What Getting Up at 5 am Taught Me!
Tags: Habit Building, Motivation, Habits, Life Lessons, Sleep

Photo by Kinga Cichewicz on Unsplash

I woke up at 5 am every day for a week. It was a very long week, to say the least, but hey at least now I know if the grass is actually greener on the other side.

That the first day is brutal

The first day when I woke up at 5 am, I was very tired, to say the least.

My body was in major shock that I was awake before 8 am.

Despite this, I pushed on and made myself get out of bed.

As I knew if I had stayed in bed I would have never gotten up.

Just like creating any new habit. The first day is always the worst.

It’s just like when you go back to university or school.

You forget how to write or even hold a pen as you went from doing it every day to not doing it at all.

Habits take days, weeks, months, and sometimes even years to create. However, all this hard work to stick to a habit can be easily be wasted if you forget a day or two.

However, after the first week, you’re back in the routine and you are able to do everything you could do before.

That getting up early doesn’t always increase productivity.

I feel like sometimes people associate waking up earlier to increased productivity which may be true in some cases but for me, it wasn’t. I got earlier and went on with my day like normal.

You know those videos that say if you wake up at 5 am you can achieve all your goals and start that business. Well, that defiantly didn’t happen.

By mid-afternoon, I was more tired than usual and usually spent this time relaxing, napping, or just doing some mindless activity. I wasn’t being productive. I also went to sleep earlier as I had woken up earlier so once again, I was losing more productive hours in my day.

That the best part about waking up at 5 am in the silence.

Sometimes I just love the quiet. It’s good to have some time in the morning where nobody is awake, but you and you can just think without the outside world interfering. The world is a crazy place and quiet is rare.

I’m around thousands of people each week and it often takes a toll. So, if you’re like me you are interacting with lots of people each week either through school, university, or work you may enjoy the peace that comes with waking up at 5 am.

If you can’t get yourself to wake up at 5 am. I have two alternatives. Hiking and or bushwalking is another great way of getting some quiet in your week.

The best part of both these things is that they are free.

That less sleep isn’t’ always bad.

I am one of those weird people who usually sleep for 9+ hours because it simply is my routine. I have no need to be awake earlier than 9 am most days and by 11:00 pm at night I’m very tired.

This is a habit I’ve been trying to break for some time. I don’t need nine hours of sleep; I could easily use that extra hour to do something productive. So, this challenge was hopefully going to kick start to stop this habit.

For this experiment, I tried to see if I could go to bed around 10 pm and get up at 5 am without feeling any more sluggish.

The first day was brutal like I stated above but by the end of the week. I felt good. I didn’t feel much more sluggish then I normally would, and I did everything I normally would. So, I didn’t need that extra hour of sleep I had just convinced myself that I did.

My Final Thoughts

Waking up at 5 am is tough at first as our brains and bodies have to adapt to a new “normal’ but once they do, it is easy to wake up at 5 am. That waking up at 5 am is peaceful and pretty damn nice after a hard week. That it doesn’t always mean you’re going to be more productive. That I have convinced myself I needed more sleep then I do simply because it was my routine.

My Challenge for you

To try to wake at 5 am for a week and see if the grass really is greener. I challenge you to do so and come back to this post after the challenge is complete and to post your thoughts below.

What did you learn? How did it back you feel? Will it be your “new normal”, why or why not?