How to wake up early?
Waking up early is a challenge to most of us. We all know the benefits of waking up early but very few people actually do it. If I have to put it bluntly, sleep early to wake up early. It is as simple as that. But, is it really as simple as it sounds?
Why don’t we sleep early?
As a kid, I always slept around 9 O’clock and there are hardly any days when I was awake till 12 AM. It all changed once I got to my high school and the work started mounting. It continued through my teen years and even after marriage. I can now sleep early as I am in a job where I can come home by 7 and forget all about work. However, I still don’t feel like going to bed early. If I finish off all my chores, I would like to sit down in front of YouTube! and watch some mindless videos.
I have simply lost the HABIT of sleeping early.
Even if I try to sleep early, I usually end up sleeping later than usual. My body and my mind are not ready to lose that habit in a hurry.
How to lose the HABIT?
How many days does it take to change a habit? The usual answer is 21 days. However, for a habit that was with us for 15 or so years, it will take it more than few weeks to change it. Sleeping early is not just about finishing work early and hitting the sheets. It is mostly about the discipline to do so. Here are few tricks if you are lagging in the discipline department:
- Don’t complete all your work before going to sleep. Have some work to do early in the morning. Eventually, you will find yourself waking up early to finish that task. You might fail a few times, but you will want to wake up early every time you fail
- Do lot of physical activity in the day and that usually tires you up. You will sleep in a jiffy once you reach home
- Eat out and come home only to sleep. Get so tired that you don’t feel like doing anything else and you just want to drop on the bed
- Remove the cable and block all your distractions. Once you are bored to death, you will automatically sleep.
- Don’t think about the white elephant. Similarly, don’t think about sleep. It has to be natural
- Stop eating sugars, processed foods and drinking soda. It really helped me in sleeping early. I was not insomniac anymore. This is my true story. I have also dropped 3 pounds in a month and half without much effort. It also had my skin glowing. I will write a blog on this, but more about it later.
- Unplug from the Internet and TV before you sleep
- One horrible trick is to eat A LOT where you don’t even feel like walking and you will feel sleepy
- Get your self a morning part-time job
Note that all these points are just to get you in to the habit of sleeping early. Use common sense and don’t stick to procrastinating and eating a lot in the long run.
Sustaining the new HABIT
Consider that you have formed the habit of waking up early when you can wake up with out feeling tired and without much effort. Congratulate yourself and if you can sustain it for a month, give yourself a pat on the back!
Don’t sleep late even during the weekends. To sustain the new habit, have a positive motivation to wake up early. Few of them are:
- Learn to cook instead of eating out
- Do some exercise
- Learn something
- Do a part time job and earn few extra bucks
- Learn gardening
- Go to work early and commit in office that you will be working early going for forth. This frees up your evenings to catch up with other stuff
- Make a point to remember the benefits of waking up early
Enjoy waking up early and just love it! It is difficult to break a habit once you form it, remember?
