5 Benefits of Waking Up Early and 5 Tips on How to Do It!
I’m a morning person. There’s a part in the movie Frozen when Ana says “The sun’s awake so I’m awake!” That’s me. A flow blown, excited to wake up, pop right out of bed, start chatting your ear off at 6 am kind of person (yes, I’m very aware how much that pisses some people off). In college, I did the whole “night owl” thing but I honestly find I function way better in the morning…but I know for many people that is not the case. Some of you HAVE to get up early for work or other responsibilities, but I wanted to write about getting up because you WANT to get up early. You might be thinking, “Nope, nuh-uh, not me.” But hear me out! For the last year I’ve been teaching early morning yoga classes and keep hearing “I’d love to come but that’s just so early!” or “I’m trying to make it but just haven’t gotten out of bed yet…” So today I wanted to write about the benefits of waking up early and some tips to help you do just that.
More productivity. Studies suggest when people wake up early they have more energy and it takes them less time to accomplish tasks and they are more successful with setting and achieving goals. Tip: If you wake up and immediately "eat the frog” (get the tasks you least want to do done first) it helps raise productivity and get those hard tasks out of the way…for some of you that might simply be waking up and getting out of bed!
Reduced stress. Waking up earlier = more time to do things/less need to rush = reduced stress. You get to start off your day more slowly, enjoy your coffee/tea, maybe do a little meditation, or simply have time to breathe. So often we wake up, get dressed and we're out the door, without the time to even check in with our body.
Health benefits. People who rise early, tend to go to sleep earlier which helps set up a more consistent sleep schedule and bring balance to your circadian rhythm, resulting in better sleep quality. Giving yourself more time in the morning also allows you to eat something of quality for breakfast and get in daily exercise (before you have time to talk yourself out of it!).
Extra time (before everyone else wakes up!). Getting early gives you less distracting time and quiet hours for yourself to do whatever you want! Start that side hustle you’ve been thinking about, read more books, see the sunrise, go on a walk, do yoga, start meditating…if you had extra time all for yourself, what would you do?
Confidence. Waking up early may be a challenge for you but the more you do it and the more you get accomplished, the more confidence you’ll build. It feels great to get a head start on the world and be productive while the rest of the people you know are still asleep.
You might be thinking “okay sure, getting up early might be good for you and all but I’ve tried and I can’t.” Well here are a few tips that might help:
Go to sleep earlier to make sure you have plenty of rest.
DO NOT SNOOZE. The biggest tip I got for ya! When you snooze your alarm you’re putting yourself back into a sleep cycle (which typically take about 90 min to complete) but when you actually have to get up a few minutes later you’ve put yourself into sleep inertia (good ol’ foggy tired brain) that takes about 4 hours after waking to shake (unless you want to take a freezing shower to shock yourself out of it). So simply GET UP to your first alarm and don’t give yourself time to think about it (or you will probably talk yourself out of it). Put your alarm clock away from your bed or in the other room so you have to get up to turn it off.
Reward yourself! Tea, coffee, good music…think of something small you could do for yourself for successfully waking up.
Take advantage of your morning. Don’t simply wake up early for the hell of it (I mean unless you really want to), create a successful routine that works for YOU. “Success comes from figuring out what your values are and aligning the things you do around those values.” Think about what your perfect morning would look like (and no, sleeping all day doesn’t count), what steps can you take to start making that a reality?
Start small, wake up 15 minutes earlier than usual and then just keep adding time till you have plenty of time in the morning to achieve everything you want.
I hope you find this helpful and I wish you Good Luck in your early rising endeavors!