How to become an "early bird"

This is one of my favorite articles by Steve Peacocks about self-development. Despite the wide popularity of the article, I did not manage to find it on Habré, I decided to share it with you.



Get up well before dawn,

such a habit contributes to health,

wealth and wisdom.

Aristotle



"Lark" are born or become? In my case, the formation was definitely taking place. When I was a little over twenty, I rarely went to bed before midnight and almost always got up late. I usually did not start my business until the end of dinner.

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But after a while I couldn’t overlook the obvious correlation between success and an early rise, even in my personal life. In those rare cases when I got up early, my performance was almost always higher, not only in the morning, but throughout the day. In addition, I was in a wonderful mood. Being a man who is actively pursuing his goals, I decided to develop the habit of getting up early. I just set the alarm for 5 am ...



... and rose just before noon.



Hmm ...



I tried again and again, but I didn’t go very far each time. I must have no “early bird” gene from birth, I thought. When my alarm began to ring, my first thought was to stop this terrible noise and continue to sleep. I postponed further attempts for an indefinite period, but once, after some investigation of the problem, I came to the conclusion that I was approaching it from the wrong side. As soon as I applied new ideas, I quite naturally became an “early bird.”



It is difficult to become an "early bird", adhering to the wrong strategy. At the same time, with the right strategy, it is relatively easy.



The most common wrong strategy is this: do you think that if you need to get up earlier, you need to go to bed earlier. Based on this, you determine how much you sleep now, then just shift everything for a few hours. If you now sleep from midnight to eight, it is assumed that now you will go to sleep at 10 pm and get up at 6 in the morning. It sounds very reasonable, but usually nothing comes of it.



There are two basic teachings about sleep patterns. According to the first, you need to go to bed and get up every day at the same time. It's like limiting yourself to an alarm clock on each side — you try to sleep at the same time every night. It seems to be suitable for modern society. We need predictability in the routine. And we need enough rest.



The second teaching says that you need to listen to your body: go to sleep when you are tired, and rise when you wake up naturally. This approach is based on biology. Our bodies know how much we need to rest, and therefore we must listen to them.



Through trial and error, I discovered that each of these two teachings separately is not optimal. And none is suitable if you need maximum productivity. That's why:



If you sleep at certain hours, sometimes you will go to bed not too tired. If it takes more than five minutes to fall asleep, you are not tired enough. You spend time lying on a bed and not falling asleep. Another problem is to assume that you need the same number of hours to sleep every night. This assumption is false: the required amount of sleep changes from day to day.



If you start to sleep based on observations of your body, you will most likely sleep more than you actually need - in some cases much more, about 10-15 hours a week (equivalent to a full working day). Many people who take this approach sleep 8 or more hours each night, usually too much. In addition, surprises are possible in the morning if you get up at different times. And due to the fact that our natural rhythms do not always coincide with the daily cycle, sleep time can begin to shift.



For me, the best solution was to combine both approaches. It's very simple, and many “early birds” don't even think about it, but for me it was an important achievement. The solution is that I go to bed then (and only if) when I want to sleep, and get up at the alarm bell at a certain time all seven days a week. It turns out that I always get up at the same time (in my case it is 5 am), but I fall asleep every night differently.



I go to bed when I'm already too sleepy to be awake. As a test, I usually read a book: if, after reading one or two pages, I begin to nap, then I am ready for bed. In most cases, lying in bed, I fall asleep in three minutes. I lie down, settle down comfortably and fall asleep instantly. Sometimes I go to bed at 9:30 pm, on other days I do not sleep until midnight. Most often I lie down at 22-23 hours. If I don’t really want to sleep, I will stay awake until I can keep my eyes open. Reading is a great activity for this time, it clearly shows when I'm already quite sleepy.



When my alarm clock starts to ring in the morning, I turn it off, stretch for a few seconds and get up. I do not think about it. I realized that the longer I get up, the sooner I try to fall asleep again. Therefore, I do not allow myself any reasoning about the fact that we could have had more sleep when the alarm clock rang. Even if you want to sleep, I still get up right away.



After several days of using this approach, I discovered that the schedule of my sleep came in line with the natural rhythm. If I didn’t get enough sleep in one night, the next night I’ll want to sleep earlier and sleep more. And if I have an excess of energy, and I'm not tired, I will sleep less. My body has learned to cut me down at the right time, because it knows that I always get up at the same time, and this time is not negotiable.



Side effect: on average, I sleep at night almost 90 minutes less, but I feel better rested because sleep lasts almost all the time in bed.



I realized that most people with insomnia are those who go to bed without being sleepy. If you can not quickly fall asleep - get up and stay awake for a while. Resist sleep until the body begins to produce hormones that disable consciousness. If you go to bed when you really want it, and get up at a certain time, you will get rid of insomnia. On the first night, you will stay late, but you will immediately fall asleep. During the day, you may feel tired, because you got up early and did not sleep much, but after work you will want to go to bed early the next night. After a few days you will get used to going to bed at about the same time and fall asleep instantly.



So, if you want to become an “early bird” (or just learn how to manage the time of your sleep), here is a simple advice - you need to go to bed, only when you can not stay awake, and get up every morning at the same time.



Original article: How to Become an Early Riser - Part II (by Steve Pavlina)



Translation: Sergey Biryukov



The article “How to become an“ early bird ”” obviously attracted the attention of many people. She brought more visitors to my site than any other of my articles. And judging by the statistics, the flow was not centralized (which cannot be explained by reference to any of the large resources).



An idea of ​​the popularity of this article on StevePavlina.com can give Alexa (note the big jump in May 2005). Alexa is not very accurate, but it is well suited for tracking general trends.



On Monday, I searched Google for “how to become an early riser” (in quotes). There were no results. See how many results are given now.



OK, the article has gained popularity. But why? The topic of getting up early in the morning is relatively harmless, isn't it? At least, I was sure of this when I posted the article on the site.



Since there was interest in the topic, although I did not quite understand the reason, I decided to write a sequel with some details.



First, let us return to the question of going to sleep only if you want to sleep ... To do this correctly, you need some awareness and common sense.



If you go in for vigorous activity before bedtime, this may ward off drowsiness for a period of time. In college, I used to play poker until dawn, after which we often went to breakfast. I can stay awake longer than my usual schedule, if I work, relax with friends, or do some other vigorous activity.



But this is not what I had in mind when I talked about drowsiness. I mentioned the test when I cannot read more than a few pages without losing attention. This does not mean that you need to wait until you fall from exhaustion.



The appearance of sleepiness, which I am talking about - this is the moment when the brain begins to produce hormones that put you to sleep. Do not confuse this with normal fatigue. You feel like you begin to nap. But for this to happen, you need to create the right conditions. Give yourself some rest before bed. I made sure that reading is a great way to relax. Some people say that reading in bed is a bad idea that you need to sleep in bed. I have never had a problem with this, because when I feel sleepy, I just put the book aside and fall asleep. But you can read in the chair, if you so convenient.



Another test example. Ask yourself: “If I go to sleep now, how quickly can I fall asleep?” If you think it will take more than 15 minutes, I would advise you to wait a while and continue to stay awake.



When you set a fixed wake-up time, it may take a little practice to determine the correct time to go to sleep. At first, large fluctuations are possible if you go to bed too late one night and too early another. But over time, you will learn to feel the moment when you can go to sleep, while instantly fall asleep and wake up the next day, well-rested.



To protect yourself from getting enough sleep, set a deadline after which you go to sleep no matter what, even if you don’t want to. I am well aware of the minimum amount of sleep I need. 6-5 hours is quite acceptable for me, but I can sleep 5 hours and feel normal, if this does not happen every night. The maximum time of my sleep is 7.5 hours. Until I started to get up at the same time every morning, I often slept for 8-9 hours, sometimes even 10, if I got very tired.



If you use caffeine during the day, it can affect the rhythms of your sleep. The first article assumes that you do not use anything like this to be awake. If you are addicted to caffeine, first get rid of this habit. You should not expect that natural sleep will come at the right time, if you chemize with your brain.



The purpose of the first article was to explain how to develop the habit of getting up early. And the tips are aimed at developing this habit. When the habit is fixed, it begins to act subconsciously. You can engage in active activities, for example, work or play computer games, and you will still know for sure when it is time to go to bed, even if it happens at different times. The drowsiness test is important for the development of habits, but later it will be replaced by the subtle signs of the organism itself.



You can always sleep longer than usual when needed. If I do not go to bed until 3 o'clock, I will not get up at 5 am. But I will return to my regular schedule the next day.



I recommend getting up at the same time for 30 days in a row to fix the habit, after which you will adapt so much that it will be difficult to sleep more than usual. I wanted to sleep a little longer one Saturday morning and turned off the alarm, but automatically woke up at 4:58. I tried to fall asleep again, but I could not. Like this. When a habit is developed, getting up is not at all difficult if you fall asleep when drowsiness appears.



If you have children, adapt whenever possible. My children are 5 years and 1 year respectively. Sometimes they wake me in the middle of the night - my daughter used to suddenly appear in the bedroom to tell my wife about her dreams or just to chat. And I understand what it is like when a small child wakes up every few hours. If you are in the same situation, there is only one advice: sleep when you can. Children are not very suitable for following the schedule.



If you can't get out of bed when the alarm clock has rung, this is most likely a lack of discipline. If you have order with discipline, you will get up no matter what. Motivation also helps, but it is short-lived and can last only a few days. Discipline is like muscle. The more you develop it, the more you can rely on it. Everyone has a discipline (calm, ok?), But not everyone develops it. There are many ways to develop discipline - I devoted an entire chapter to this topic in a book that will be published soon. Basically, it all comes down to taking on simple tasks, performing them and gradually moving towards more complex ones. It looks like strength training. As discipline is strengthened, such tasks as getting out of bed at a certain time will become a mere trifle. But with an undeveloped discipline, this may seem like an insurmountable obstacle.



Why get up early at all?



I would say the main reason is that you have more time for things that are much more interesting than a dream.



Again, I purchased 10–15 hours a week by doing this. Extra time is very noticeable. By 6:30 I did the exercises, took a shower, had breakfast and was ready to go. I can give productive work more hours a day, and usually I finish work by 5:00 pm (this also includes personal “work”: answer letters, pay bills, pick up a daughter from kindergarten, etc.). It gives me 5-6 hours of free time every evening, which I can devote to my family, as well as books, magazines, various hobbies, etc. And most importantly, I still have enough energy at this time. When I have enough time for everything that is important to me, it gives a feeling of harmony, calm and optimism.



Think about what you could do for this extra time. Even 30 minutes a day is enough to do exercises, read a couple of books a month, blog, meditate, cook healthy food, learn to play a musical instrument, etc. A small amount of extra time per day is reduced to significant values ​​in the scale of the year. 30 minutes a day is 182.5 hours a year. This is more than a month of working time (at the rate of 40 hours per week). These numbers can be doubled if you save 60 minutes a day, and triple if you save 90. I did it about 90 minutes a day. It’s like getting a free prize year every ten years. I use this time for cases for which I had neither time nor energy before. And it is beautiful.



Original article: How to Become an Early Riser

Posted by: Steve Pavlina

Translation: Sergey Biryukov

Audio Version : Webdictor



UPDATE: Laid out the continuation of the article .