How to Get Up Early and Refuse the Snooze!

Aug 2018

Yesterday was such a long and hectic day that you were out like a light as soon as your head hit the pillow!

Not long after you fell asleep, you started having the most incredible dream – NO not THAT kind of dream!

Instead, your dream had you waking up super early the next day. It was a weird dream for sure, but maybe you were having it because lately, you have been spending a lot of time trying to figure out how to get up early…

Don’t you find that many times you dream about what you have been thinking about the most? Perhaps that’s the reason many of us have a lot of naughty dreams?

In any event, back to your dream – you were up with the chickens and you couldn’t believe how amazing you felt!

Before having the dream you were already aware of some of the benefits of waking up early…

Such as…

It allows you to have some quiet time to gather your thoughts before others get up.
It gives you time for exercise, so you can do something else during the evening.
You don’t have to rush to get out of the house.

But you hadn’t realized…

Some of the other benefits, which were:

Your productivity will skyrocket and you will get more stuff done!
It is a trait of many successful people.
You have more willpower earlier in the morning, which can help you make better decisions.

If you would have known all this stuff before, you would have tried to figure out how to get up early long ago!

Oh well, better late than never!

You have never been a morning person, so your mission on how to get up early took some time. Lord knows you tried everything.

But finally, you figured out the things you needed to do, and then you started putting them into practice.

One of the first things you made sure to do was…

To Get Things Prepared the Night Before:

By doing the hard stuff the previous night: You realized that part of the reason you slept late was that you dreaded doing some of the usual ‘not fun’ stuff in the morning such as making lunch, getting your clothes out etc. Instead, you did all that stuff the night before so that when you woke up you could focus on stuff you liked to do…

You also made sure to get your head right: You found that by thinking about why you needed to get up early the next day the previous night that it was in your subconscious mind. That gave you the extra bit of motivation you needed the next morning.

Although you don’t do it, some of your friends utilize technology:

Some use the Alarmy app:

Some use the Sleep Cycle app which helps wake you up at the optimal time in your sleep cycle. And some use it alongside Phillips Hue light bulbs whose lights come on slowly over a 30-minute time period letting you wake up gently.

Now that you had everything prepared the night before, the next thing you needed to do was to make sure to…

Get Your Ass to Bed Earlier!

Getting enough sleep is super important. And if you get up early that doesn’t mean you are going to sleep less as you are still going to need enough sleep. This means you are going to have to hit the hay earlier. It’s obvious, but it is something you are going to need to plan for in advance, so you can get everything done in time to get to bed earlier.

Figuring out how to get up early also included some changes to your behavior in the morning…

Once Your Alarm Goes Off

You have a new go-to morning routine that you have created. It is something that you really look forward to which helps fuel your motivation to get up. Your morning routine consists of:

Having a quick cold shower which wakes you up and helps build mental toughness and discipline, amongst other benefits.
A glass of water which helps you rehydrate yourself.
Doing some meditation and reading.
A workout which gets you primed and energized for the great day you are about to have!

There is the odd time when you are having a harder time getting up – don’t panic, it happens to everyone. When that happens, you realize you need to…

Make Sure That…

You do not negotiate with yourself! It is easy to do but a horrible habit to get into! Do not allow yourself to rationalize putting something off that you know is good for you. Be self-aware, catch yourself and say no to negotiating with yourself. Winners don’t negotiate with themselves!

Don’t hit snooze – Whatever you do, DO NOT hit snooze. You will wake up feeling worse than if you got up when your alarm went off. Don’t believe me? Then read this.

After getting up early for a few months…

You realized a few things…

Once you started going to bed early and at the same time every night, you soon didn’t need an alarm, you could get up without one.

It helps to be consistent by getting up early every day, even on weekends – Being consistent and waking up at the same time really makes things easier – even on weekends. Since your weekend routines are a bit different, you need to make sure to always have a reason to get up, just like on weekdays.

At some point, it becomes a habit – which means you don’t even have to think about figuring out how to get up early. This means that you don’t have to worry about negotiating with yourself and the snooze button becomes irrelevant! In case you are wondering how long it takes to make it a habit – a study by Lally et al.¹showed that on average it takes 66 days to form a habit. Their study showed that some people are able to do it in as little as 18 days, while it takes some as long as 254 days. The idea is to keep doing whatever it is you need to do for at least 66 days or until it becomes automatic.

Just as your dream was coming to an uneventful end…

…your love interest entered the picture as you were getting out of the shower. This is when the dream started getting good.

But then a couple seconds after your boo started making out with you, you woke up…

And your dream quickly became a nightmare as you awoke to your dog standing at the side of your bed kissing you.

Usually your significant other is the one who takes the dog out first thing in the morning, but today they had an early morning meeting and were already gone.

Oh well, at least you are up early today!

Until next time, pucker up, refuse the snooze, and as always…PYMFP!
–Rick

Use It or Lose It – How to Get Up Early:

Some strategies you can use for how to get up early are:

Get things prepared the night before

Do the stuff you don’t look forward to doing in the morning the previous night.
Get your head right, let your subconscious know why you should get up early.
Utilize apps and technology

Go to bed earlier.

Drink a glass of water when you get up.

Have a cold shower to wake you up.

Create a morning routine that you look forward to getting up for.

Do not negotiate with yourself for not getting up early.

Do not hit snooze.

Be consistent, go to sleep and wake up at the same time every day – even on weekends.

Since your weekend routine may be different, you need to give yourself a reason to get up, something to look forward to

When to Use It:

If you don’t know how to get up early!

What Do You Think?

Do you get up early? If yes, is there any other advice you can share for how to get up early? If no, will you try some of these to get your ass out of bed earlier?

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References

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/01/why-hitting-snooze-is-bad-for-health_n_5630707.html

https://www.fastcompany.com/3043767/the-scientific-case-for-cold-showers

1 “How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world”, PHILLIPPA LALLY*, CORNELIA H. M. VAN JAARSVELD,HENRY W. W. POTTS AND JANE WARDLE University College London, London, UK