7 Hacks That Help Me To Wake Up At 5 AM

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If we need to, we can all wake up early and force ourselves out of bed. But because that is such an unpleasant experience many people resent waking up early.

But what would change if you would actually enjoy waking up early? Do you think you would do it more often?

Why not try it out? These hacks will help you to make waking up early comfortable, even if you are not a morning person!

Enjoy!

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1. Have a why

Remember those students that always asked the teacher, “what do we need this for”? Maybe you’ve asked yourself the same thing from time to time. I hope you do, less in school but more importantly in life.

You should always know why you are doing something. If we want something, it is easier to motivate ourselves to do the necessary steps to reach that goal.

2. Don’t put your alarm clock next to your bed

What does a typical morning in many peoples lives look like?

The alarm goes off. Groaning you roll yourself over and hit the snooze button thinking to your sleepy self “just five more minutes.”

Thirty minutes to 2 hours later, you wake up and are already way behind with your day’s tasks.

However if we make the small change to put the alarm further away from the bed, so that you have to get out of bed to turn it off, it will become easier for you to resist the urge to go back to sleep.

Why? Because going back to sleep means you need to actively go back to bed. While staying awake can be accomplished by you simply standing still where you are currently standing. You might even close your eyes, but the act of standing will slowly wake you up enough that you can think clearly, remember your why and decide not to go to bed anymore.

Why should you? The hardest part is standing up, and you’ve accomplished that already.

So put your alarm clock further away from your bed and see if it makes a difference!

3. Have an enjoyable morning routine

Nobody likes to do things they hate. So why would you want to force yourself out of your comfortable bed if there is nothing exciting waiting for you?

Establish an enjoyable morning routine and see how that will influence your readiness to get out of bed.

I, for example, love my breakfast, and I allow myself to watch 20 minutes of a series during that. Yes, I know it’s not the ideal form to spend the first hour of your morning. But right now that’s pretty much the only time I am willing to spare for series or YouTube videos. Therefore it is delightful for me, and I am always looking forward to it.

4. Wake up at the same time daily

This one can be a bit tricky in the beginning. I mean, who wants to wake up at 5 am on the weekend?

However, your body doesn’t know anything like the weekend. The week with its seven days is a social construct we humans created. Just because our society agreed on it doesn’t mean our bodies will recognize it as well.

Once you start waking up at the same time each day, your body gets used to it, and it will become easier for you to wake up at that time. You might even wake up before your alarm clock naturally, provided you’ve had enough sleep. Which leads us to the next point …

5. Go to bed on time

As much as a no-brainer this one is, it might also be the hardest one for many people.

To wake up early, you have to go to bed early. You should get somewhat between 7 and 9 hours of sleep each night. And I mean EACH night.

Don’t think you can compensate on your weekend for missed sleep because as we learned in the previous point, you should wake up at the same time every day.

6. Create a shutdown routine

This tip and the next one will help you fall asleep quicker and therefore enable you to stay awake a bit longer or get more sleep.

In his book Deep Work, Cal Newport recommends creating a shutdown routine. That means you decide on a precise hour of the day, from which on you won’t focus on work anymore. You will spend the rest of the day non-work related.

And if you end that work time with a shutdown routine – for example, checking your calendar, creating a to-do list for the next day, cleaning your desk and telling yourself “that’s it. Time to relax!” – It will become more comfortable for your brain to relax and stop focusing on your work.

As always I recommend you to check out my Reading List for Personal Growth as it will have many more inspiring books like the one mentioned above.

7. Create a suitable environment to sleep

It is not only important to sleep a certain amount of time but to also sleep deeply. It is no use for you if you sleep for 9 hours, but your sleep is terrible.

To achieve the most relaxing and reenergizing sleep, you have to optimize your sleep environment.

One essential thing to do, for example, is to make sure there is no light in the room. Whether it is light, that comes from outside or light that is generated by some electrical device, you should dim it as much as possible.

Do you have any more tips on how to wake up early? Share them with us! Also, share your experience with implementing my tips.

I’d love to hear from you ^^

Keep creating that extraordinary life of your dreams!

Sophie