A Night Owl? Become an Early Riser in 10 Tips

Growing up, I always hated waking up as early as 6 am to prepare for school. I detested having to brush my teeth or taking my bath. I dragged my feet to the dining table while taking my breakfast with a scary scowl on my face. You would think this behavior would change when I became an adult – I just loved my bed too much too care about mornings.

The line in Drake’s hit song –

She say. “Do you love me? I tell her, “Only partly”

I only my love my bed and my momma, I’m sorry.

I think he sang this line specifically for me, the only difference was that I was unapologetic about hating mornings. What then changed my mind and made me want to become an early riser?

Like everything in this world, too much of a particular thing can be a problem. No matter how much you love strawberry covered chocolate – you eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner and you definitely would start facing repercussions. In my case, waking up late everyday ensured that I was never early to any meetings, killed my productivity and affected my health.

Before we go into the tips you can follow to become an early riser, let’s check out some of the benefits you would get from waking up before the rooster crows.

6 Benefits you get when you become an early riser:

1. Peace and Quiet

I live in a house where there are a ton of kids – a lot of yelling and crying happens early in the morning while preparing them for school. This wakes me up most of the time. Waking up with so much noise always irritated, spoiling the rest of my day.

Early morning hours when there are no cars on the road, no television noises or kids crying is usually the best time of the day. The peace during such hours is soothing and refreshing leaving you with ample time to reflect and plan for the day ahead. It’s always good to have time to yourself to think and breathe.

2. You get to Exercise

For most individuals, your daily schedule is so jam packed that you don’t have any time to exercise at all. Also exercising after a hard day’s work can be very difficult because if you are like me, you would be very tired. To ensure that you get your daily dose of exercise, you can wake up early and exercise – ensuring that you are healthy and energized throughout the day.

3. Breakfast

There is nothing as terrible as being in a meeting and your tummy is growling because you are so hungry. When you wake up early, you would have time to eat breakfast. It is no joke that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Not taking breakfast means that during the day, your body would be working on reservoirs – you get increasingly irritated, get tired easily and would succumb to the lures of unhealthy and fatty quick snacks.

Research has also shown that people who wake up in the morning also make healthier food choices.

4. Increased Productivity

I get the most productive during the early hours of the day. That is when I get to do most of my writing since there are no distraction during this time. By the time its evening, I can then do other fun stuffs like play video games or watch movies. You can use your mornings for other productive things also, it doesn’t have to be writing.

A study by Christopher Randler, a biology professor at the University of Education in Heidelberg, Germany showed that early risers are more productive than those that stay awake at night.

5. You are early to appointments

As the day gets older, traffic increases. If you want to make it to your appointments early without the hassle of traffic, waking up early makes it easier for you. Getting to an appointment is a bad sign and would paint you as an unserious person. Showing up early, not only impresses the other individual but gives you time for adequate preparation.

6. You feel positive throughout the day

A Cognitive Therapy and Research study on the sleep patterns of individuals showed that individuals who went to bed late had a higher change of repetitive negative thinking (RNT). Most early risers go to bed early also. Going to bed early would ensure longer hours of sleep too – sleeping longer helps to reduce these negative thoughts during the day.

In addition a study that was published in Emotion showed that early risers experience much more positive emotions and are more satisfied with their lives that night people.

10 Steps to Become an Early Riser

1. Take it Slow – No drastic changes

The mistake we make when we want to make healthy changes in our lives is that we want to take giant steps at a time. Two things happens when we do this:

• The first thing is that we get exhausted easily and end up giving up
• The second is that when we don’t see significant changes in spite of our “large” efforts, we still give up.

One constant in both instances is that we end up giving up. In your bid to become an early riser, you shouldn’t make drastic changes. Take it slowly. Do not think that you can go from waking up by 7am to waking up by 4am – your body would need time to adjust. You can start by waking up 15-30 minutes earlier. Increase the time gradually until your body gets used to it and you reach your goal time.

2. Go to bed earlier than your normal time

“Early to bed, Early to rise.”

This statement holds true. What’s your night schedule like? Do you stay awake deep into the night watching TV or browsing the internet and end up sleeping by 2pm. If this is your daily routine you would find it very difficult to wake up early the next morning. The excuse I used to give myself is that I won’t fall asleep because I wasn’t feeling sleepy. I suggest that you can go to bed with the most boring BOOK you can find. Reading a boring book easily gets me tired and I fall asleep.

You noticed the “book” is in capitals. When I say book, I mean a physical book and not a digital books. You can be easily tempted to check your email and before you know it, you are watching funny videos on YouTube.

3. Buy the most annoying alarm clock you can find and place it far away from your bed

Sounds odd right?

I was at a thrift sale and I bought an alarm clock that made a very high pitch shriek when it was 4 am. It was the most annoying and irritating sound I have ever heard but it got the job of waking me up done. Another reason why your alarm clock should be far from your bed is that when it is so close, you can easily hit the snooze button and go back to bed.

When the alarm clock is far from your bed, you would have no choice but to get out of bed and go shut it off. By the time you do this, you should be wide awake.

4. Don’t linger in the bedroom

From personal experience, my bed has a very strong pull. We have a very strong connection, so I make sure I don’t stay in my bedroom unless it is very essential. When you wake up and put of the alarm clock, don’t just start moping around. Get busy immediately. Find a task to do because if you don’t, you might find yourself back in bed slugging away.

5. Do not rationalize

Ever heard of the 5 seconds rule. This principle was coined by Mel Robbins in her bestselling book. I was watching an old interview she did some days back and she said she used the 5 seconds rule to ensure that she woke up early. Every morning after she woke up, she made sure that she got up in the first 5 seconds. Why 5 seconds? According to her, that’s how long it took her before her brain starts to rationalize and give her reasons why she should sleep some more.

If you allow your brain to enter the equation, it would be difficult for you to become an early riser. You would always find some reason to go back to bed.

6. Have a compelling reason to want to wake up early

You have to know your “Why”.  If you don’t have a compelling reason – your why – you might find it very difficult to push yourself to wake up early every morning.

Find that thing that drives you, that gets you excited to wake up. This drive would serve as integral part of your day. Look at it this way – your drive is directly proportional to your waking up early.

Mathematically = Drive a Waking up early

7. Create morning rituals

Establishing a morning routine would help you to become an early riser. It gives you a clear goal of what you want to achieve and how to go about them. Ensuring that you are not just healthy but also create time to nourish your mind. I recommend that your morning rituals should include things that would cleanse not just your body, but your mind leaving you energized throughout the day. Below are a few morning rituals you can develop:

• Go for an early morning walk or jog. The cool breeze would leave your feeling refreshed and energized.
• Yoga is also a good option
• You can practice early morning meditation
• Write down the most important tasks you have to perform during the day
• Practice positive affirmations
• Perform Qi Gong exercise. It is a Chinese exercise that cultivates and circulate energy throughout your body. Video link to simple exercise by Qi Gong master Lee Holden
• Take a slice of lemon and drink in a glass of hot water every morning. Apart from these being a ritual, it is very healthy – good source of vitamin C and helps to flush out toxins.
• Listen to uplifting music.

I hope you enjoyed this article on how to become an early riser. Leave your thoughts in comments and using the share buttons also.