Getting Up Early: 21 Secrets to Getting Up Early

Each of us has heard that healthy sleep should last 8 hours. This is exactly how much sleep scientists and doctors recommend in order to restore a person’s vitality and prepare the body for future fruitful work. At the same time, it is advisable to wake up and fall asleep at the same time, both on weekdays and on weekends. Having formed the right habit, a person will be able to get up in the morning without any problems, even without an alarm clock. If you just can’t force yourself to establish a sleep schedule, use the advice of professional doctors and coaches that we have collected especially for you in this article.

Pros and cons of waking up early

I am always in favor of starting my day as early as possible and having time to do more things. But, unfortunately, I am initially not one of those people who wake up at dawn of my own free will. I have always envied my friend who is capable of this. But now my regime has changed, I have something to compare with, and upon reflection, I have come up with several pros and cons of this matter.

pros

Better performance. This plus is perhaps the most significant. You can easily complete the work in the morning that you could have stretched out throughout the day. I now like to get up early, do all the necessary things before lunch and devote the rest of the time to less important things. For me, this is much easier than waking up at nine, rocking, and no longer wanting to take on anything.
Memory works better. Yes, friends, have you noticed that the brain remembers information better in the morning? I remember when at school I was asked to learn poetry or some paragraphs from history, evening cramming rarely ended in success. But all you had to do was get up early, sit down with your textbook and you’re done! The material bounced off the teeth. By the way, you can read how to improve your memory in this article.
You will stop being late and can get ready calmly. Are you familiar with the situation when you hastily put on the first thing that was at hand, quickly run out of the house, inevitably forget something and end up being late for your transport, and therefore for work or school? How awkward it is to later justify yourself to your boss. But all this can be avoided, you just have to wake up a little earlier. It’s my habit to get up immediately when the alarm clock rings, the time for which I calculate with reserve, since I take into account various unforeseen situations. I always have time to get ready, have breakfast and calmly go out wherever I need to go. By the way, there is always about 15 minutes left when I arrive at the right place.
Feeling energized and energized for the whole day. Once you establish a new daily routine, going to bed at ten in the evening and getting up early will not be a problem, but a joy!

Minuses

Feeling depressed. You will get up in the morning exhausted, but only if you do not follow the correct regime.
This is not an easy task, and it will be difficult to retrain yourself. It won’t be easy for night owls who are used to going to bed late and getting up at the last minute, and then flying at breakneck speed. The body will resist, but everything becomes a habit. Before the birth of my child, I was a real “night owl”, I liked to go to bed late and get up as late as possible, and on weekends I slept until 11 am. But now it seems terrible to me! How can you waste so much time? The restructuring of the body lasted for months, but in the end I managed to change my regime a little.
Difficulties in the family. Yes, this minus is also very significant. I understand how difficult it is for people in couples who have different daily routines. For example, a wife gets up at dawn and goes to bed very early, and the husband, who only comes home from work at ten in the evening, falls asleep at midnight and sleeps until the last moment in the morning. When can such a couple find time to be together?

Evening routine

Many people think that getting up early starts in the morning, but this is far from the truth. First of all, you need to set yourself up for success in the evening. And this can be done in different ways.

Stop using gadgets before bed

Excess light with a noticeable proportion of the blue spectrum (displays of smartphones, tablets and computers) before bedtime negatively affects the quality of sleep. Therefore, one to two hours before bed, turn off all gadgets and focus on yourself.

Prepare for the next day

Instead of deciding everything in the morning and wasting precious willpower and decision-making ability, think about everything in the evening. Decide:

What are the three priorities for tomorrow?
What to wear tomorrow?
What to eat tomorrow?

Think about your day and imagine your perfect morning.

Time flies quickly, and if you don't start paying attention to the important things, you'll miss out on a lot. So always ask yourself, what happened today? What have you achieved? What are you grateful for? What made you happy? And imagine the perfect morning. This alone will influence the desire to wake up and not turn off the alarm clock.

Read

With our busy lives, it is difficult to find time to read, but if you give up gadgets, it is easy to allocate half an hour a day to read books. For the soul or professional growth.

What time is best to wake up

To understand what time is best to get up in the morning, listen to the experts.

If you are a morning person

This type of person has a very close relationship with the sunrise and sunset.

The easiest time for larks to wake up is at six in the morning; in winter, the time can shift by an hour. Such people also go to bed early, of course, not literally at sunset.

Larks perform best before lunch or from four to six in the evening. Between one and three o'clock they are advised to take a short nap to replenish their strength.

It is recommended to go to bed at nine or ten in the evening. The later, the more broken they will feel.

If you are an owl

For this type of people, getting up early is a real painful torture.

The best time to get up is nine in the morning. These people only fully awaken and can get down to business around 11 am. It is owls who often buy coffee to cheer themselves up before work.

The optimal time to carry out important errands is in the evening, or at least around two o’clock in the afternoon.

Owls can easily stay up until 11 pm. But at midnight their performance decreases and it is better to go to bed before this time.

Dependence on your own biorhythms

The scientific world explains the performance of the body by its biological rhythms: the alternation of the processes of wakefulness and sleep. The regulator of daily cycles - the hormone melatonin - allows nerve cells to independently bring the brain into a state of activity, and, towards evening, reduce it.

Each individual has different biorhythms: some go to bed early and wake up before dark, while others do not know how to wake up early, but fall asleep after midnight.

Japanese scientists have proven that biological rhythms are transmitted genetically. In a family of “early birds,” children can also become “larks” and wake up early (the probability percentage is no more than 30%, the remaining 70% are the conditions of upbringing, the peculiarities of the formation of habits, attitudes, goals and motivation).

Creating a comfortable sleep routine

To create the correct and suitable sleep and wakefulness for you, use the techniques that I recommend to you.

Give yourself the necessary amount of time to rest. On average, your body should rest for eight hours. If this doesn’t work out for you, then think about what you do before bed. Maybe we should finally put down the phone and get a good night's sleep?
Don't try to change your routine right away. Move it gradually, every 2 - 3 days for 15 minutes. This way the changes will occur less noticeably.
Follow the established schedule. Go to bed and get up at the same time. Even on weekends, don't sleep longer than usual.
Don't sleep during the day. Daytime naps can throw off your entire schedule, so don’t overuse them. If your body needs a rest, you can take a short nap at lunchtime.
Healing herbs can help you improve your sleep quality. Chamomile or lemon balm works great for this.
Set your body up for sleep. Before going to bed, exclude all activities that excite the body: watching TV, social networks, and so on.
Relax your body. Listen to soothing music that will help you fall asleep at the right time.
The bedroom should be dark and not stuffy. Buy thick curtains that will create a night-time atmosphere in the room, and ventilate the bedroom before going to bed.
Create a day. If you get up when it is still dark outside, then artificial light sources will be your solution. Just turn on more lights and it will be easier to wake up.
Don't eat at night. Don't energize yourself before bed. Set a dinner time for yourself so you can go to bed on an empty stomach, and after waking up, have a hearty breakfast, this will help you wake up faster.

Well, friends, have you already found your mistakes that are preventing you from getting a good night's sleep and getting up on time? Then fix them quickly!

Why you can’t fall asleep on time and what to do

To create a mode, perform a number of mandatory actions:

Drawing up a schedule. You can build it in your mind, but it’s better to put it on paper. Calculate when is the best time to get up and, based on this, calculate your bedtime. Add all morning activities into your schedule, from getting ready to breakfast and exercises. In this case, sleep itself should take at least 8 hours. For most people, the optimal time to go to bed is between 22:00 and 00:00.
Follow your schedule. The hardest part of this process is getting started. Overcome yourself without making concessions such as setting the alarm clock ahead a few minutes. There is no need to despair if one day you oversleep. Just continue to follow the schedule as if nothing had happened. However, constant indulgences will turn an established process into chaos, and you will not achieve the desired success.
Analyze your condition. One person needs 6 hours of sleep, another cannot get 10 hours of sleep. Some people go in for sports in the morning, others are more active in the evening. If you experience discomfort in the first week, this is normal. But if it continues longer, try making adjustments to your existing schedule. Experiment until you find your ideal routine.

How to learn to get up early in the morning without problems

Surely it has happened to you that in the morning, when your alarm clock rings, you turn it off half asleep and say to yourself: “Just five more minutes.” And the minutes can drag on, and eventually you jump up with the realization that you are already late. Or another situation in which you sluggishly get out of bed and, half asleep, get ready for work, and even when you get there, you cannot wake up.

I will help you step by step figure out how to quickly awaken yourself.

Wake up immediately at the first alarm. No need to transfer him or stay in bed yet. Get up right away, it will be easier.
Turn on more lights in the room. This is especially relevant advice in winter. When I get up on a winter morning, it’s like night outside, the lights come on throughout the entire apartment. This method really works, awakening happens faster.
Drink one glass of water on an empty stomach. This will invigorate your body and replenish lost fluid.
Do light gymnastic exercises.
Wash your face with cool water or take a morning contrast shower. This is an amazing way to cheer yourself up.
Have a hearty, nutritious breakfast to energize your body.
Turn on the music. I loved to turn on my favorite energetic music as soon as I got out of bed and get ready to listen to it. Try this and you will see that the morning will not be such a terrible part of your day.

Owls, larks, pigeons: who gets up first

The classification is based on biological rhythms that explain why some people know how to get up early, while others daily ask questions: how not to sleep through the alarm clock in the morning?

Owls are characterized by increased efficiency and wakefulness in the afternoon, especially increased activity in the evening and at night. The aforementioned hormone, melatonin, is produced later in them, the signal that lights out is approaching comes after 23:00 - 00:00, and they go to bed late.
Larks can easily get up early. The greatest productivity of their mental and physical labor occurs in the first half of the day. Increased production of the stress hormone, cortisol, helps them wake up early and feel cheerful.
Pigeons, in the terminology of sleepologists, are known as “arrhythmics” due to the body’s easy adaptation to changes in the circadian rhythm, regardless of how much they slept and when to wake up. The pigeon goes to bed late and gets up early - such a regime is easily coordinated by its biorhythms.

How to get a good night's sleep and wake up early in the morning easily

So, you are ready to change your life and create a sleep-wake schedule that is comfortable for yourself and your body. But not sure if you can get a full night's sleep?

I'll give you some tips:

Keep a strict schedule, go to bed and get up at the same time.
Don't eat before bed. For better sleep, go to sleep on an empty stomach, as we said above.
Half an hour before bed, put away your phones and tablets.
Eliminate all sources of noise and light. Fall asleep with the TV turned off in silence.
After waking up, you should not get enough sleep. This has been verified. If you wake up before your alarm and see that you have another 30 minutes, don't fall back asleep. Otherwise, it will be much more difficult to get up later.
Relax before going to bed and think positive thoughts in your head. For example, I like to dream about something good and immediately fall asleep.
As we already said, prepare your bedroom well for bed. Ventilate the room, keep it cool, and create darkness.
Sleep only in comfortable pajamas that allow your body to breathe.
Pay attention to the pillow, it is the one that often disturbs our sleep.

Your goals

Understand that in the first month of developing a habit, you will have to sacrifice a lot. For example, miss a few parties. Your productivity and energy levels will suffer. It won't be easy at first, so you will have to set some goals for yourself.

Goals motivate. They help us when we really want to snooze the alarm clock for another five minutes. The more emotion you put into your goal, the more it motivates you.

Photo: Unsplash

Goals determine our actions. Each goal must contain a set of actions necessary to achieve it. For example, you decide to lose 5 kg by the beginning of summer. Your actions are to consume fewer calories per day and engage in physical activity. Set three main goals for the year and write down what you need to do to achieve them. Then you can move on to your plans for the evening.

How else to improve your life

You can read many books and articles about motivation, but it’s better to take an online course or training once. Learning from a person who has walked this path will help you believe in yourself and achieve what exactly you want in this life. Under no circumstances should you listen to amateurs who shout at every corner: “Pay me and you’ll get rich!”

For me, such a person is Pavel Volya.

His online course “Improver Express” will teach 3 main things: initiative, action and efficiency.

The training consists of 23 chips. It was they who helped Volya turn from a simple beggar Penza guy into the highest paid presenter of the TNT channel and my favorite stand-up comedian. According to Forbes magazine, Pavel earns $2.5 million annually.

The course is suitable for both men and women from 16 years of age.

How the training will take place:

You receive theory and practical assignment.
Do it.
If you did it right, move on to the next one.

If you don’t mess around and do all your homework responsibly, then pleasant changes await you: at work, in your personal life, with relatives and friends. This will lead to more money, connections and success.

Cost – 15,000 rubles. with access forever, but there is also the opportunity to take the course for 3,000 rubles.

If within 2 weeks you decide that the course is not suitable for you, your money will be returned.

After registering for training, a girl from Pavel’s team will contact you and answer all your questions regarding the training. You will discuss payment terms with her.

Also in this article you will find reviews of all courses of the “Willpower” project from Pavel and Laysan Utyasheva.

Secret 4: Spend time with your family

How to get up early? In the evening, don’t burden yourself with problems and don’t be distracted by gadgets. “What then to do?” - you ask.

Morning is time for yourself and self-development, day is for accomplishing business and important tasks. What about the evening? Evening is the perfect time to strengthen family ties! If you follow the previous rules, in the evening you can completely devote yourself to your loved ones.

An evening walk in the rays of the setting sun, a confidential conversation about the past day with its successes and failures, watching an inspiring film - over time you will be able to develop the ideal formula for a pleasant evening. In the close circle of hearts that love you, you will not only rest from the difficulties of the passing day. Thanks to the feeling of mutual support and love, you will “get” all the missing emotions and stop looking for them in a delicious hearty dinner.

It may be hard to believe what I'm saying right now. But in the evening, food serves not so much as a source of energy, but as emotional nourishment. During the day, we spend not only calories, but also our mental strength. That's why it's so important to spend the evening right.

Secret 6. Warm shower before bed

It is best to take a warm shower in the evening. Leave contrasting and cool for the morning. It invigorates and energizes, which is not at all necessary in the evening.

Warm water, on the contrary, relieves the stress of the passing day, relaxes you and puts you in the mood for sleep. But warm does not mean hot! A hot shower raises body temperature and stops producing melatonin.

Secret 5. Ventilate the bedroom

Sleeping in a cool room is incredibly beneficial for the body. The fact is that during sleep, body temperature decreases. If the room is more than 24 degrees, sleep becomes restless and you may even have nightmares. As they say? I woke up sweating from tormenting nightmares.

The optimal temperature for the bedroom is 15-20 degrees. Sleep will become calm and deep, and the body will launch natural processes of rejuvenation and restoration. In the morning you will wake up fresh and rested.

Secret 8. Meditation on a candle flame

Meditation on a candle flame is an effective Ayurvedic way to relieve stress and turn off all thoughts. With regular practice, anxiety levels decrease and negative emotions go away. Agree, sometimes at the end of the day this is very necessary.

The meditation technique is very simple. The hardest thing now is to find a candle made of natural wax. So, you need to sit in a comfortable position in a dark room, place a lit candle at eye level at a distance of 0.5-1 meters and focus your attention on the flame. Watch your breathing, it should be even and deep. Don't strain your eyes, but don't blink either. Try to relax your eye muscles as much as possible. When your eyes begin to water, calmly close your eyelids. Repeat over and over again until it works.

Meditation can last up to 20-30 minutes, but at first 5 minutes will be enough. Over time, you will learn to “see” the flame with your inner eye and feel warmth in the heart area.

Regular practice of meditating on a candle flame is believed to not only calm the mind, but also improve visual acuity.

Secret 9: Gratitude Meditation

The ability to notice the good in life is a very important quality. When you send the energy of gratitude into the world for everything good and bad, it begins to give even more. It doesn’t matter what life gives you, generous gifts or valuable lessons. You should be grateful for everything.

Gratitude meditation can be done in several ways. For beginners and those who believe that life is dominated by a bad streak, it is best to keep a separate notebook and write down 5-10 good events in it every day. Try to notice the smallest “pleasants” and do not devalue what has already become familiar. Birds singing in the morning, warm rays of the sun, fresh wind in your hair, the smile of passers-by, a healthy, obedient body - you can be grateful for this alone.

After writing everything down on paper, close your eyes, inhale and exhale deeply several times and feel the flow of gratitude and love that comes from your heart and fills the space around you. Live in this flow, learn not only to receive, but also to give. The more joy and gratitude you carry in your heart, the more good things will happen in your life.

How to get up early? After an evening walk, drink a relaxing cup of tea, take a warm shower and retreat to a quiet place to meditate and thank the passing day for all the opportunities, gifts and lessons. This will help you fill with harmony, peace and quiet joy from the realization that you are living the most beautiful life. The body, which is not overloaded with heavy food, will easily restore strength, and the morning will be cheerful and pleasant.

Secret 7. Soothing tea

Don't let the word "tea" fool you. Both green and black tea contain caffeine, which invigorates and prevents sleep. Chamomile or mint tea without any impurities, on the contrary, relieves nervous tension and relaxes. And their pleasant aroma will give additional positive emotions.

The most important thing is to drink tea at least an hour before bedtime. Otherwise, you will run to the toilet at night, and wake up in the morning with a swollen face.

Secret 10. Reading a book

Often in the evenings there is high brain activity. After an active day, it can be difficult for him to calm down and slow down his train of thought. Many people drown out this desire by surfing the Internet or watching TV. As a result, their blue radiation interferes with the production of the sleep hormone, and loud headlines and flashy information only add fuel to the fire. The dream just disappears.

A person can pick up a smartphone at 8 pm, and only wake up closer to 12 am. If you ask what he did during those 4 hours and what important, useful information he personally gained, then most likely he will not be able to give an intelligible answer. The harm of information noise is difficult to underestimate. Not only does your brain become clogged with other people’s false ideas and perceptions, you lose precious time that you could spend on yourself, self-development, and the realization of ideas and dreams.

Reading a book is a completely different matter. There are no inviting advertising banners or loud scandals. You choose what to read, what to feed your brain, thoughts and actions. A pleasant book, like a devoted friend, is always there to share all your knowledge and help you become better, higher, stronger.