The Importance of Sleep
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1. Don’t Jump Out of Bed Immediately
The usual advice with the alarm is to keep it far away and immediately jump out of bed when it goes off. That approach works well in the military, but what if you don’t want to have that stressful schedule in your every-day life? What if you want to enjoy your morning and spend some time in bed before jumping into work? If you want to do a habit long term it has to feel good. You’re not going to make it very far if your new habit feels horrible, and that’s exactly how it feels when you jump out of bed groggy.
So how can you spend time in bed without falling back asleep? Have a two-alarm setup. The first one is to wake you up, the second one is your cue to get out of bed. The first one should be within arm’s reach and the second one should be away from your bed. That way, you can give your body some time to gently awaken and you can spend some quiet time in bed doing something you love, like reading your favorite novel, writing in your journal, or doing affirmations. When the second alarm goes off your time is up and you have to get out of bed. A 10 or 15-minute period before the first and the second alarm works well. By that time your body will feel much better and you would have gotten some inspiration by doing your favorite thing in the morning.
2. Start Your Day with Joy
We’ve been conditioned by the productivity movement that everything should be about getting things done. Do more, faster, increase efficiency. Most of our morning routines are filled with activities that require willpower and discipline. But getting out of bed is much easier if you have something that you’re looking forward to. Something that gives you joy and excites you. It might be doing a morning walk in the park, walking your dog, getting a cup of coffee at your favorite café, spending time with your loved ones. It’s different for everybody but whatever it is, make sure there’s at least one activity every morning that is just to excite you and improve your mood. That indirectly will make you more productive for the rest of the day.
3. Have A Strong Reason “Why?”
“I heard that early risers are happier and more productive,” is not a good reason. It’s too general and will not inspire you to take action. Changing this habit is hard, and if you want to endure the difficulty, you will need a good reason for it. Be really clear about what you want to get out of the extra morning time. Do you want to use it to work more on your business? To improve your fitness and health? To get some extra time with your friends and loved ones? To make more time for learning and reading? If you don’t come up with a good way to spend your mornings, they will automatically be allocated for sleeping in. Planning it in advance is also very important. Coming up with the right thing to do at 6 AM when you’re feeling groggy isn’t going to work. At that time your mind will always come up with the same priority: sleep more. Before you even start waking up early, come up with a great plan about how you’re going to use that extra morning time.
4. Hide Your Electronic Devices
Going through that period without a computer and effortlessly becoming an early riser, helped me realize that waking up early is our natural state. We don’t have to do anything extra to be early birds, we just need to eliminate the obstacles. If you’re committed to succeeding at this habit, get rid of all the electronics. Don’t just turn them off, that never works. There is nothing stopping you from turning everything back on when you’re feeling bored at night and can’t fall asleep.
It’s an extreme step and getting rid of all electronics will be challenging. Also, it’s not realistic to make it a permanent change. But doing it for a few weeks will help you get a great start with this habit.
It’s like learning to ride the bike with training wheels, it eliminates the chance to fall down. Getting rid of the electronics eliminates the chance to be tempted and stay up late.
5. Staying Awake After Getting Out of Bed
Many people manage to get out of bed early, but an hour later they still feel groggy and go back to sleep.Changing your wake-up time to a few hours earlier is hard. While your body gets used to the new timing, you will feel sleepy in the first few hours and going back to sleep will be tempting. Especially if you’re still at home with your cozy bed seemingly doing a come-hither gesture, just like in a Disney movie.
So what’s the solution? Go outdoors as soon as possible. Do a quick morning routine to refresh yourself and hit the door immediately.
Something about being outdoors makes it easy to stay awake. Feeling the cool air on your skin, smelling the grass and flowers, hearing the rustling leaves. Nature tends to melt away all the grogginess. It’s a great opportunity to do some exercise too, which is one of the best ways to start your day. Get your heart rate up.
6. Use Sleep Cycles to Your Advantage
Have you had one of those days where you wake up early, but you don’t feel sleepy or groggy? You can fall back asleep easily but you can also get up and start your day. Feels great, doesn’t it? Of course, you also know about the other mornings. Mornings where waking up early is terrible: your mind is foggier than the Golden Gate bridge and your body feels like it’s been run over by an 18 wheeler. Several times. The difference between those two cases is the sleep cycles. When we sleep at night we experience a few cycles that our bodies go through. Each cycle passes through different stages, illustrated on the graph below. Stage 4 is the deepest one and Stage 1 (REM) is the lightest one, meaning the closest one to the awake state. The closer to the awake state you are when the alarm goes off the better you will feel. The deeper you are the worse you will feel.
So how can you use that to your advantage?
Figure out at which time in the morning you’re in REM sleep. If you feel terrible when the alarm goes off at 7 am, try 7:30 instead. If that doesn’t work, try 8 am. Eventually, you’ll find the sweet spot and you’ll be able to get up much more easily.
This approach works only if you have consistent bedtimes. If you change the bedtimes by 1–2 hours every day, the sleep cycles will change too, and you won’t be able to find that stability in the morning.
6. Have Realistic Expectations
One of the most frequent questions that I get is, “How long does it take to become an early riser?” It only takes your body 4–5 days of waking up and going to bed at the same time to adjust to the new schedule. It works even if it’s a big change, like moving in a different time zone. However, getting yourself to do those 4–5 consistent days is a different story. Being able to do it depends on your current habits. If you’re used to watching Netflix while overeating until 2 AM, and you try shifting your bedtime to 10 pm, it’s going to be a big challenge. In that case, you have to change two additional habits — the overeating and the late TV watching. That takes additional time and discipline.
Becoming an early riser is difficult because it’s not just one habit but a combination of many tiny ones. That’s why shifting the sleep schedule gradually works better than cold turkey. It allows you to gradually improve the other prerequisite habits at the same time.
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