Do you want to habitually wake up early in the morning to proactively start your day?
But you tried for a few days and can’t seem to maintain it because you lose the excitement in the next days and you lose track.
Damn! It’s almost 8:00 AM!
Yup! You’ve been hitting the “snooze” six times.
Oh, dear. Been there!
And we’ll talk about how I solved it.
HOW I BECAME A NIGHT PERSON
Do you know someone who went from being a night person as a child and became a morning person as a teen or adult?
I guess not.
We all started from being a morning person as our parents put us to sleep so early at night.
It’s human nature to be proactive during the day and naturally sleep at night.
When I was young, when gadgets were still kind of less of a “lifestyle,” I go to bed early, and I wake up early.
My mind programming at the time was free-spirited and peaceful, less prone to negative thoughts, which makes me appear as a jolly kid.
When I was in my teens and early ’20s, when gadgets started to devour the minds of humankind, significant changes have applied in my daily life just as like many others.
I go to bed late at night, and I wake up so late – sometimes too late as waking up at 12 PM.
I was a night person for so long, especially those times after I graduated in college, or those times when I was unemployed.
Even when I had a job, I still loved staying up late.
I proudly called myself a “night person.” Yikes!
By staying up late, I can talk to my friends through social media, binge scroll Facebook newsfeed, post a selfie or something that gets hundreds of “likes” (because “love,” “cry,” “angry,” or “wow” reactions in FB wasn’t developed yet!).
Or
I play online games – Call of Duty, Rules of Survival, or Mobile Legends.
That moment when your lollygag teammate Layla kept using ult and hitting out of nowhere! And Tigreal keeps hiding at the back. Geez! Okay, one last game to get my stars back and I’ll go to sleep already.
Or
Sometimes I also binge watch TV series or movies.
“She stole Ragnar from Lagertha. That witch is a bitch! I want to see her dead, one more episode and I’ll go to sleep.”
Before I know it, it’s already 3 AM!
These are some of the common causes of building a habit of staying up late.
These habits have gradually built a negative impact on me, which has affected my life.
I believe social media is one of the leading causes of developing depression in people. So, we have to be aware of that and use them wisely.
Anxiety, stress, and depression are not the root causes of insomnia.
Building the habit of staying up late doing unhealthy activities is one of the leading causes of developing anxiety, stress, and depression that leads to insomnia.
Here’s why:
A study found that staying up late is more prone to increasing negative thoughts and worries.
Our subconscious mind will record everything that we repeatedly do or think.
So, if we habitually stay up late, our mind will program the repeated thoughts, and this can cause us to develop stress and anxiety.
Or worse, will develop depression that leads to insomnia.
I’m not saying you should not use Facebook or any social media (or play Mobile Legends or binge-watch your favorite Netflix show), I’m telling you to do them mindfully and wisely.
I have friends who are suffering in this. I was one of them.
I know someone who has a hard time sleeping, and that crying late at night has become natural to her.
What we consistently do or think will become natural to us for it will be embedded in our subconscious mind.
If you or someone you know wants to overcome this, building the habit of going to bed early and rising early is one of the most effective keys to start.
HOW I BECAME A MORNING PERSON
The time came my world fell upside down.
It finally became clear to me that I was in trouble and that I needed to make changes.
Or else
My life will stay messy and become a bad example to the people around me.
I want to be a good role model for those I care about and to everyone.
I want to live a good life.
And that should start within me.
I decided to do research.
I read books, listen to podcasts, learn from influencers.
I wanted to implement them and actually do something, but the time I have is kind of limited.
I go to work five times a week, make time with my family when at home, socialize with friends and unwind.
So, I decided to try rising up early in the morning.
Rising up early as 5 AM was an awakening to me.
There’s something about mornings – early mornings.
It feels unexplainably good.
I liked being a night person at the time, but waking up early has changed my perspective about mornings.
So I considered practicing it.
But it was not an easy thing, waking up early consistently was a big challenge to do in the first weeks of practicing.
Sometimes I wake up early and sometimes not.
Sometimes I was energetic the moment I wake up, and sometimes I was sluggish and unmotivated.
Sometimes I am determined to hit the “stop” button in my alarm clock and turn the lights on, and sometimes I hit the “snooze” and procrastinate.
It didn’t happen right away until I found Hal Elrod’s book The Miracle Morning that immediately resonated to me.
His strategy has helped me develop the habit consistently, learned even more about why waking up early is very beneficial and how to develop healthy routines through early rising.
I now proudly call myself a “morning person.”
WHY WAKING UP EARLY IMPROVES YOUR LIFE
“The first hour of the morning is the rudder of the day.”
Henry Ward Beecher
I have built the habit of waking up at 5 AM, and these are some of the undeniable advantages that people should be reminded of:
- Waking up early allows you to have some extra time to be productive during the day. Surely, you can also do them at night, but it’s been said that when your brain perceives darkness, your body begins to release melatonin, which makes you sleepy. Staying up all night means fighting this natural process, which is unhealthy.
- Your health depends on your activity level, and exercise is essential for a healthy lifestyle. Waking up early gives you more time to work on your overall fitness. You can exercise any time of the day, but while having a regular exercise routine always helps with better sleep, many sleep experts suggest a morning workout because exposure to daylight early on in the day will tell your body to power down at night.
- Waking up early allows you a few more hours to accomplish what needs to be done before the busy day and this can give you more time with your family in the evening, or more time to relax after work.
- When you rise early, it eliminates the need to rush in the morning and start your day calm. The rest of the day will follow how you started in the morning.
MAKING IT A ROUTINE
If you are a night person, waking up early with herculean effort would be a challenge and very tempting to give up too soon.
But these strategies that I mostly took from the Miracle Morning book actually work.
These are my personal activities I implemented:
Step #1: Relax the mind before bed.
Your first thought in the morning is usually the last thought you had before you went to bed – Got this from Miracle Morning book and this is so important! Stop using any gadgets at least 30mins or more before bed – put your phone away – and relax your mind. You can drink tea or just lay in bed and relax before you go to sleep.
Step #2: Turn the lights on the moment you wake up.
Turning the lights on the moment you wake up will help your mind to think proactively and start the day. Again, as I mentioned a while ago when your brain perceives darkness, your body begins to feel drowsy and sleepy.
Step #3: Turn off your alarm across the room.
Placing your alarm across the room and not beside you where you can reach it is a good strategy. Motion creates energy, so forcing yourself to get out of bed to turn the lights on and turn the alarm off across the room will help your body to wake up naturally. Never ever hit the “snooze” – or you lose!
Step #4: Drink a full glass of water.
This is one of my favorites. Water is like mana, it helps regulate body processes – “often when we feel tired, what we really need is more water, not more sleep” as Hal Elrod states in the book.
Step #5: Exercise or go to the shower.
Exercising or going for a run will help your body feel active. – or – Go to shower, it helps your mind feeling fresh and ready to seize the day.
To make them a habit, do them consistently every day.
Hal Elrod mentioned in the book that it takes 30 days to truly make a habit to last longer, the first 10 days is seemingly unbearable, the next 10 days will be bearable but still uncomfortable, and the last 10 days is the crucial phase to sustaining your new habit and you start enjoying the process which makes you unstoppable.
But does counting how many days really matter when you’re planning to make it a routine? What’s the point of starting something when you stop after 30 days?
Lastly, you don’t just wake up early – you’ve got to have a purpose why you wake up early.
Don’t just wake up early and then grab your phone to check your Facebook feed – scrolling up and down and then ends up noticing it’s been an hour since you’re on your screen.
Remember that the moment you wake up (or few minutes before you sleep at night), your mind is in the alpha state – the state in which your subconscious mind is likely to program more quickly all the information you take in. – Click here.
So, if you feed your alpha state of mind with Facebook dramas or unhealthy kinds of stuff often enough, it will likely program as a habit and become natural to you.
Choose what you do consistently!
And if you want to program yourself to be productive, the moment you wake up is an excellent opportunity to do that by avoiding procrastinating the good stuff and not wasting time on Facebook feed or whatever unnecessary stuff.
Related Post: The Power of Your Subconscious
Anyway, Facebook is not a bad thing. It’s what we do on Facebook that should be labeled as good or bad. One way that I made a difference in social media is that I changed the things that I can see in it. For example, I removed myself from FB groups or pages that are not doing me any good anymore, and I joined groups that I can interact with good influence – people from different places in the world (such as people who aspire to be a published author or people who strive to be successful in Arts and Painting), or liked pages that contribute my self-development – this way, my FB newsfeed is now healthier than ever!
The quality of your life is the quality of what you do daily.
So, each day really matters, and what you do first thing in the morning will jumpstart your day.
Now, start planning your Miracle Morning and do it today, and every day!
What are your struggles in rising up early?
Or
What are your ways of making your early morning a miracle?
Leave a comment below or ask me anything in my contact list.
I would love to hear from you!
