Zen Early Awakening: 10 ways to fix the morning ritual

We continue to acquaint you with the translations of Chris Bailey's articles, where he shares the tips that he learned during the “a Year of Productivity” project. We have previously published articles by this author, they are available in our blog in the "personal productivity" section .

So we give the word to Chris!
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What you should think about before reading the article: It is proved that early awakening does not affect a person's socio-economic position or his productivity. On the other hand, I think that early awakening is truly a key habit, which has the potential to create a chain reaction to change and put other everyday actions in order. Before reading this article, think about what exactly you would like to achieve from an early awakening. Personally, I like to feel a little tired after exercise, relaxation from meditation and confidence after planning my day before breakfast, but your goal may be quite different.

Since I started my Year of Productivity project about 10 months ago , I slowly began to give up my old habits in order to establish the tradition of waking up at 5:30 every day. I state the fact: in spite of the fact that I did wake up at 5:30 the last two months, it was not at all easy to achieve this.

But during this time I made a lot of discoveries.

The 10 methods described below proved most effective in securing the morning awakening ritual. I learned about some of the methods from the list from the research of scientists, but I accidentally stumbled upon most of them through trial and error, at random using them in the expectation that some idea would work. Your goal may be different from mine, but I am sure that almost all the methods on my list will help you consolidate the tradition of getting up early. Good luck!

1. Find your “purple pill”

Every morning, right after my alarm clock wakes me up at 5:30, I take two purple creatine pills that will help me train longer. And here it is, the secret: on the label of the container from the pills clearly states that they need to be taken only half an hour before the start of the workout. As soon as I swallow them, they turn into a time bomb, which drives me to the gym at 6. It works every morning.

Even if you do not want to include training in your morning ritual, you will definitely have your own “purple pill” that will drive you out of bed in the morning. Here are some examples:

• Get a coffee machine with a timer, start it for the time you want to get up, and the machine will present you a cup of fresh coffee in the morning.
• Drink a large glass of water before bedtime. You will have no other choice - you just have to get up and visit the toilet in the early morning!
• Do not check mail after 6 pm. If you are the same as me, in the morning you will definitely jump out of bed to see if you have received something new and interesting.

Your mind is a stubborn beast, so sometimes you need to deceive it in order to force it to obey. Finding your “purple pill” is one of my favorite ways to make the mind wake up every morning.


2. Reward yourself for success

When I interviewed Charles Duig, the author of The Power of Habit, he talked about how important it is to reward yourself every time you get a new habit. He used the example of addictive training. “Even if you think you want to start practicing, your brain considers you a deceiver because you really don't like exercise. You need to teach your brain to associate workouts with something pleasant, such as a slice of chocolate, a long hot shower, or 15 minutes of social networking. No matter what the reward will be. What is important is the fact of promotion and the fact that you really enjoy your prize. ”

Every time you get up early, reward yourself with something that is truly enjoyable to you. My reward is a cup of coffee. For me, this is a really good encouragement, which helped me to fix the morning ritual.

3. Do not be hard on yourself

The harder you feel about yourself in the process of introducing a new habit into life, the less likely you are to succeed.

For example, think about how many people try to get in the habit of getting up early. Some do not perform the proper evening ritual, so they watch TV until late at night and wake up exhausted the next morning. Having no sleep, they drag their feet all day. Their productivity and mood fall, and they only feel worse because they woke up early.

It is worth repeating: the more you demand from yourself, getting used to new rituals, the less likely the success of the case. Here is another example: do not reproach yourself, 10 times postponing the alarm time in the morning; better think about what makes you jump out of bed, ask yourself the question: why do I feel tired?

4. Follow the evening ritual

I think when people get used to getting up early, they often get hung up on early awakening, forgetting to go to bed early. These two concepts are inextricably linked, as the two sides of the same coin. If you do not follow the tradition of going to bed early, the next morning you will hate yourself for getting up so early. If you are an ordinary person, your body needs 8 hours of sleep daily. If you sleep less, it will discourage you from inculcating a new habit.

In my opinion, your evening ritual should include such actions as:

1. Develop signals that it is time to go to bed;
2. Help your brain relax before bedtime.

What your ritual will consist of is up to you. For example, show you my:

• 20.00: Switch the smartphone and tablet to flight mode, turn off the computer
• 20.05: Take a shower or bath
• 20.30: Meditation
• 21.00: Write down a diary of three things for which I am grateful today, as well as record one positive experience that I have gained for this day. [1]
• 21.15 - 21.30: Read in bed, then go to bed

All these routine actions help me to relax and give me a signal that I will soon go to bed.

Hint: All signals for fixing habits can be divided into five categories: a specific time of day, a specific place, the presence of certain people and the behavior that precedes the ritual itself. For example, if you put your clothes for jogging next to the bed in the evening so that you do not look for it in the morning, this morning signal includes time (6 hours), place (next to the bed) and previous behavior (wake up).



5. Disconnect all devices at certain times.

One of the habits that I recently acquired and which helped me get up early is switching my smartphone and other devices to flight mode from 8 to 8 am (1.5 hours before going to bed and 2.5 hours after waking up). Flight mode disables all signals on your devices (Wi-Fi, cellular, Bluetooth), which protects you from the arrival of various messages, tweets, emails and other updates.

In order to consolidate this tradition in your life, it will take about two weeks (if you decide on this). As soon as you manage to do this, you will feel incredible changes for the better. Here are a few of them:

• This will help your brain to relax before bedtime, and you will fall asleep much faster.
• This will force you to do more valuable things before bed and after waking up (for example, record keeping and planning) instead of useless checking for updates on social networks.
• This is a signal that you will soon go to bed.
• This will allow you to be more relaxed before bedtime, because the phone and other devices will not distract you.
• The lack of a phone next to a pillow means that you will not have distractions that will keep you in bed in the morning.
• This ritual will force you to tackle the questions that have accumulated, when you have the energy for it, and not at the moment when you just opened your eyes or fall from your feet for tiredness at the end of the day.

I can continue, but I think you have already understood everything. Turning off your devices at certain times will help you sleep better, will make you more calm and attentive before going to bed and after waking up.

6. 2-3 hours before bedtime, limit exposure to blue light.

Exposure to blue light is harmful to your sleep. It sounds strange, but it is.

Proved that blue light prevents the production of melatonin, a positive sleep hormone. In fact, during the study, it was found that the subjects who were not exposed to the blue lamp before bedtime (they wore UV blocking glasses for $ 10 on Amazon), slept 50% better and woke up 40% happier! [2]

Most of the UV radiation you feel comes from your electronics (smartphone or tablet). How to solve this problem? Put on your UV blocking glasses, stop using your devices 2-3 hours before bedtime and turn off the main lighting. [2]

7. Stop using caffeine 4-6 hours before bedtime.

According to the Food and Drug Administration, “when it enters the body, caffeine reaches its peak in the blood after 1 hour and stays there from 4 to 6 hours.” [3] In other words, if you consume caffeine 4-6 hours before sleep, it will seethe in your blood just when you try to sleep.

My rule, which does not allow caffeine to disturb my sleep and morning ritual, is to stop using caffeine 6 hours before bedtime.

8. Do not force yourself

It’s almost impossible to change your perennial habits overnight, and this statement is especially suited to the habit of waking up early.

The slower you get used to the ritual, the more successful you will cope with it. For example, instead of waking up one hour ahead of yesterday's awakening, rise just one minute earlier. Without forcing yourself, you will win a series of small victories over yourself that will help you form a habit. You will not lose faith in your strength and, best of all, you will definitely succeed in fixing your morning ritual through gradual habituation.

It is impossible to get used to early awakening overnight. Moreover, if you perform this ritual for years, you can wait a little while you get used to it.

9. Remove potential obstacles.

When I interviewed Charles Duig, one of the topics he touched was the importance of anticipating the obstacles to consolidating the new habit. For example, if you have a business trip in three weeks, it is easy to make a plan of action in advance. It’s much harder to understand how you can wake up early during a business trip.

When you make an effort to consolidate the tradition of early awakening, take care to anticipate all possible obstacles to your goal. It may happen that there will be periods of time when you don’t want to wake up early (for example, on vacation), but planning will help you cope with possible difficulties.



10. Be honest with yourself.

I think that the biggest mistake of people who are trying to acquire a new useful habit is their unwillingness to be honest with themselves in the process.

I admit the fact that sometimes you have to fool yourself a little in order to achieve more (for example, searching for your “purple pill”). However, when you introduce a new ritual into your life, it is important to be honest in recognizing your ups and downs.

For example, the reason that you move the alarm clock 6 times a morning may be your tiredness from changing your lifestyle too fast. Or it may be that you have difficulty getting to sleep at a certain time, because there are things because of which you simply cannot afford it. Maybe the evening show is too funny to not watch? Or your children do not want to go to bed until late at night?

Sincerity towards yourself will help you determine what is stopping you from going to bed and getting up early and realizing what changes you need to make in your life in order to fulfill your goal. In addition, being honest with yourself will help you and other tactics from this article.

Everything contained in this list really helped me. I am sure that my methods will help you to make wonderful changes in your life!

Main idea: To consolidate the morning ritual, you need to find your “purple pill”, reward yourself for early awakening and not make excessive demands on yourself in the process, create an evening ritual and turn off electronic devices at a certain time, turn off UV for 2-3 hours before sleep -lamp, stop using caffeine 4-6 hours before bedtime, do not force yourself and foresee possible obstacles in advance, and also be honest with yourself. Hoo th!

1. Source: http://alifeofproductivity.com/5-habits-lead-happiness/
2. Source: http://ayearofproductivity.com/smartphone-light-keeping-you-up-at-night/
3. Source: http://www.fda.gov/downloads/drugs/resourcesforyou/consumers/buyingusingmedicinesafely/understandingover-the-countermedicines/ucm205286.pdf

PS from the translation editor: if you are interested in reading other articles of the author, we highly recommend to study "How to choose the key aspects of life in order to invest time and energy in them" .