Challenge #1: Become an Early Riser

I’ve read somewhere that the average person needs about 15-20 minutes to fall asleep at night. That struck me.

I usually need 1 hour to fall asleep. Often I need 2 hours. Sometimes I’m still awake at 4 AM. And on some occasions, I do not sleep at all. I just stand out of bed the next morning, get dressed and go to work.

Sometimes I can’t help it. I just can’t stop thinking: my head keeps trying to solve and anticipate problems. I have yet to find a relaxation technique that can help me with that. But quite often it’s my own fault. I’m sleep deprived during the week because I go to bed very late, and I try to catch up sleep on weekends by sleeping too late and anytime throughout the day. That means my sleep schedule is pretty messed up and my body is in constant readjustment.

I figured I should try establishing a regular sleep schedule to see if it helps. That’s why I decided to try rising at 5 AM for one month!

Why rise early?

I just want to have a regular sleep schedule, but I decided to become an early riser because I don’t know anyone else in my entourage who wakes up at 5 AM on weekends and I’d like to try something a bit different.

Here’s what I’m hoping to accomplish with this challenge:

• Improve the quality of my sleep

I want to know how having a regular sleep schedule is going to affect the quality of the sleep I get. I want to know if I can fall asleep faster on a regular basis.

• Discover how it affects my mindset

Once this year, I managed to get 5 nights of very good sleep in a row. I felt so rested and so positive that I couldn’t believe it. I want to know if this positivity was a result of not feeling tired all the time.

• Enjoy the day fully

I don’t want to wake up at 2 o’clock in the afternoon, knowing too well that I have just wasted a day. I want to see the sunrise and the sunset, making sure that every second in between are worth it.

• Save time

Since I spend tremendous amount of time trying to fall asleep in a year, I’m hoping to save time by falling asleep faster at night.

What are the rules?

The rules of the challenge are pretty simple. I must wake up at 5 AM every morning for one month. In addition, I have made the following rules and exceptions:

• Snooze button

I may never hit the snooze button on my alarm clock. Not even once.

• Naps

Naps are allowed throughout the day. I can sleep whenever I want to, as long as I wake up at 5 AM the next morning. I try to limit my naps to 30 minutes. Additionally, I have to stay up at least 2 hours before taking a nap, which means I can’t take a nap until 7 AM to prevent cheating

• Exceptions

Early in the challenge, I realized that I had to come up with a way to make an exception occasionally.

I have 3 wild cards. These wild cards allow me, on 3 different occasions, to choose not to wake up at 5 AM and stay in bed for as long as I want. I did not plan to use them, but higher priorities came in the way of the challenge.

I have already used a wild card – read the rest of the story below.

How did I prepare?

This challenge does not require a lot of preparation, but here are a few tricks that can help you become an early riser as well.

• Alarm clock out of reach

I moved my alarm clock out of my reach. To turn off the alarm, I actually have to stand up and walk a few steps.

• Buzzer, not radio

I set my alarm clock at 5 AM and turned on the loud buzzer alarm instead of the radio.

I hate the radio stations around here. I wake up on the wrong side of the bed when I have to listen to their stupid talk. Also, that annoying, dreadful, insanely loud ear-piercing buzzer alarm will get me up in no time and running to turn it off!

• Track progress on calendar

I’m going to track every day how I’m doing by marking the days on my calendar. Moreover, that means I’ll get a glimpse of this month’s really cute lady first thing in the morning. That ought to start the day on the right foot

What’s the progress so far?

Days 1-3

The first couple of days were easier than I thought, but while I managed to wake up early (the alarm clock tricks worked), I had trouble being productive that early in the morning.

I just took the extra time I had to eat breakfast (which I never did before that… I used to skip breakfast all the time) and fool around with my electric guitar a little bit. I actually realized that I enjoy playing the guitar a lot more in the morning. I hope the neighbors don’t mind

Day 4

All hell broke loose on the 4th day. I woke up at 5 AM, but I consciously decided to go back to bed and sleep for another two hours. So I actually got up at 7 AM feeling very refreshed.

I had dinner with a friend the night before and I drove her back home. That took me a good hour and a half. When I got back to my house, I cleaned up a little bit and went to bed. It was already 11:30 PM.

When I woke up the next morning, I felt that I could go through the day if I really needed too, but I knew I had another dinner with a few friends that night and I didn’t want to be grumpy. That’s why I decided to stay in bed that morning.

That’s also when I realized I needed to come up with the wild cards idea. I didn’t want my challenge to hinder other aspects of my life.

Now I have two wild cards left, let’s hope I won’t have to use them.

Days 5-8

I’m starting to see the benefits of always waking up at the same time. I’m feeling very refreshed in the morning a few minutes after I wake up.

I’m enjoying the free time I have before I go to work. I use it to do activities I like and it’s affecting my mindset in a good way. Since I feel more rested, I find that I’m much more positive throughout the day.

As far as sleep quality is concerned, I sleep a bit better than I did but I still wake up from time to time in the middle of the night. I do however have less trouble falling asleep, so overall I think I am getting much more sleep than I did before.

I also found that turning on all the lights in my house helped me wake up faster. I used to remain pretty much in the dark in the morning and leave all lights out, which was stupid to be honest. It made me sleepy.

Days 9-14

I’m starting to wake up before my alarm clock when I sleep well. I got up at 4:30 AM the other day because I didn’t feel like sleeping anymore. I wish I could get a good quality sleep like that every night.

I found that the only thing I can’t do early in the morning is reading for a long period of time. It makes me too sleepy. I can read on a computer screen all right, but I can’t manage books or magazines.

Day 15-24

I’ve been down with a cold in these last few days and called in sick. Still, I woke up at 5 AM every day. I took naps in the afternoon instead.

This habit is really sticking to me. I’m positive that I want to continue being an early riser when my challenge is over. Despite my cold I’ve been feeling pretty good this month.

It’s almost over now. This week is the last week of the challenge, and I already call the experiment a success.

Day 30

All done! I’ve been an early riser for 30 days in a row. Well, except for day 4, which is why I’m going to continue the challenge for the rest of the week, so that I can say I’ve really been an early riser for 30 days in a row without any exception.

Did I reach my objectives? Definitely. I am saving time because I fall asleep faster at night. While I’m not necessarily sleeping any better, I am sleeping more because of it. The result is an increased level of energy throughout the day and a more positive attitude. I will continue to be an early riser in the future. It has already become a habit – I don’t even think about it anymore when I set my alarm clock to go off at 5 AM on weekends.

Photo credit: Chris Gin