How To Wake Up at 5 A.M. Every Day
By: Bryan Ye
Tags: Self Improvement, Productivity, Sleep, Personal Development, Habits

💪 Understand What You Gain and Lose

When I first tried to become an early riser, I didn’t consider what I have to give up. I failed because I wasn’t willing to give up the things I enjoyed, like my weekday social life. I would go out, say I’d wake up early despite getting home late, and ultimately wake up late.

If you accept what you lose upfront, you won’t keep trying to hold onto it when it’s gone.

But let’s be optimistic and start with what you’ll gain.

What you gain

Being an early bird means you get a few hours every day to do whatever you want. It’s likely nobody else will be awake to disturb you. You can paint, start a business, write — anything you want.

Your prefrontal cortex is most active right after waking up, making it optimal for creativity. I’ve noticed I write much faster in the morning than at any other time in the day. Looking at the habits of famous writers, a lot of them have figured it out too (most authors write in the morning).

It’s a big win: a few hours of solitude with your most creative self.

What you lose

There’s no free lunch. Waking up early doesn’t give you extra time. It takes off time you would otherwise have at night — unless you sleep less, which is a bad idea. If you sleep less, you either won’t be able to wake up early and become a night owl again, or you’ll be sleep-deprived and unproductive throughout the day.

In reality, I lost time since I started waking up early. I used to sleep for 6 hours and wake up from the urgency to get up and get to work. I can’t do that when I’m waking up early because there’s no urgency for me to get out of bed; I’m weak. So I sleep for 8 hours. Otherwise, the temptation to stay in bed would be too much.

I’ve lost around 2 hours every day—but I feel rested throughout the day.

Running out of time

I finish work at 5 p.m. (haha, 9–5). That means I have 4 hours after work before I sleep. But there are a few things I need to do within that time:

Commute (1 hour)

Cook and eat (1 hour)

Exercise (1 hour)

Wind down (1 hour)

That adds up to 4 hours. There’s no time left to do anything else. Of course, these activities don’t always take an hour each, but you get the point. Winding down is especially important for me. I tried a lot of ways to get around it, but I ended up not being able to sleep.

To keep my sanity, I have dinner with friends on days I don’t exercise. Still, there’s a limited time I can spend with them (around 2 hours).

It feels like I’m living in a box, but I can’t say it’s all been bad. Being able to keep up this habit makes me feel eccentric and in some way, special.

I used to watch the life of bodybuilders and wonder how they do it; all they do is eat, train and sleep. They don’t do anything else.

Now I understand them. There’s a sense of purpose that comes with living in a box. You know you’re disciplining yourself for a goal.

Give yourself one day off per week

I’ve found that if I mess up my sleep schedule one day a week, I can still maintain it throughout the week. I tried sleeping late two or three days a week — it didn’t work. But one seems to be okay.

I love going out at night, so I’ve given myself one day a week (usually Friday) to hang out with friends for longer.

If this is something you need to do to wake up early, I suggest you set rules for it, too. You’re less likely to fail with disciplined chaos than pure chaos. Give yourself one day a week where you’re allowed to break the rules to mitigate what you feel you are losing.

Compare the benefits with the cost

Ask yourself these two questions:

What will I gain with the extra time in the morning?

What will I lose with the lost time at night?

Then ask yourself: “Do the benefits outweigh the costs?”

If they don’t, then there’s probably no point in waking up early. If they do, there are a few things that helped me that’ll probably help you.