Wake up an hour early to live an hour more.
– Unknown
One morning when I was about seven or eight years old I remember waking up, stumbling out of bed, and wandering down the hall while my eyes slowly adjusted. As I made my way to the kitchen, wiping the sleep from my eyes, I remember being surprised by the darkness of the house. Confused and half asleep, I looked around for any signs of morning – my baby sister in her highchair, the smell of toast, my Dad’s half-finished crossword puzzle – and that’s when I saw my Mum, sitting at the kitchen table, in the dark, with a cup of tea. Sensing my panic and confusion, she gently told me that I’d woken up hours too early and that the rest of the family was still asleep. It was probably about 4 o’clock in the morning. Somehow she knew I would wake up. Somehow she knew that in that moment, I needed her to be there. So, instead of telling me to go back to bed, she sat me down and started making me my own special breakfast, hours before the rest of the house awoke.
Grown-Ups
When I was a kid I thought that adults couldn’t sleep in. I thought that one day, some time in the future, I would wake up at 5:30 am and that would be it; childhood over. When I got a bit older and met some adults that weren’t related to me, I realized that there isn’t a magical point of no return [to sleep]. I realized that my parents, through luck, habit, or circumstance, were just morning people.
Habits of Highly Successful People
I know there are a lot of books out there written by psychologists, self-help gurus, and self-made millionaires that extol the virtues of waking up with (or before) the sun. I haven’t read a single one of them. For me, the joy of waking up early comes from my parents. When I grew up I wanted to be just like them. I don’t know if they were early risers by nature or became so begrudgingly, but for me there will always be a positive association.
Aside from trying to be more like my parents, I like the idea of getting up early for other reasons. When I’m up early I have more energy, I get more done, I sleep better, and I feel like a “real” adult. I’ve heard that the “most productive people” allegedly get their best work/growth/learning/yoga/meal planning done in the wee hours, and yet despite all of that, I still have a really hard time convincing myself to get out of bed before 7 am.
Research shows a strong positive correlation between sleep and happiness; something I explored in Week Eight. Getting enough sleep gives you energy, helps you concentrate, makes your skin glow (whatever that means), helps you eat better, and gives you a more positive outlook. What I wasn’t quite sure about was the correlation between happiness and getting up early, after a full eight hours or otherwise. I did a quick internet search and once I got past the usual “climb the corporate ladder” and “have more time to exercise”, what I was left with was a very short list of tangible benefits: the house is quieter, the commute is quicker, you can watch the sunrise, and you have the first choice of breakfast items at the coffee house (I’m not kidding). Everything else on that list had more to do with time in general than time in the morning specifically. Sure, some people feel more productive earlier in the day, but nothing I found suggested that forcing yourself to wake with the sun will magically make you a productive morning person. If your work requires you to be up early, then doing so will probably increase your chances of success. Otherwise, it seems to be a matter of preference.
With this in mind, this week I decided to see for myself what all the fuss is about. After looking up the exact time of sunrise (a painful 5:44 am), I decided to wake up and try some of the early morning rituals that seem to make people happy, healthy, productive, and successful.
Monday
We seem to be experiencing some sort of heat wave at the moment. I was groggy and grumpy at first, but the cool air I felt as I walked onto my front porch immediately made up for the 5:30 alarm. I realized that I hadn’t felt a comfortable temperature outside of my house in over a week, and I welcomed the chilly breeze. I read a few pages of my book and decided to have an early shower. It was a very refreshing start to the week.
Tuesday
I finished my book this morning. I only had a few chapters to go and I was surprised by how good it felt to get through it uninterrupted. By the time 7:00 hit, I decided that it would be a reasonable time to wake my husband. The previous evening he told me that he wanted to get up when I did. I was surprised to hear this because he is not usually a morning person. I was even more surprised when he finally came to bed, a little after midnight. Predictably, when I gently shook him awake at 7:04 am, he looked at me with instant regret.
It was still somewhat cool outside so we decided to take a short walk before work. It took him about a kilometer and a half before he was awake enough to actually carry on a conversation. On paper we had more time to spend together, we had more time to exercise, and we could enjoy the relative quiet of the early morning. We could both theoretically start our days on the right foot and this, the countless articles told me, would make us both happy. The funny thing about this morning? Despite falling asleep after midnight, I felt energised, awake, productive, and happy all day. For Tyler, on the other hand, waking up early gave him precisely none of these benefits. Yes, we got to spend some extra time together, but he was so delirious I’m sure he barely remembers it.
Wednesday
One of the things these allegedly successful morning people do with their time is journal. As I have mentioned before, I’m not much of a diarist (present writing aside) but I thought I’d give it a try, so I searched the internet for some writing prompts to get me going. I lost focus about two lines in and, noticing the weather, I decided to go for a bike ride instead. It was lovely! I’m not sure if the journaling prompt itself (“what can you forgive yourself for”) inspired me to ride, or whether I was doing it to put off something I wasn’t all that excited to do. Either way, I had a wonderful morning.
Thursday
I don’t love leaving things unfinished so I decided to go back and complete the journal entry. I don’t know what I was hoping to take from the experience, although I did learn that early morning journaling is not for me. Reading back over my entry, it’s clear that I am still half asleep and at an utter loss for what to write about. I think I’ll stick with journaling before bed from now on. After I finished the trainwreck of an entry, I did a half-hour home workout which ended up being a more energising and motivating way to start my day than sleepy navel gazing.
Friday
I stayed up pretty late last night so I decided not to get up with the sun today. I thought about calling it a night because “I had to get up early” but I’m glad I didn’t. I was up until 1:00 am because Tyler and I spent the night listening to music and watching a spectacular thunderstorm from our bedroom window. The heat had finally broken for the first time in weeks and the sky absolutely opened up just after we got in from our evening walk. Fortunately I happen to love thunderstorms, although I probably couldn’t have fallen asleep if I tried; the thunder was booming and the lightning illuminated the entire house. On top of that display, our music streaming service put together a curated playlist of all of our “top picks” of the last year. It was a strange mix of Classic Rock, EDM, and everything in between. Among the highlights were those moody songs we both played in high school alongside Celine Dion and Scotland the Brave. It was an hilarious late-night sing-a-long.
So, when the alarm went off at 5:30 am, I decided to ignore it. I was exhausted, I was comfortable, and I was happy. I could have stuck to my plan and cut the night short, but if I had, I would have missed the best part of my week.
Happy, Sleepy, and all the other dwarves
Did waking up at 5:30 end up making me happy? Or was it a perfect collection of circumstances? This week, the weather was so hot that the only moments I could comfortably step outside the house were the wee hours of the morning. So yes, rising with the sun did make me happy. Because I woke up before the heat, I was able to ride my bike, relax on my front porch, and move around a little before work. This week ended up being the perfect time to experiment with my alarm clock. I am also happy I didn’t completely tie myself to my original plan. If I had stuck with it all the way through the week (or, god forbid, the weekend), I would have missed out on a truly great night.
Maybe one day I’ll be like my parents, unable to sleep in and insanely productive before 7 am. Now that I think of it, raising my sister and I was probably the main reason their brains forced them awake every morning and if I asked my Father today, I’m sure he’d prefer to spend a little more time in bed. I don’t know if waking up early means I’m healthier or more successful, but the happy memories, occasional productivity, escape from the heat, and thunderstorm singalongs definitely put a smile on my face this week.
Sources
10 Benefits of Rising Early, and How to Do It
Zen Habits
15 Reasons to Rise Early – Benefits of Waking Up Early
The Sleep Judge
8 Health Benefits to Being an Early Riser
NeuroTracker
Waking Up Early: Are There Benefits to Being a Morning Person?
Laura Hensley | Global News
What are the Benefits of Waking Up Early?
Sleep Advisor
How to Be Happy 