Extreme Morning Experiment Final Update
March 21st, 2006 by Matt InglotI’ve decided that this will be the last update for some time on this morning experiment. As described below, the experiment has succeed greatly so far and I will continue with the early rise routine. I am on day five now, getting a lot done, and feeling great.
The biggest challenge right now is simply sticking to waking up at 5am every day. On Sunday I faltered and woke up at 6 instead of 5 despite two alarms insisting I need to be up. The consequences of this were immediately clear. I was disappointed that I had overslept and felt hurried the entire morning. After my usual morning routine and breakfast it was already 7:30 and this felt very late to begin work. I felt less motivated to get things done, lacking that “super productivity” high that I had been getting from waking up early. Oddly enough my mood wasn’t sour. In fact my partner in crime for this experiment commented on how amazingly cheerful I was, and how my great mood helped her wake up and get into the day (she has been having less success with being excited about waking up early).
On a familiar note to 7:30 feeling late to begin work, I woke up in bed on my own this morning wondering if I had maybe overslept the alarms I had set. I was in that “feeling rested but wanting to sleep more mood”, the kind that I get when I oversleep. I got up to check the time and found out that it was only 4! These events show that my body is rapidly adjusting to the timeshift I have imposed on it, making me feel confident that I can continue waking up this early.
It’s all in the Attitude
Over the past four days I’ve noticed a very strong link between my mood, mindset, and productivity. I had succeeded at waking up at 3 in the morning the first night due to a very strong desire to do so. Contrast this with the typical “I hate mornings” attitude where the desire is to keep sleeping as long as possible. I’ve had varying degrees of success and attitude in waking up the past four days, but simply wanting to wake up earlier has allowed me to have a great morning just as soon as the sleep wore off.
Similarly my housemate and I have both noticed that there is a real way to affect how you’ll wake up in the morning by your attitude and intentions the night before. The 3am wake-up is the most obvious example, but this has also applied to the results achieved on other days. From now on I’ll be sure to spend a few minutes before bed imagining how good it will feel to get up and start the day early.
Next Steps
My goal is to fully adapt to the 5am routine and then experiment with tweaking it. I want to find the optimal waking time for myself, and the optimal hours of sleep. I am also interested to see how this routine will ultimately affect weekends and exam studying. I will address the results of these tweaks in my 30 day update.
So You Want to Wake up Early
Waking up this early has been a very positive experience and I can’t wait to see how much better I function in the long run with this routine. If you want to try something similar, my experiences show the following may help:
- Start now, not tomorrow. As with anything from taking up a new hobby to quitting smoking, the universally effective technique is to not put it off. Set your alarm for 5 in the morning right now. You’re off to a great start!
- Make sure you have something to do in the morning. Getting up in the morning feels great and makes it possible to accomplish what you want before everyday life bogs you down. Your best energy should be funneled into your most rewarding and creative tasks, not into going grocery shopping, sitting in a lecture, or getting the kids ready for school.
- Enter the experiment with the most positive attitude and your results will match. Self full-filling prophecies are powerful stuff, so put them to positive use.
Steve Pavlina has some more ideas on rising early in his How to Become an Early Riser article. In particular he addresses that the appropriate time to go to bed is when your body is tired and quotes his own times to be typically 10-11pm for a 5am waking. This is one thing I really wish to try and may be a solution for not allowing a later night to ruin the sleep schedule and energy of the subsequent day.
Note: Steve is now a polyphasic sleeper, but I don’t see myself going that far anytime soon!
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April 11th, 2006 at 1:16 am
Interesting experiment
I’ve studied sleep a lot over the years because I find it fascinating and you sound a lot like me - a night owl - happiest when rising late and going to bed late, and most productive in the evenings and early morning hours. From what I understand of sleep everyone has an internal body clock and your most productive times are governed by that internal rhythm - to me this explains why you were productive in the morning hours but still found it quite difficult to wake up and get going at that hour some mornings.
If you can you might benefit from having a later start in the day (say out of bed at 7am), working to the afternoon, and then napping for 30-50 minutes (more than 50 minutes and you tend to go into deep sleep which will just leave you feeling groggy for the rest of the day). After that you’ve got the rest of the day to do non-work stuff, and with your nap you’ll probably find you’re still awake and feeling very mentally productive at 1-2am, which still leaves enough time for 5-6 hours sleep. I’d be interested to see how you went with a system like that anyway if you ever felt like trying it
I’m enjoying your blog by the way, I found it via a post which was del.ici.ous populared and have been particularly enjoying your business posts.
April 11th, 2006 at 9:18 am
The nap idea sounds cool and it may just be the thing to try in May. I have been doing pretty well in letting the occassional sleep in until 7 after a later night not ruin my schedule, but there haven’t been any 2am nights yet and I do miss those.
April 15th, 2006 at 1:34 pm
I too have been a night owl for a long time. In the past year or two I’ve begun some introspection in earnest however, so this article was of interest. I have long said that I would probably switch to an early-rise schedule whenever I get around to settling down. In the meantime (as a single guy with active friends) I like to have a nightlife and this usually means early rising is affected. Coupled with that I have found that with age, my body does not adjust as easily to varying wake times. If you already are in a relationship and don’t have friends that like to go out till almost last call, then this might be for you, but I still can’t do it yet. On weekdays I’m a 7:30AM riser, for the time being.
June 20th, 2006 at 11:08 pm
Hi Matt - just wanted to say great posts on the extreme morning experiment. I hope you continue with it and keep on reaping the benefits. I for one am committed to the same thing and wrote about some tips for waking up early and consistently.
http://www.davecheong.com/2006/06/14/waking-up-early-and-consistently/
Keep up the great work.