How To Wake Up Early — If You Are A Night Owl
I used to wake up at 1 PM.
Are you a night owl?
The majority of people, nowadays, consider themselves night owls. It became a well-known trait that everyone added to their personality. I see it more as an excuse for not waking up early.
I am the laziest person, honestly.
I used to wake up every day at around 1 PM. Going to sleep later every day, expecting a miracle that will fix my sleep schedule. By having the “night owl” trait myself, I believed I was being more creative, productive and thought better.
It was the total reverse.
I was getting a slight “high” from being sleep deprived which I thought was creativity. I was prone to eating more and eating less healthy food. I was exposed to constant light during the night.
Of course, you are a night owl if you do that!
Before challenging ourselves with such a task, we must answer truthfully this question, “Why should I wake up at 5 AM?”
I needed a reason to wake up this early.
Most likely you are facing the same barrier. You won’t add this feature into your daily life if it’s not going to advantage you. That’s why I wrote an article about “the advantages of waking up early”.
We must start with a good reason.
We can’t deceive ourselves into the “healthy habits” of waking up. After a week you will forget about your health. There is nothing wrong with being healthy, but, I don’t think it‘s the best argument when it comes to waking up.
Productive advantages that actually benefit us will do.
Now that we uncovered “what is a night owl?” and “why wake up early?”, we can move on to the tips that help me wake up at 5 AM.
#1 — Sleep schedule.
Your sleep schedule should be like the Bible.
Or Quran, or other sacred books that people worship. A sleep schedule is one of the most important factors when it comes to waking up. You must go to sleep and wake up at the same hour every day.
Our body is a clock.
Introducing a strict sleep schedule to our “diet” will help us fall asleep faster and wake up immediately. After the body has been trained to a schedule, it performs automatically. The quality of this feature is enormous.
You will get quality sleep. You will feel energized throughout the day.
#2 — Avoiding drugs before sleep.
Caffeine, nicotine, alcohol and THC.
Yes, these are drugs.
You might agree with me or not, but, they hugely affect our sleep. Automatically, it will affect reaching our goal.
Let’s say that you have a cup of coffee after your evening dinner, around 7:30 p.m. This means that by 1:30 a.m., 50 per cent of that caffeine may still be active and circulating throughout your brain tissue.
“What about cigarettes?”
Nicotine is also a stimulant, often causing smokers to sleep only very lightly. In addition, smokers often wake up too early in the morning because of nicotine withdrawal.
“Alcohol is not that bad..?”
Avoid alcoholic drinks before bed. Drinking an alcoholic beverage before sleep can help you relax, but heavily robs you of dream sleep. Also, you can wake up in the middle of the night once the effects of the alcohol have worn off.
“Weed helps with my sleep!”
CBD does, not THC. Like alcohol, it deprives people of dream sleep, which is crucial. After stopping using marijuana you will get severe rebound insomnia.
Everything in moderation, once or twice a week is ok.
Sorry guys.
#3 — Relaxing before sleep.
Forget about work.
Avoid any kind of stress-related things, at least before sleep. After dinner, you should spend time with your family. You should go for a slow walk. Activities that won’t stress you out.
I use 2 tricks to calm me down.
- Hot showers are amazing. Who doesn’t like the pleasant warmth of water? After getting out, your body will automatically find the environment colder. The drop in body temperature will help you feel sleepier.
- I consider reading before sleep a must. I recommend reading something lighter, fiction would be my choice. Reading reduces stress which makes you sleepier. You probably have fallen asleep plenty of times while reading.
No work, no calls, no responsibilities. It is time for yourself.
#4 — Maintaining complete darkness.
This part is critical.
You shouldn’t be exposed to any light 2 hours before sleeping, as it suppresses the release of melatonin. Melatonin is a messenger that “shouts to the brain and body: it’s dark, it’s dark!” In this way, melatonin helps regulate the timing of when sleep occurs.
“This is impossible!”
To be honest, yes it is very hard, especially if you live with someone else. People are exposed to blue light while scrolling through Instagram before sleep and wonder why it takes them so much time to fall asleep.
Set your devices to “night shift” or lower the light exposure. Also, wearing a sleep mask will help you fall asleep faster.
#5 — Decreasing the alarm every day.
Start with 15 minutes.
Are you waking up at 9 AM? Next morning set your alarm to 8:45 AM. Try it for a few days and after you succeed decrease the time substantially.
It is the best tactic.
If you are waking up at 8 AM every day and decided, motivated, that “STARTING TOMORROW I’M A NEW PERSON, I WILL WAKE UP AT 5 AM EVERY DAY”. Chill, please.
It takes time and failure.
I tried and failed 4 times before introducing, honestly, this habit to life.
Patience guys, namaste.
#Bonus — Sleep cycles.
Here is another secret.
We sleep in cycles.
The cycle is run by two types of sleep — NREM (non-rapid eye- movement) and REM. Sleep is divided into 4 stages. Each stage is basically a cerebral war between the NREM and REM which is won and lost every 90 minutes ruled by NREM sleep, followed by REM sleep.
So what?
If you, let’s say, want to wake up at 5 AM, you should fall asleep at 9:30 PM. Note, fall asleep. 90 minutes x 5 = 7 hours and 30 minutes of sleep.
You will wake up instantly.
If you wake up during a cycle, it’s harder to get out of bed.
Try it, works for me.
You can do it!
I did it.
I was a “night owl” for 21 years. Being fooled and considered a night owl with arguments such as “you were always like that” and “you like sleeping”. No shit sherlock, everyone loves sleeping.
Not anymore. Be the cool kid who wakes up early and conquers the world!
Thank you for reading!
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