How to become an early riser
Some people like to sleep longer in the morning, some are early risers and wake up quite early every day. I usually prefer to sleep a bit longer in the morning and don’t mind staying up a bit longer in the evening. My parents were always angry with me when we went to a family holiday and I enjoyed to sleep longer in the mornings - they perceived this as a waste of time, especially when I was supposed to enjoy the holiday.
Even now, I enjoy to sleep longer. If I don’t have to schedule an alarm clock for the morning, I go to bed happier - there are just no limits as to how long I can sleep the next morning, I can wake up naturally. The sense of freedom feels great.
However, I was recently attracted to read about benefits that come with becoming an early riser and I thought that this is not “accidental”. An article that got most of my attention was published by Steve Pavlina. He says that after he set his alarm clock to wake him up at 5 am every morning, he started to see that his productivity increased a lot, not just in the morning, but also during the day. It sounds quite interesting. If he proved on himself that he was more vital during the day, I am interested to see if this works for others as well - definitely worth trying!
So what does Steve recommend in his article? He suggests a very simple strategy to becoming an early riser:
- Schedule an alarm clock to wake you up on the same time every day (he set his alarm clock for 5 am)
- Go to bed in the evening when you feel tired. Don’t go if you think you would not fall immediately asleep, but don’t wait until you drop off exhausted either. Use reading a book as a simple measure of whether it is a good time to go to bed and go to bed - if you can’t concentrate on reading anymore, just go to bed. If you are not reading a book, try asking yourself if you would fall asleep within 5 minutes of going to bed. If the answer is yes, go to bed.
The above mentioned principles are acceptable to me. They don’t force me to sleep less than my body needs - they are targeted to ensure the body will say, when it is time to go to bed. And by building up a routine of getting up on the same time every day, the body will say when it needs to go to bed quite reliably.
I am going to give this a try for some time. Will see how it goes. What about you? What are your sleeping habits? Are you an early riser? Do you feel better if you get up early? Let me know, feel free to comment under the article.
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Sounds interesting, will give it a try.
I am an early riser and find doing any difficult task easier early in the day. I agree with goin gto bed when you feel tired, but rerading a book that stimulates brain activity is not a good idea. As a colour therapist I tried a turquoise duvet cover with a blue bedsheet and that helped me relax and get off to sleep