Wake Up Early
A Simple Blueprint
Let’s look at the actual practicalities of how to wake up early in the morning. Even though it’s a very minor step and should be easy, it is in fact one of the toughest things we have to do in a single day. I have said it before, and I will say it again:
"It takes courage to open up a new day"
But actually all you need are two things:
2. Make It Simple
Bullet point number 2 is what this entire page will deal with. The reason why it's not so simple to get out of bed in the morning is usually that you're just too tired when the alarm rings - Hence you snooze!
Just snoozing itself is quite an interesting phenomenon but let's stay focused here for a while. Let’s get this part dealt with! Let's wake up early - simple style!
Actually, what being too tired means is that you fail to feel the motivation you have to wake up. Your thinking gets ruined by tiredness and the inevitable result is...
You hit snooze.
So let’s attack the source. OK, we don’t want to be tired, how to solve that?
No, I’m not just recommending to go to bed earlier. We are gonna use a smarter system here.
The most important thing in this method is to ALWAYS (NO MATTER WHAT) set your alarm to the SAME TIME. I mean EVERY SINGLE DAY. This will without a doubt make your ability to wake up early skyrocket!
Let me explain why.
Your sleep cycles have tremendous power over your ability to wake up and the quality of your sleep. Based on these sleep cycles, I often hear recommendations that it’s best go to bed at a time when these sleep cycles will add up to an even number at the time you plan to wake up. So let’s say you want to wake up 0600. Then with sleep cycles of approximately 90 minutes, the best choice would be to go to bed at
- 12 midnight – 6 hours sleep ( 4 sleep cycles a 90 min ), or
- 10.30 pm – 7.5 hours sleep ( 5 sleep cycles a 90 min ), or
- 9pm – 9 hours sleep ( 6 sleep cycles a 90 min )
I know, it sounds pretty and neat, but in reality it doesn't really cut it. We can't have a specific time to go to bed. And what happens when it takes fifteen minutes to fall asleep? Are the cycles ruined?
No, there’s an even better way. Instead of calculating your sleeping time in sleep cycles, let’s skip all that and lets use a method to let our body adjust itself. This is the...
How To Wake Up Early
It's simple, but it works brilliant when fully implemented. This will give you an easy way to wake up early every day. Here goes:
1. Set your alarm at your desired wake up time
2. Wake up no matter what (more on that soon…)
3. Go to bed when you are tired
If you didn't get enough sleep during the night, you will be tired and want to go to bed earlier. Do not force yourself to stay awake, go to bed when you are tired.
If you slept a bit more than enough last night, you will be able to stay up slightly longer in the evening. That’s ok, just go to bed when you are tired.
4. Wake up at the exact same time as the day before
By waking up the same time every day you will soon form a habit. This habit will soon become so strong that your body will start following it and that’s the key to waking up feeling fresh in the morning. When your body starts tapping into the fact that you wake up the same time every day, you will also start getting tired around a particular time in the evening.
There you go, your body has automatically found a good time for you to go to bed. Because when your body is aware of the fact that you are always going to wake up at, say, 0600, then it ensures that that specific time ends up at the end of a sleep cycle. Thereby we can lightly wake up instead of being interrupted in the middle of our deep sleep.
I bet that it sometime has happened to you that you wake up just a few minutes before the alarm goes off. Isn't that the best feeling! It’s like we beat the alarm clock to the punch and can just switch it off before it even started.
That is the ultimate proof that your body has gone into the habit of using the same sleep cycles night after night. But...
- IF you snooze, you are in trouble.
- IF you lay around in bed for up to 10 minutes, you are in trouble.
- IF you do not JUMP out of bed, you are in trouble!
See, the thing is that when we live by this habit, we won't wake up tired anymore.
Another important aspect to really get this going is how you go to bed. You will want to go to bed when you are tired. Yeah, it sounds obvious, but we are not really doing it. I suggest learning more about when to go to bed to really optimize your skills to wake up early.
Finally, to start getting our sleep cycles and waking up habits in order, we must address the point where I say: Wake up no matter what. The tricky part is always in the beginning of a new way to do things, so with some powerful tips it will for sure become a breeze:
And if you haven't already, make sure you are clear on your motivation.
Steve Pavlina, a fantastic personal development coach, has also written a very clear and inspiring article about how to become an early riser. Check it out for more first-hand experience tips.
So to summarize, when you have motivation, and you are not too tired to feel it - Then waking up early becomes second nature.
So go to bed when you're tired but always wake up at the same time. Now get going, start tomorrow and wake up early!
Early Riser > Wake Up Early > Wake Up Early Blueprint
Thanks for reading! By Matthew M. McEwan
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