I LOVE waking up early.
It’s easily one of my most beneficial habits.
But I didn’t always feel that way…
It wasn’t until I trained myself to wake up early that I started realizing all of the benefits.
Now, my alarm clock goes off at 5:00 a.m. and I’m up, ready to take on the day.
Even if you have no desire to get up that early, almost everyone can benefit from waking up a little earlier.
Waking Up Early:
- Correlates With Better Grades
- Helps You To Sustain a Healthier Diet
- Enhances Your Productivity
- Gives You a Better Mental Health
- Gives You More Time To Exercise
- Improves Your Quality of Sleep
- Helps You Enjoying Quiet Time
- Gives You More Family Time, Live a better Family Life
- Anticipate Problems
- Easier Commutes
- More Optimistic, You develope a positive Mental Attitude
- Better Planning
- More Proactive
- Self Assertion – Imagine in your mind that you can do it
- Beauty of Nature: Slow, Gradual Rise of SunLight
- No stress in getting ready
- Get more free time during the day
- Get more Happier in Life
- Activates Pingala Nadi
- Promotes blood circulation
- Clear thinking enabled
Here are a 7 reasons why you should become an early riser, starting tomorrow.
1. Learn to take initiative.
By being intentional about what time you get up, you start the snowball of being intentional with the rest of your time.
Snoozing the alarm and sleeping in makes you lazy and slow. Think about how groggy you feel when you sleep till 10 and then lay in bed for an hour browsing Facebook. It’s harder to get real things done when you start slowly!
Set the tone for your day by getting out of bed when you ought to, not just when you feel like it.
2. Start the day off with a win.
I love the example given by Naval Adm. William H. McRaven, a Navy SEAL. He starts every day with a win, making his bed:
If you make your bed every morning you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride, and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another. By the end of the day, that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed. Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that little things in life matter. If you can’t do the little things right, you will never do the big things right.
This same principle applies to waking up early.
At night, tell yourself what time to get out of bed the next morning, and then do it. By keeping that little promise to yourself, you increase your self confidence.
What better way to begin a productive day then with a small victory?
3. Stop wasting time at night.
In order to wake up early, you also have to go to bed early.
Late hours are when I’m most likely to start procrastinating. Whether it’s browsing the internet, watching Netflix, or checking social media, I catch myself spending hours doing absolutely nothing of value.
Sleep is an absolute necessity if I want to perform at maximum capacity at work, so by making myself go to bed by 10 p.m., I cut off my tendency to waste the last hours of the day.
4. Be more productive.
There is a fantastic peace in the morning. It’s quieter and people don’t bug you.
Mornings are “you time” where you can focus on setting yourself up for the day or work on personal projects without anyone interrupting.
Plus, it feels awesome to knock out tasks before most people are even awake.
5. Be more alert at work.
Typically, the first hour or two after waking up, it’s hard for me to have a conversation or think quickly.
My mind needs time to get revved up, so the more time I give it the better. We all know that “where am I?” feeling when woken abruptly.
Factor this into your morning by giving yourself more space to wake up completely before having to start solving problems and interfacing with people at work.
6. Get BETTER sleep.
By waking up earlier, you’ll able to work harder to crush your day, leaving you more ready for sleep at night.
When you finally get to bed, you’re out as soon as your head hits the pillow. No more tossing and turning for an hour to get to sleep.
7 hours of immediate and deep sleep is better than 8 or 9 hours in bed with a long “get to sleep” and “wake up” phase.
7. Lots of successful people did it this way.
The Art of Manliness did an excellent piece on this topic a few years ago. In the article, they said:
If you read the biographies of history’s greatest men, you’ll find that most were early risers. They used each morning to write, read, ponder, and plan for their day.
This article goes on to name all the successful people who woke up early, saying:
- Benjamin Franklin would wake every day at 5 a.m. and would use the time to wash, dress, and plan his day’s work.
- Theodore Roosevelt would rise before dawn so he could get an early start on living his day strenuously.
- Ernest Hemingway felt he did his best writing in the morning. “There is no one to disturb you and it is cool or cold and you come to your work and warm as you write.” He’d get started at 6 a.m. and write non-stop until noon.
- Thomas Jefferson felt “it [was] of great importance to use every moment of every day to its fullest,” so he was up before the sun each day. He’d use the time to record the weather, a habit which he kept up his entire life. After recording the temperature and air pressure, Jefferson would start a fire in his study. He’d sit by it with his feet in cold water and meditate about the day’s activities or any scientific hypothesis or political theories he was working on.
These are only a fraction of the list, but if these names don’t make you want to get up with the birds and attack the day, I don’t know what will.
Of course, waking up early isn’t for everybody. Some people actually do get better work done at night.
If you aren’t sure which type of person you are, give waking up early a try for a week.
Any of these seven reasons alone should be enough to validate you setting that alarm clock a little earlier in the morning.
Try it out starting tomorrow, and you will feel great the whole day long.! –John M Domingo
