  Design and execute your wake up and getup routine 
This is my routine:

1. 4:45AM Alarm to wake up
2. 5:00AM to get out of bed
3. Leave the bedroom ASAP

 

4. Design an awaken body routine

1. Glass of water (squeeze lemon in it)
2. Empty dishwasher for stretching and mental workout

Other alternate wake up routines I could take up include
1. Practising a 5min Yoga Routine – http://youtu.be/ttnfrj2voFI
2. Go outside and water plants
3. Draw open the curtains, open windows and breath deeply

 

5. Check in

I use “Lift.do” – made some online friend who aknowledge some of the  habits (doing mental maths, read quotes etc) that I have completed and checked in

I use an application called “slack” to check in with fellow 5AMers

 

 

Empowering tips to wake up early much easier

These tips will make the whole process easier – checkout my resource here on willpower and you will understand why these tips will make the practise easier as time goes on.

1. Create a positive routine
– take time to feel good about yourself
– Set your mood and attitude correct for the day
I read motivation quotes, read blogs and watch motivational videos on Youtube – Just type “youtube motivation” in google and start from there. Most video are normally 5-10 minutes. Practice the art of gratitude everyday and enjoy nature such as breathing morning air or witnessing daybreak.

2. Enjoy and strive during your exercise habit
– Exercise for 20mins – I look forward to my morning run where I can breath the cool morning air and see the harbour
– Also I look forward to beating my running time even if it is only by 1 sec or rowing to make 6KM in 22mins

3. Organize your day
– Set some achievable day goals
– Make sure you complete your routines and cross them off the list

 

Conclusion

There are a lot of tips on waking up early that concentrate on the mechanics of waking up early like having the alarm clock on the other side of the room or splashing cold water on your face. I believe a better approach is to prepare and call on your internal drive and rather than resorting to shock tactics to wake up early everyday. As posted previously establishing habits is the best way, if you rely on pure willpower to wake up early, it does not take long for your willpower to deplete and you will find it increasing difficult to wake up early. Chip away at it to create the habit and the act of waking up early will take almost no effort.