How to Get Through the Early Morning If You Are a Night Owl
If you are a natural night owl, getting out of bed early can be challenging. You don’t have to add meditation, journaling, running five miles, and email head start. If the morning is tough, your morning routine should be light.
People who naturally wake up early should skip the rest of this article because I’m talking to my night owls, sleep deprived people, and other sleep-napers. A few months ago, I noticed how much better my day is when I finish my workout before embarking on any other commitments. So, I started getting up at 6:30 AM ( very late by morning skylark standards, but fuck it). This is how I survived.
Start small
Don’t be too ambitious. Over time, you can work towards an earlier awakening and a longer morning to-do list, but for now, just get up a little earlier and use that time.
Now it’s okay for me to wake up at 5:55 am and head to the gym for a 90-minute weightlifting and treadmill jogging workout. But when I started, I got up at 6:30 and promised myself that half an hour of training would be enough.
This is an important factor in building confidence. If you’re lying in bed thinking about how difficult all your morning plans will be, you’ll probably just give up and fall asleep.
Recognize that your brain takes time to turn on.
The moment my alarm is buzzing , I immediately think: “Oh, damn, it’s already morning.”
Fortunately, it gets better from now on. I get up and wander into the bathroom, because what else can I do? While I’m there, I can brush my teeth. It takes exactly two minutes, the same as my toothbrush. And by that moment – maybe three minutes after the ritual of swearing at the alarm clock – this feeling of horror and fear of dawn began to disappear.
Then I get dressed and go to the gym. If I’m still not fully awake, I flop onto the recumbent exercise bike, which looks like a pedaled chair, and spin my phone for five minutes while pedaling slowly. It still matters! After that, I usually stay awake as much as I intend to. Enough.
Make all decisions the night before
You should be able to spend your morning on autopilot. As you prepare for bed, let your owl take care of you in the future. Lay out your clothes, coffee accessories – whatever you need in this foggy time when you’re not 100% awake.
It also means commitment to plans. Don’t trust Morning You to determine if it’s too cold for a run or if you really have time to make breakfast and write the morning pages before work. Find out the weather, do some calculations, and give Morning You some hard and fast rules to follow.
Get some sleep
If you’ve had eight hours (or whatever number works for you ), morning fatigue actually only lasts a few minutes. Turn it on and you will have a great day.
But if you wake up in the morning and don’t get enough sleep, your brain may not feel like it is ever fully awake. On the first day of easy awakening, relax with yourself and allow yourself to go to bed early to catch up. But don’t plan to overcome fatigue every day; after all, you cannot deceive the dream.