Most of my life, I've been the kind of person whose day would begin only after 10 am, and that's not including holidays, in which case it could start as late as 12 pm. We've all been there. Phases in our lives where we've all slept till way past dawn.
Many of us have grown out of it, many consciously choose to still live that way(which is absolutely fine - to each his own) and many of us are trying, to break free, of this habit but the soft hands of sweet sleep won't surrender us that easily.
This article is for the latter group.I developed this habit about 8 months ago and I'll admit it, getting up early is no piece of cake. It takes some serious will power to begin and even more discipline to stick to it. But the benefits are just too good to ignore (assuming you use the extra time gained wisely) the following steps proved really useful to me and I'd like to share them with you:
1) Create a mental Alarm: This requires a little bit of visualizing, but proves effective in many cases when you want to wake up early. Before You go to sleep for the day, just imagine yourself automatically waking up at your desired time and jumping out of the bed. Keep playing that Image in your head again and again, focusing on the time and how you're eye's are going to click open at that exact moment. It might not work the first day, but stick to it. Within the 3rd day, you'll notice yourself waking up even before the alarm rings :)
2) Drink a lot of water before going to bed: This trick works pretty well, if you want to wake up early. Like the heading says, drink a lot of water before going to bed, that way you're going to HAVE to get up to relieve yourself, no escaping it. What’s important here is that you calibrate the amount you need to drink, so that you can figure out how much water wakes you up at what time. I tested this out and found it takes me about 1 litre of water to get up at 5 , if I sleep at 12.
Try it. It's truly quite interesting to log and blog about.
3) Sleep early: Try to get a good 5 to 7 hours of sleep every night. Anything more than that, is just laziness manifesting. The body only needs 6 Hours to fully revitalize and rebuild itself. I usually call it a day at 12 am and get a peaceful 5 hours of sleep to awaken fully juiced for the next day. Getting up early does not mean sleep deprivation, so don't hesitate to sleep in early, to be able to wake up early. For Many people, the mind works better in the early morning than late night.
4) Have something motivating to do in the morning: If you have something to look forward to in the morning, then waking up becomes so much easier. My dads motivation for waking up early ,every morning, is to play golf. My moms motivation for waking up early is so that she can go for a walk while the crowd is minimal. I'm motivated to wake up early, so that I can go join the girls in school for a jog ;) To each his own. I leave it up to you, to find something that motivates you to wake up early and JUST DO IT.
5) LAST DITCH EFFORT: If all else fails. Set your alarm on loud and repeating. Set the time you desire and then place the clock far enough to make you walk to it from the bed, but still be irritatingly audible from the bed. This is sure to get you to wake up early and force you to leave the bed to turn the alarm off. A little crude, but it serves its purpose.Waking up is one thing, but staying up is another. Once I'm up , I make it a point to go wash my face with cold water and then I go towards the window and give a huge stretch and thank god for this wonderful day to come. This energizes me to stay up and make the most of the day ahead.
Remember, learning to become an early riser is one of the best habits to acquire and it's not that hard to develop. Just COMMIT to learning it and you'll be waking up early in no time.
