Please Don’t Try To Sleep Early In Order To Get Up Early Anymore, You Have A Much Better Way
By: Tung Vo
Tags: Sleep, Self Improvement, Health, Mental Health, Habit Building

A logic we all know

I actually don’t know how many ways that advisers can list down, but searching around on Google, I think you can find a lot.

However, one common logic that we all know is that going to sleep early leads to getting up early.

You probably get advised frequently that “You have to go to sleep early if you want to get up early tomorrow”.

Change your sleeping time first, that’s the logic.

And you start making up your mind, but then realize that you even fail to do the first step, because you cannot sleep when you’re still wide alert.

Well, That’s not my way.

The logic is not wrong, but let’s turn it upside-down

It may sound paradoxical, but give it a go by starting with getting up early.

From my perspective, to have a habit of getting up early doesn’t mean you have to force yourself to sleep earlier the night before.

The reason is that when you’re trying to change your old habits, it means that your current routine is really solid, so it’s not easy to call it day, put your phone down, and turn Netflix off to go to sleep.

However, given that you are determined enough to quit it all, turn off the light, then close your eyes, and count sheep, you still cannot force yourself to fall into sleep right away simply because you’re not familiar with it and how could it even happen when you’re not sleepy at all?

My way is merely setting up a loud and annoying alarm that requires me to wake up to turn it off.

The next step is important.

I’m a normal person just like you, and I cannot help but get back to my unfinished dreams when something disrupts me in the middle of a sound sleep.

So, I have to come up with one thing that can stop me from doing that.

That’s the phone, which is undoubtedly tempting to me and to everyone.

Is that true that most of us always grab the phone as soon as we wake up? We can do anything with the phone even when we’re still sleepy as hell with our eyes half open, including checking newsfeed, sending some texts, watching some funny videos, just except getting out of our bed.

So, my strategy is to keep swiping the screen until I’m awake.

That’s how to commit to your get-up time.

Next step, there is no next steps.

You would question “But the thing I want is to get up, not to wake up and chill with my phone?”.

Let’s see what happens next…

You probably don’t feel so tired in one or two first days. Just be free to follow your normal night routine, just relax, listen to music, binge-watch movies, or do anything you want.

Only one thing you have to commit to is waking up as the alarm rings the next morning.

Believe me, a few days later, you will be so sleep-deprived and exhausted because you have been staying up late at night but waking up early in the morning, which enables you to fall asleep early effortlessly.

That’s when the strategy works, and you have just completed the first cycle. Just repeat until your body and mind truly adopt the new habit.

I don’t remember exactly how many days to form a habit, some reliable sources say it takes at least 21 days. For me, it’s just around 2 weeks, but feel free to experience it yourself.