How to Become an Early Riser
May 23rd, 2005 by Steve Pavlina
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It is well to be up before daybreak, for such habits contribute to health, wealth, and wisdom.
- Aristotle
Are morning people born or made? In my case it was definitely made. In my early 20s, I rarely went to bed before midnight, and I’d almost always sleep in late. I usually didn’t start hitting my stride each day until late afternoon.
But after a while I couldn’t ignore the high correlation between success and rising early, even in my own life. On those rare occasions where I did get up early, I noticed that my productivity was almost always higher, not just in the morning but all throughout the day. And I also noticed a significant feeling of well-being. So being the proactive goal-achiever I was, I set out to become a habitual early riser. I promptly set my alarm clock for 5AM…
… and the next morning, I got up just before noon.
Hmmm…
I tried again many more times, each time not getting very far with it. I figured I must have been born without the early riser gene. Whenever my alarm went off, my first thought was always to stop that blasted noise and go back to sleep. I tabled this habit for a number of years, but eventually I came across some sleep research that showed me that I was going about this problem the wrong way. Once I applied those ideas, I was able to become an early riser consistently.
It’s hard to become an early riser using the wrong strategy. But with the right strategy, it’s relatively easy.
The most common wrong strategy is this: You assume that if you’re going to get up earlier, you’d better go to bed earlier. So you figure out how much sleep you’re getting now, and then just shift everything back a few hours. If you now sleep from midnight to 8am, you figure you’ll go to bed at 10pm and get up at 6am instead. Sounds very reasonable, but it will usually fail.
It seems there are two main schools of thought about sleep patterns. One is that you should go to bed and get up at the same times every day. It’s like having an alarm clock on both ends — you try to sleep the same hours each night. This seems practical for living in modern society. We need predictability in our schedules. And we need to ensure adequate rest.
The second school says you should listen to your body’s needs and go to bed when you’re tired and get up when you naturally wake up. This approach is rooted in biology. Our bodies should know how much rest we need, so we should listen to them.
Through trial and error, I found out for myself that both of these schools are suboptimal sleep patterns. Both of them are wrong if you care about productivity. Here’s why:
If you sleep set hours, you’ll sometimes go to bed when you aren’t sleepy enough. If it’s taking you more than five minutes to fall asleep each night, you aren’t sleepy enough. You’re wasting time lying in bed awake and not being asleep. Another problem is that you’re assuming you need the same number of hours of sleep every night, which is a false assumption. Your sleep needs vary from day to day.
If you sleep based on what your body tells you, you’ll probably be sleeping more than you need — in many cases a lot more, like 10-15 hours more per week (the equivalent of a full waking day). A lot of people who sleep this way get 8+ hours of sleep per night, which is usually too much. Also, your mornings may be less predictable if you’re getting up at different times. And because our natural rhythms are sometimes out of tune with the 24-hour clock, you may find that your sleep times begin to drift.
The optimal solution for me has been to combine both approaches. It’s very simple, and many early risers do this without even thinking about it, but it was a mental breakthrough for me nonetheless. The solution was to go to bed when I’m sleepy (and only when I’m sleepy) and get up with an alarm clock at a fixed time (7 days per week). So I always get up at the same time (in my case 5am), but I go to bed at different times every night.
I go to bed when I’m too sleepy to stay up. My sleepiness test is that if I couldn’t read a book for more than a page or two without drifting off, I’m ready for bed. Most of the time when I go to bed, I’m asleep within three minutes. I lie down, get comfortable, and immediately I’m drifting off. Sometimes I go to bed at 9:30pm; other times I stay up until midnight. Most of the time I go to bed between 10-11pm. If I’m not sleepy, I stay up until I can’t keep my eyes open any longer. Reading is an excellent activity to do during this time, since it becomes obvious when I’m too sleepy to read.
When my alarm goes off every morning, I turn it off, stretch for a couple seconds, and sit up. I don’t think about it. I’ve learned that the longer it takes me to get up, the more likely I am to try to sleep in. So I don’t allow myself to have conversations in my head about the benefits of sleeping in once the alarm goes off. Even if I want to sleep in, I always get up right away.
After a few days of using this approach, I found that my sleep patterns settled into a natural rhythm. If I got too little sleep one night, I’d automatically be sleepier earlier and get more sleep the next night. And if I had lots of energy and wasn’t tired, I’d sleep less. My body learned when to knock me out because it knew I would always get up at the same time and that my wake-up time wasn’t negotiable.
A side effect was that on average, I slept about 90 minutes less per night, but I actually felt more well-rested. I was sleeping almost the entire time I was in bed.
I read that most insomniacs are people who go to bed when they aren’t sleepy. If you aren’t sleepy and find yourself unable to fall asleep quickly, get up and stay awake for a while. Resist sleep until your body begins to release the hormones that rob you of consciousness. If you simply go to bed when you’re sleepy and then get up at a fixed time, you’ll cure your insomnia. The first night you’ll stay up late, but you’ll fall asleep right away. You may be tired that first day from getting up too early and getting only a few hours of sleep the whole night, but you’ll slog through the day and will want to go to bed earlier that second night. After a few days, you’ll settle into a pattern of going to bed at roughly the same time and falling asleep right away.
So if you want to become an early riser (or just exert more control over your sleep patterns), then try this: Go to bed only when you’re too sleepy to stay up, and get up at a fixed time every morning.
Edit (5/31/05): Due to the (mysterious) popularity of this post, I’ve written a follow-up with some extra detail and clarifications: How to Become an Early Riser - Part II. And if you really want to take sleep to the next level, read about my experiences with Polyphasic Sleep, where you only sleep 2-3 hours a day by taking 20-minute naps every few hours, around the clock.
Edit (5/29/06): Be sure to read the related article How to Get Up Right Away When Your Alarm Goes Off.
May 23rd, 2005 at 4:25 am
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May 23rd, 2005 at 4:27 am
Can timing of this post be any better? This weekend, I decided that I want to get up early (5 AM) from now on, whether week day or not.
Today was my first day and I got up at 6. It was little tough but I am feeling so much energy right now that I am totally going to do it tomorrow! Btw, yesterday I got into bed even though I was not feeling sleepy. Though what you said here makes sense and tonight I will sleep when I feel sleepy and still wake up early tomorrow! Thanks for the tips!
JD
May 23rd, 2005 at 4:52 am
well,do you sleep at noon?
May 23rd, 2005 at 7:39 am
I am in a different situation. I go to bed when i am sleepy and i don’t have an alarm to wake me up. What happens is i wake up at 7am every day including weekends! I may go to bed at 11pm or 4am but always at 7am i am awake. This was never planned. I tried it because the sound of the alarm pissed me off!
I am a morning person. I have energy throughout the day, but i never related it to my sleep patern!
May 23rd, 2005 at 8:09 am
Some people don’t need an alarm — they can condition themselves to get up at the same time every day. I can do this too, but I still set my alarm because I’ve conditioned myself to react a certain way when the alarm goes off, so it’s like Pavlov ringing a bell. I respond on cue without having to think about it. So it’s not just that the alarm wakes me up; it’s that it triggers me to actually get up.
I use my wrist-watch alarm, which isn’t as blaring as some stand-alone alarm clocks and doesn’t scare the hell out of me and my wife when it goes off. I find the intermittent beeps a more gentle way to wake up.
May 23rd, 2005 at 8:25 am
This sounds OK in theory, but how does it work in practice? What do you do when you got out for dinner with friends and the chat goes on into the night? Make your excuses and leave at 9:30pm, so you can get to bed? Or battle through the sleepiness? What happens when your kids wake up in the middle of the night and you have to tend to them? What happens when your wife does not want to go to bed at the same time as you? Or does not want to have the alarm go off at 5am?
May 23rd, 2005 at 8:44 am
I’m excited that you wrote about this subject because it’s a topic that I’ve been struggling with a lot lately. I’d like to be an early riser for a lot of reasons, but I find it extraordinarily hard. And unfortunately, last time I tried to adjust my schedule — using the very technique you describe — it was an abject failure. For weeks I forced myself out of bed at 6am (really early for me), and went to sleep only when I was tired.
The problem was that, despite the 6am daily wakeup, I still wouldn’t end up going to bed before 1am or so. What’s worse, my energy level during the day was hopelessly low — until noon or so I felt like a complete zombie, walking around with a head full of fog. Around 5-6pm, which is usually around the time of day when I have a second wind and kick into a productive evening, I was just dead mentally (even though physically I wasn’t nearly tired enough for bed). Needless to say, this killed my productivity and made me miserable. I kept telling myself that if I stuck with it, my body would eventually adjust, but after weeks I was still struggling and decided to call off the experiment so I could get some real work done again.
I’m not normally the type to start labeling things this way, but I even began to wonder if I might have Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome:
http://www.geocities.com/delayed_sleep/
But I’m not ready to give up just yet. I plan to try this again soon, in conjunction with more attention to my exercise habits and eating patterns (both of which are fair but could be better). Starting at this time of year, when it’s light so early in the morning, should help. I’ll also monitor my compliance more closely. I wonder, for example, if I was letting my resolve to get up early slip on weekends (I admit, it’s hard to imagine going to bed at 3am Sunday morning and waking up three hours later — not that I do that every weekend, but certainly now and then). I probably need to keep a written sleep log so I’m not confusing perception with reality, and see where that leaves me.
Anyway, thanks for the column — I just wanted to share my frustration (and hope)!
May 23rd, 2005 at 8:54 am
Is their any actual proof that getting up early actually makes people more productive or is it just anecdotal? My experience is most artists, especially comic book artists, game artists, 3d movie aritsts, storyboard artists and others are late risers. Whether my experience is the norm and whether they’d be even more creative and more productive if they got up early I’m not sure but given that the worlds they dream up are often dark (which I find more interesting that the everyday light world) I wonder if they would lose that if they didn’t experience so much darkness.
May 23rd, 2005 at 9:22 am
Another great post Steve. I’m going to try this tonight, and report back how it works. Sounds like a great idea!
May 23rd, 2005 at 9:29 am
I used to sleep very long hours, sometimes sleeping in until 4pm (occasionally even when I had a job that started at 9am). Ten hours per night was usual, but I could sometimes sleep up to 14 hours. The main reason was probably that I had nothing to get up for. The funny thing was that I always felt tired.
About 10 years ago I realised that I was wasting my life, so I did some research and experiments and found that I have much higher energy levels and feel less tired during the day on between 5 and 6 hours a day. I now normally go to bed about 11pm, read until I get sleepy, and get up at 5.30am.
One problem with getting up at 5.30 has been that it disturbs my wife, and she feels that she needs more sleep (she often has trouble getting to sleep at nights, and is quite a light sleeper). So I now use my Palm PDA as the alarm clock, and place it on the other side of the room. The advantages are that it is a different alarm from the one that my wife uses, so she has learned to ignore it, and I have to get out of bed to turn it off. I often find that I wake up a minute or two before the alarm goes off, which is a good feeling. Sometimes I will wake up naturally around 4.30am, and I usually get out of bed then.
Occasionally I will have a 15-minute “power nap” during the afternoon. This is usually only necessary on days when I am either bored or the day isn’t going well.
I can usually fall asleep within a few seconds of deciding to sleep. I think this is explained by some Buddhist meditation techniques I learned years ago. I sleep very soundly, and I’m not disturbed by normal nightly noises, so my sleep is good quality sleep.
Sorry to ramble, but this is one of my favorite subjects. Excellent blog, Steve. Keep up the good work.
May 23rd, 2005 at 9:31 am
Two questions:
1. Do you take naps? What happens when you are REALLY struggling at times during your day i.e. to use Steve’s test of being unable to read a page or two of text without closing your eyes. Are naps part of the solution or to be avoided?
2. How do you handle international travel or indeed moving across time zones within the US? Do you reset your own ‘body clock’ to get up at 5am wherever you have arrived or do you offset the time somewhat?
May 23rd, 2005 at 9:58 am
Steve, thanks for this article…the timing couldn’t be better. I have no problem getting up at 5AM but falling asleep began to be a problem on occasion a year or so ago (in fact, the last 2 nights have been that way). I usually go to bed at 10:30PM and if I have a problem falling asleep I stay in bed using the logic that when I fall asleep I want to be where I supposed to be. I also reasoned that if I started watching TV (or doing anything for that matter) and got sleepy just the act of getting up and going to bed could mean that the ability to fall asleep quickly wouldn’t happen again and I’d be up till 3AM.
I’m going to give this “go to bed when you can’t keep your eyes open” approach, maybe it will help. Last week I had no difficulty falling asleep for 7 days in a row, now I’ve got 2 days going the opposite. ANYTHING is worth a try.
May 23rd, 2005 at 10:20 am
the biggest problem I have with this is often the cursed afternoon nap. Now, I’m still at school, and when I come home, I do get some time to take an afternoon nap. I usually do end up with an afternoon nap since I slept late the night before and had to get up at the same time. This process continues on, since I slept in the afternoon, I sleep late at night, and so on and so forth.
And ofcourse, this entire system goes out of whack on weekends, where I wake up pretty late, no afternoon naps, and sleep late. It’s quite irregular really. I really like this idea of sleeping only when you are completely tired, and I will definately try it and get on the early-morning bandwaggon.
May 23rd, 2005 at 10:46 am
I sometimes take a quick power-nap in the early afternoon, usually when my brain feels overloaded, like if I’ve had a lot of unexpected things come at me in a short period of time. Most days I don’t nap though. Sleep processes short-term memory into long-term memory, so napping is like wiping your mental RAM clean and saving it to your brain’s hard drive. This frees up more mental “working memory” to start new tasks instead of dwelling on old ones.
If I nap for more than 20 minutes though, it’s a mistake, and it messes with my sleep cycle. So I tell myself to wake up in 20 minutes or less. I can lie down, fall asleep, have a short dream, and wake up usually within 15-18 minutes. My record is 11 minutes. In lieu of a nap, sometimes I’ll also take about 10 deep breaths.
I see naps not so much as rest but as a way to give my brain time to process an overload of information. If I get sleepy, I take it as a “out of memory” message from my brain, so I take a quick nap to give it time to catch up. It’s like doing a mental reboot.
What you consume during the day will affect your sleep cycle, especially caffeine, refined sugar, and animal products. So if you have a problem falling asleep at a reasonable time compared to when you wake up, it could be dietary. The onset of sleepiness is a biological function after all. If you corrupt your biology with chemicals, your endocrine system will have trouble secreting the right hormones in the right quantities at the right times. For example, if you eat animal products like meat or dairy, you’re consuming the hormones that were fed to those animals to make them grow faster and fatter (the reality of factory farming these days). These animal hormones cause a host of “unnatural” side effects in human beings. I remember reading that young girls now get their first menstrual period an average of four years sooner than they did a century ago, mainly due to overconsumption of animal hormones (especially dairy products from cows given hormones to increase milk production).
Sleep can also be improved by exercise. I always find I rest better when I exercise daily.
As far as whether there are studies that indicate whether the connection between early rising and productivity is correlative or causal, I don’t actually care. I study myself and encourage other people to study themselves as well. For me it’s a causal relationship to the degree that I can measure my output as being much higher when I rise early. I simply have time and energy to do more things each day. Also, it’s pretty easy to notice that I sleep less and thereby have more waking hours.
I don’t have any specific suggestions for what to do if you travel a lot. Virtually all of my travel is within the same time zone, so I haven’t had to deal with this problem much. I think my changes would depend on the length of my stay and the number of hours difference.
May 23rd, 2005 at 11:02 am
I’m really skeptical about this.
May 23rd, 2005 at 11:37 am
Thanks another time - this article will surely help to “improve” my sleeping another time
May 23rd, 2005 at 11:52 am
I’m really skeptical about this. Pardon my ramble.
First point, what you’re suggesting is sleep deprivation according to some people (there’s a clip below). Of course, conventional wisdom dies hard; scientists may not put much effort into critically examining the hypothesis that most people need 7-8 hours of sleep. Still, I’d at least want to look at some empirical studies to see if there’s any evidence for or against the conventional view before I took your advice. Maybe more importantly, I feel better and I think I do better work when I sleep “more than I need to.”
“Experts say that if you feel drowsy during the day, even during boring activities, you haven’t had enough sleep. If you routinely fall asleep within 5 minutes of lying down, you probably have severe sleep deprivation, possibly even a sleep disorder.” (”Experts say” is weaselly wording, of course.)
Second point, I have trouble with “insomniacs are people who go to bed when they’re not sleepy.” For me, the biggest determinant of whether I get to sleep quickly is whether I’m worried (or excited) or not when I go to bed — my sleep deficit or surplus doesn’t matter much.
May 23rd, 2005 at 4:14 pm
Sleep is entirely for the mind. The body needs no sleep, muscles just need brief rest between activities. Too much sleep can be detrimental to the body just as a lack of it is.
@Anonymous Coward - Sure getting 3-5 hours of sleep is bad, but do you really feel great after you’ve slept for 12-14? Probably not. If your like me you probably feel lazy and groggy.
May 23rd, 2005 at 5:03 pm
Staying up until I am tired enough to fall asleep quickly would keep me up until 4:00 a.m. or so. Not good.
My wife falls asleep within 5 minutes each night. I have never been able to do that… usually more like 45 minutes to an hour. Reading will only make that worse as I will become engrossed in the book and read for hours.
I am a night person. Unfortunately. Nothing seems to change that. No strategy, no medicine, no trick. Traveling to China (which I do yearly) gives me 3 or 4 days of early rising (I love it) until I adjust to the local time and then it is right back to my usual late to bed, late rise. It sucks but tactics like yours simply do not work for some of us.
May 23rd, 2005 at 6:01 pm
So Stuart… if you go to bed at 4am then and get up an hour or two later, you think you’ll continue staying up until 4am the next night and every night thereafter? I’m doubtful that you could do that for long without going to bed earlier.
For this to work it requires a daily fixed wake-up time. A fixed wake-up time means a fixed wake-up time. No exceptions. No sleeping in no matter what. If you don’t go to bed until 4am and have to get up at 5am, then you only get an hour’s sleep that night. If you’re a zombie that first day, then you’re a zombie. Try making it until 4am the next night without crashing earlier.
Expect to have some fluctuating sleep times the first few days. If you need a bridge nap, take one, but keep it short… just enough to make it to dusk.
Eventually you’ll adjust. You’ll have to. But it won’t work unless your wake-up time is non-negotiable.
May 23rd, 2005 at 6:53 pm
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May 23rd, 2005 at 7:46 pm
How to Become an Early Riser
How to Become an Early Riser » Steve Pavlina’s Personal Growth Blog
If you sleep based on what your body tells you, you’ll probably be sleeping more than you need — in many cases a lot more, like 10-15 hours more per week (the equivalent of a…
May 23rd, 2005 at 8:43 pm
How to Become an Early Riser
I hate mornings. Especially mornings in which I am greeted way too early by a less than welcome alarm. Unfortunately, that would be five out of seven days of the week. So, maybe I should try retraining myself to…
May 23rd, 2005 at 8:53 pm
I love sleeping. Sleeping kicks ass. What’s wrong with 9 hours a night? I still pay my bills on time and get stuff done. Maybe most of our ancestors were farmers who got up with the cows, but I’m not a farmer, and I seriously doubt most of your readers are.
May 23rd, 2005 at 11:57 pm
I quite agree - I do something quite similar and it works for me…
May 24th, 2005 at 12:00 am
[…] teve Pavlina has postet a very interesting article about the perfect sleep under the title How to Become an Early Riser. He seems to have a very good sleeping strate […]
May 24th, 2005 at 1:19 am
Your technique sounds very natural and very simple. And I STRONGLY believe in simple things being more effective than they actually seem to be!!!
May 24th, 2005 at 2:49 am
I am in the midst of an attempt to stay up from when I woke at 5pm to some reasonable bedtime tomorrow; that is, I’m trying to stay up for slightly more than a full day in order to correct my sleep cycle. This happens about every two or three weeks.
Looks like I’m a college student.
May 24th, 2005 at 3:57 am
Thank you for that arousing article
I will definitely try to follow you scheme to get my sleep at the right time. I’m no insomniac, but i tend to stay up the whole night if some coding problem won’t let me go.
May 24th, 2005 at 3:59 am
P.S.: Although the entry is time-stamped at 3:57 am, at my place it’s about 2:00 pm
May 24th, 2005 at 4:28 am
Sounds great, I usually get up at 6:10am (my alarm on my mobile phone wakes me), but there are two scenarios where this system may break down and I’d like to ask Steve his opinions.
1) Babies. I have four children aged five, four, two and one. Two nights out of seven they will wake me up in the dead of night and the time varies between 20 minutes after getting into bed to 5:30am. If one is frequently woken by infants during the night and one finds it very difficult to rise at say 6am, what would you suggest is the course of action to take?
2) Partners. My wife usually is the one to get up and sort the infants out if they require attention during the night, because I go to work and she doesn’t and sometimes I don’t hear them anyway. She is not going to like me setting my alarm for 5am or 5:30am because I want to be more productive. The alarm would wake her and then she wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep which makes her irritable during the day, etc. What do you say to this Steve.
Great post - I would love to be able to rise at 5am every day and got to bed no earlier than 10:30pm.
The other factor that needs to be addressed here is effective personal time management. What is the point in getting up at 5am every day and then squandering the time watching TV, staring into space or mindlessly surfing the web? I think a significant factor to keep the motivation going to rise early is showing yourself the fruits of your increased labour. Whether this be extra hobbies, reading, training, more work, etc.
May 24th, 2005 at 5:29 am
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May 24th, 2005 at 6:17 am
[…] to Become an Early Riser Posted by Jonathan under headware Steve Pavlina has some tips on how to become an early riser. Interesting stuff. I know I typical […]
May 24th, 2005 at 6:18 am
How to Become an Early Riser
Steve Pavlina has some [tips][] on how to become an early riser. Interesting stuff. I know I typically need less than 8 hours of sleep, but I hate the idea of going to bed late and getting up early — even if I could be doing something productive (li…
May 24th, 2005 at 7:49 am
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May 24th, 2005 at 11:56 am
Become an early riser
I think my sleep habits are lame. After skimming through “How to Become an Early Riser“, maybe they’re not so bad. I think I just need to make sure I don’t just turn the clock off and lie back down in bed - that’s my terr…
May 24th, 2005 at 12:58 pm
I’m quite the insomniac, and I’ve noticed my work is suffering. I’ve read the whole report an will give it a try.
May 24th, 2005 at 1:02 pm
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you thank you thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou
Seriously, I’ve been looking for someone who suffers as I do. Really great idea, and if followed, really helps free you from all the unhelpful crap about proper sleep times, and REM cycles, etc etc.
Im going to try this the next two weeks and see how I do.
Im also going to del.icio.us this page
May 24th, 2005 at 1:26 pm
You obviously don’t have kids.
May 24th, 2005 at 1:45 pm
I have two kids, ages 1 and 5. My son is playing in my home office right now.
My kids names aren’t Excuse1 and Excuse2 though.
May 24th, 2005 at 3:04 pm
How to Cure Bad Sleeping Habits
Steve Pavlina wrote an excellent post about how to beat insomnia. I noticed the same that I am really productive when I wake up early in the morning I get to do so much more. His technique is a bit…
May 24th, 2005 at 4:13 pm
Clearly he doesn’t have children, those of us who do have great difficulty controlling the time we actually get to go to sleep despite levels of sleepiness…
May 24th, 2005 at 4:18 pm
Then my kids must be figments of my imagination.
May 24th, 2005 at 6:29 pm
Wake up early and other healthy sleeping tips
Steve Pavlina has posted an pretty interesting post on his thoughts on sleeping and wake up early. An approach that works for him is:
The optimal solution for me has been to combine both approaches. It’s very simple, and many early risers do this…
May 24th, 2005 at 8:13 pm
Great article. I wanted to contribute another tip for your readers. When I go to bed, I set the status on my yahoo messenger to Zzzzzz…
My boss and coworkers are all on messenger and most of them are early risers. It helps me get out of bed in the morning to know that I have to go into the living room and switch my status out of Zzzzzz… If I don’t, then it’s pretty obvious to everyone that I’m late because I slept in.
Thanks again.
May 24th, 2005 at 10:54 pm
Hi,
Your advice is pretty sound, though your motivation is: “if you care about productivity”, which is not everyone’s motivation. My other blog is devoted to circadian rhythms etc., and teh most popular post to date is this one, about patterns of human sleep.
May 24th, 2005 at 11:03 pm
Really interesting and quite similar to my own experiences I have found. I used to go to bed between 1-3am and wake up as late as possible (around 8am give or take) and never felt good for it.
I changed this to waking up at 6am and hitting the gym at 6:30 and targeting getting to bed between 10 and 11 pm (later if I am not so tired earlier if I am tired) and overall have felt better for it.
However the problem I would have with your method is weekends. On weekends I traditionally go to bed much later (12-3/4am). If I was to get up at 6am on these days I would feel shattered. So on weekends the alarm goes off and I leave myself to wake up naturally.
The same way you say go to sleep when you are tired, I say it’s best to wake up when you are not tired. Your body knows when it’s the best to wake up, and waking up naturally you wake up during the light part of your sleep cycle, not the heavy part. Waking up via alarm when you are in a deep sleep never feels good. Although on weekends I do wake up naturally much earlier now as well.
Another thing I have found, is that I need to get into bed sometimes to feel tired. I can faff around for ages, doing crap that doesn’t need to be done. I need to get into bed and start reading a book to allow my mind to start to shut down. This doesn’t always work, but if I am on the laptop coding, or watching TV I can go till 5am without feeling tired. I need to shut off those things that keep my mind active to feel tired.
May 24th, 2005 at 11:26 pm
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May 24th, 2005 at 11:41 pm
I work from 4:45pm to 1:15 am. I usually want to say up and do things like work on my website or hang out with friends and stuff, and don’t feel tired most of the time until like 4 or 5am. Then I set my alarm clock for 2pm and end up flalling asleep around 6am - 6:30am usually.
I like your idea and I will give it a try because I love the daytime, it makes me feel alive and pumped up, as opposed to night time where I sometimes feel cold and alone. I will set my alarm for 11am and lean up when I wake up and see how this works.
There are just some nights on the rare occasion where I’m not sleepy whatsoever, and end up pulling an all nighter or force myself to sleep at 8 - 9 pm. and belive me, it sucks…
I would also like to see how the affects of soda pop, coffee and other caffeine producing foods and drinks work when trying to fall asleep. I’m an avid pop drinker, especially at work, or after work. I hate coffee which is probably a good thing, and I can only drink tea with lotsa sugar.
I guess I will see how this works and differs to your situation and give some feedback.
May 24th, 2005 at 11:53 pm
[…] « The first Early Riser I was reading this article on how to become an early riser and found it quite interesting. I know this w […]
May 25th, 2005 at 2:05 am
A wise man told me two ways for a great night sleep.
a) Exercise regularly (keeping your circadian rhythm in check)
b) Natural sunlight into your eyes (keeping melatonin levels down during day to keep u wide wake and sleepy during night otherwise why did you feel sleepy all day, hmm?)
May 25th, 2005 at 4:38 am
what a load of crap; file this with the “Hipster PDA” et al… most people get up at a fixed time (ie, a bit before they have to be @ work). it is exceedingly unpleasant; glad i stopped years ago.
my alien circadian runs about 22 hours up and 10 down; i do my best to stay up until noon or get up by then to have a window for interacting with “normals” world. if i try to “force” it, i need more sleep for some reason, and i’m fogged for more hours after waking. this is why i’m a freelancer in a creative field but i understand many folks must suffer a lot more than do i.
fear or desire will get you out of bed in the morning. as i age, i have less of both…
May 25th, 2005 at 5:49 am
[…] was, I set out to become a habitual early riser. I promptly set my alarm clock for 5AM… Read More
This entry was post […]
May 25th, 2005 at 7:09 am
When I used an alarm clock, I could wake up 5 seconds or so before it went off! I don’t know if there’s a little noise the clock makes before inducing its cardiac-arresting sound, or my inner clock saying “I’m not going through this again!”, but this happened with several different clocks.
I know this really doesn’t pertain to sleep patterns, but it was interesting to me.
May 25th, 2005 at 7:27 am
[…] and surviving pretty well. Then, thanks to Clicked, I stumbled upon the blog post “How to Become an Early Riser“. That pretty much explained everythin […]
May 25th, 2005 at 9:18 am
dude, this is genius… i’ve been trying to do this for like ages, but never could i bring myself to be a morning person… and the timeing is excellent, considering i’ve been incredibly low on sleep and my productivity level has gone down quite a lot.
thanks a lot dude
May 25th, 2005 at 10:37 am
[…] 2005 How to Become an Early Riser Filed under: Lifestyle — 12:37 pm Are morning people born or made? In my case it was definitely made. In my […]
May 25th, 2005 at 11:58 am
I have god-awful sleep patterns. My day Starts at 12-1pm and ends at 4-5 am. I’ve tried a lot of things but none of them seem to really help.
I’m not even trying to wake up at 5am, 10 am would be just fine! 8 am would be perfect.
Your strategy doesn’t work either. Here’s what happens:
Day1: Set alarm for 9am. Stay up until 4am as always.
Day2: Wake up at 9am. 5 hours of sleep. Useless zombie for most of the day. HOWEVER, energy levels actually go up around the evening again, so I’m up until 4 am again.
Day3: Wake up at 9am again. 2 consecutive days of 5-hour sleeps - I’m 99% useless during daylight. Once again, energy returns at night. Sleep at 4am.
Day4: Wake up at 9am, with herculean efforts. Barely able to not fall asleep. Lots of coffee to keep me awake so that I can go to sleep at something “normal” - say, at least 8pm. So what happens at 8pm? I “WAKE UP” AGAIN! Then I go to sleep at 5 am!
Day5: Alarm rings at 9am but this time it is met with furious anger. There is no “argument” inside my head since my capacity to argue (internally or otherwise) is gone. Most of the time I don’t even remember getting up, carefully unsetting the alarm and going back to sleep. Then I wake up at about 3-4pm instead.
Mission: FAILED
May 25th, 2005 at 12:06 pm
What about those of us addicted to caffeine? I wonder what this nasty little variable would do to your model. It was very well put and I believe it would work for me, except for the Diet Dr. Pepper that I most suredly would drink sometime after 7pm. That magic moment of sleepiness doesn’t come knocking sometimes til 1 am or so. I’ll try it though and try to slow down the good doc as well.
May 25th, 2005 at 12:28 pm
Don’t consume *any* caffeine while trying adjust your sleep patterns. That includes coffee, tea, soft drinks, chocolate, etc. Caffeine will only make a mess of it. Same goes for alcohol.
Ruy, did you drink coffee every day, or just on day 4? Either way, if you’re going to use drugs to keep yourself awake, this isn’t going to work. You’d probably have fallen asleep earlier on day 4, but you drugged yourself to stay awake. Now how is the experiment supposed to work if you use drugs to cheat?
When you get up in the morning, stay up for at least a couple hours, but after that, if you get sleepy, then sleep, even if it’s earlier than your target bedtime. But whatever you do, don’t drug yourself to stay awake and then complain that you didn’t get sleepy!
Mission: TRY AGAIN WITHOUT THE DRUGS
May 25th, 2005 at 1:01 pm
[…] ncategorized at 5:00 pm | Permanent Link
I’ve been doing what this guy says since middle school, but I still hate waking up early. […]
May 25th, 2005 at 1:14 pm
Steve, I am presuming you don’t have little children in the house
Great post though which I discovered through digg.com and I have subscribed to the feed so I am sure I’ll be back.
May 25th, 2005 at 1:25 pm
Jon, that presumption would prove to be incorrect.
May 25th, 2005 at 2:34 pm
Maybe someone has already said this - but I haven’t read all the replies, so I don’t know…
I have a shifting sleep pattern - and have had for almost forty years. I wake up when it’s light outside - which means sleeping next to a streetlight leaves me unrested, and that sleeping at higher latitudes is a problem in winter. Lately I’ve been waking at about 5:00, getting in a few hours work, then finding that my concentration flags. I’m not tired, and can do relatively mindless tasks, but the best part of my day is generally a couple of hours after waking. Sometimes this means that I take naps in order to recharge that mysterious ability to sustain concentration. I can take a couple of fifteen minute naps and find that I can concentrate throughout a long working day.
This is distinct from getting up too early and feeling tired, which does me no good, as I feel the effect for more than a day, and it throws my entire existence out of kilter. Steve’s method would not work for me as I’d be feeling whacked out a couple of days each week. This may have something to do with sleep physiology in other areas. I lost the ability to stay up all night at least ten years ago. If I try it, I suffer for several days afterward.
May 25th, 2005 at 3:18 pm
Thanks, I’m definitely going to give this a try. Your first few paragraphs were *very* familiar - I’d love to get more done in the mornings too.
May 25th, 2005 at 6:04 pm
This is very interesting and I am going to try it. For years I have thought I was a night person bacause I can stay up very late and start a new project about 2 AM. Even when I was working, the last few years when I was really bored with the whole thing, I could not get up on time. Yet I remember years ago when my children were young and I was a stay-at-home mom, if something didn’t get started by 10 AM, I was really disgusted. I really would prefer to rise early and get things out of the way, and fall asleep as soon as I get into bed. Wish me luck!
May 25th, 2005 at 6:45 pm
thank you for these great tips, i often feel tired throughout the day and begin to drift off during the middle of my classes, these tips seem like they will help me a lot with getting my sleep and staying on task.
May 25th, 2005 at 7:34 pm
[…] p earlier. Who knows, it could be a good thing. Surely Aristotle couldn’t be wrong! Later, Antares This entry was posted […]
May 25th, 2005 at 8:06 pm
To get up earlier, just wake up earlier but go to bed a LITTLE bit earlier, say 20 minutes earlier and add it each day. Each sleeping cycle is around 60mins to 90 mins if I could remember!
May 26th, 2005 at 10:21 am
[…] t I still never can go to sleep “early”. This is some tasty food for thought. How to Become an Early Riser » Steve Pavlina’s Personal Development Blog […]
May 26th, 2005 at 10:41 am
[…] se who know me might have almost/ just fallen off/out of their chairs, but you never know, Steve Pavliva’s post on early rising might be worht a go one dayR […]
May 26th, 2005 at 10:56 am
What if you set your alarm for 5am, put it on the other side of the room, turn the volume up to full blast, and when it goes off in the morning, you sleepwalk to shut it off and go back to bed. Then when you wake up and realize it’s 9am your like SHIT.. I did it again!
Well that’s me…
May 26th, 2005 at 2:03 pm
Steve, reading the latest and I see you do have at least one little one. Congrats on Kyle’s first steps, always a great moment. I guess having a 5am alarm would let you be up before him most days anyway?
May 26th, 2005 at 3:04 pm
Yes, my kids usually don’t get up until around 6:30am.
May 26th, 2005 at 3:13 pm
If you can’t get up and stay up when the alarm goes off, then most likely your overall level of self-discipline is too low. Self-discipline is like a muscle — the more you use it, the stronger it becomes. In my upcoming book I’ve written a whole chapter just on self-discipline, especially on how to strengthen it.
May 26th, 2005 at 8:59 pm
Hi Steve,
Great article and cogent comments!
Steve, do you think you would be able to suggest an optimal strategy for giving up caffeine?
Warm rgds,
Paul Bard
May 26th, 2005 at 9:50 pm
Love the article, definitely some interesting ideas there. As far as the “obviously doesn’t have kids” crowd goes, I do have kids, ages 1 and 2, and yeah they do often wake up at night. Sometimes they go back to sleep relatively quickly and it doesn’t really affect me overall, and sometimes they are up for a very long time and I can really feel it throughout the day. Generally, though, this does not happen as often as it seems it would. I guess what it boils down to for me is that if my kids kept me up for a long time some night then the method outlined here would dictate that I would probably end up going to sleep earlier the following night.
The only thing that I have some resistance to with the article is that I have grown accustomed to taking the time after everyone has gone to bed as some “me time,” and this often means that I push myself to stay up longer even though I am very tired, just because I want to unwind etc. The consequence is that I frequently feel a bit wiped out during the day. I understand that this pattern should really change if I am to have healthy sleep patterns, but I would miss that time to myself nonetheless.
May 27th, 2005 at 10:11 am
I can’t necessary suggest an optimal strategy for giving up caffeine, but I can offer up one that has worked for many people. Coincidentally, this was the topic I planned to cover in the next blog entry.
May 27th, 2005 at 11:07 am
[…] ave to use the snooze button. In my pursuit of sleeping excellence I crossed paths with "How to Become and Early Riser" by Steve Pavlina […]
May 27th, 2005 at 12:13 pm
[…] 带忧伤的旋律勾勒出了一幅浓缩的人生画卷。 科学的睡眠方法以及How to become an early riser。如果你和我一样睡眠 […]
May 27th, 2005 at 6:26 pm
Interesting article. Enjoyed your comments about self-discipline (staying up after the alarm goes off). Not a fan of alarms but have always awaken at the same time everyday naturally. I’m a second shifter by trade so it’s not 5:00 am but reasonable. Diagnosed with a sleep disorder a year or so ago and have to take meds now otherwise I don’t sleep more than two hours. Feel like a sloth because the meds last 7-8 hours. I can tell you from experience that your body does need sleep as well as your brain. Before that I found that doing something in the morning that I enjoy (not just getting to work or household stuff) helps my motivation to get moving…for the rest of you that detest alarm clocks.
May 27th, 2005 at 11:09 pm
Hi
My overall advice to those interested in improving their sleep and overall wellbeing, FIND TIME to:
1. wake early
2. exercise regularly (to the point you are puffing and sweating, not just a leisurely stroll in the park)
3. minimise or cut out caffeine (especially at the end of the day)
4. nourish your body with lots of fresh fruit and veg. Avoid refined foods that give you highs and lows.
I am an early riser. I generally get up beterrn 5:30 - 6am (not as early as some). I do need an alarm to wake up this early. I find that when I sleep in later I feel drained all day. I also feel like the day passes by so quickly that I have wasted it by sleeping in. I think the morning is such a beautiful time of day.
I have not always slept well really well. Over the last 10 months started exercising 3 - 4 times a week. I don’t mean a gentle stroll, either, that is good for relaxation but doesn’t burn much energy or work your muscles much (depending on you current level of fitness of course). I go to the gym 3 mornings a week and then usually go for a jog and or stair climb on the weekend. I find that I spleep much better since starting exercise and go to sleep very quickly.
In the last couple of months I also began to slowly cut out coffee (I don’t drink coke. In fact I don’t drink any soft drinks). I still drink a weak tea and chocolate every now and then. I buy a good coffee occassionally and really enjoy it when I do have it. By only drinking coffee once a week or so it has the stimulating effect when I really need it (as opposed to becoming immune to it). Overall, I don’t feel any worse off for cutting coffee out of my day. When I do feel like I need an energy lift I find the natural energy in fresh fruit does the job. It also provides me with nutirents, as opposed to ‘poisoning’ my body with caffeine.
I also try to incorporate lots of wholesome food. Generally, our bodies digest fresh, raw fruit and veg much better than refined, processed foods. I know that when I have too much rubbish food it can upset my digestion and can effect my sleep quality. It also means that my body is getting the nutrients it needs to function optimally. My energy levels are much better for it. Part of this is keeping my blood sugar levels under control. Regularly eating refined carbohydrates can throw your blood sugar levels out of control which causes to you have periods of sugar highs and lows. I know that when I eat chocolate or sweet bakery treats, I usually feel like I need a coffee or more sugar once my blood sugar levels drop again. It is a vicious cycle.
So, invest some time in your overall wellbeing, and I hope your sleep improves!!
May 28th, 2005 at 9:56 am
[…] Sat 28 May 2005
sleep and how to fix it
filed under general, just life
This is a cool article on “How to become an early riser,” whic […]
May 28th, 2005 at 11:36 am
Shadal / May 26th, 2005 at 10:56 am
I can relate. Alarm clocks are useless. But there’s nothing like a wake-up call to trick you out of bed. Actually having to say something coherent to someone is a terrifying prospect and always wakes me right up. Thereafter it’s only a matter of staying awake…
LMS / May 27th, 2005 at 11:09 pm
I agree about the excercise part. Getting moving is a really good thing. I haven’t got a gym nearby, so I’ve done various things like a fast & furious bike ride for ten minutes; moving construction materials around in the garden; sit-ups and stretches; carrying something up and down steps.
May 29th, 2005 at 4:05 am
[…] 17;t bad Sunday, May 29th, 2005 Steve Pavlina on how to become an early riser: “It’s very simple, and many early ri […]
May 29th, 2005 at 8:58 pm
[…] self who have a pretty chaotic sleeping schedule, but would like to get it more on track. How to become an early riser worth a try… […]
May 29th, 2005 at 11:00 pm
Steve, I have tried your method (before reading your article) for several years. I have tried to wake up at the same hour every day (8:00 AM) and to go to sleep when I feel sleepy.
It has never worked for me. The result is that I go to sleep later and later, and my state (awareness, alertness) during the day gets worse and worse. I also started to have problems waking up.
However, I am an insomniac and had horrible problems with insomnia during my life.
I have completely solved the sleep problem (and became an eary riser) by applying this method:
- I got a good PDA (HP iPAQ Pocket PC) which can vary the illumination intensity. Almost all modern PDAs can vary the illumination intensity. Older PDAs like Palm III can’t - in fact they just change the LCD contrast.
- I go to sleep at 10 to 11:30 o’clock every day, regardless of whether I feel sleepy or not. I don’t go to sleep at the same hour every day, but at least I make sure it’s before 11:30 o’clock.
- I turn off the light, set the PDA’s illumination to the minimum at which I can read without having my eyes get tired, and then read an e-book. I choose an e-book which is mildly interesting - not something very interesting, but not boring, either.
After 30-60 minutes of reading in the dark with the PDA illumination set to minimum I feel extremely sleepy, and fall asleep naturally.
The fact that I’m able to fall asleep whenever I want to (even if this takes up to 60 minutes) is absolutely GREAT. I have fixed all my problems related to insomnia this way.
I think the key is the fact that I read something (so I don’t get horribly bored when staying in bed and trying to sleep) combined with the fact that I do the reading in the dark, with as little light as possible (illumination set to minimum). This way my brain has the patience of staying in bed, and also registers the fact that it’s very dark, so I get very sleepy.
If I just lay in bed waiting to sleep without reading, after half of hour of laying in the dark, I get very impatient and even nervous. So I can’t sleep.
I have got the same result by using a paper book and a reading lamp with variable intensity - I set the lamp to minimum intensity at which my eyes don’t get tired, and read. However, the effect is a lot weaker than when using a PDA - the PDA is really the BEST method of doing this.
Also one other thing about this method is that it’s effortless, and doesn’t depend on self-discipline at all.
In the past I have tried taking melatonin and self-hypnosis. These methods are good and work, but they are a lot worse than the method described above because they require self-discipline.
Melatonin requires self-discipline because you have to go to sleep at the same hour every day. After taking Melatonin for 2-weeks at 10:00 PM every day, my body develops a reflex of becoming very drowsy and sleepy at about 10:30 PM every day, even if I stop taking Melatonin. But the big problem is that if I start going to bed later for 2-3 days, the effect wears off.
I also had problems with dosage - too low a dose and I don’t fall asleep, too high a dose and I have problems waking up. I also don’t like taking medicine if I can avoid it.
So Melatonin is not as good as people claim it to be. It is excellent, but only for people who are self-disciplined enough to go to bed at the same hour every day, without fail.
Self-hypnosis also works, but many times it requires a lot of self-discipline to stay in bed and go through the routine.
In contrast, my method of using very-low-light reading on a PDA (described above) requires almost NO self discipline.
I have also tried exercise, but the exercise did nothing good for my sleep in the long term. In spite of this I exercise 3-4 times a week at a gym, for the other health benefits (exercise is GREAT for reasons other than the sleep pattern).
May 30th, 2005 at 12:10 am
A problem I find myself facing quite often is that I don’t always feel sleepy during the proper ‘windows.’ I have a habit of staying awake for 30+ hours at a time…this, in turn, means that if I wait until I am sleepy, I might be going to bed with only a few hours before I have to get back up. I pretty much have to just lay down at certain times and try to force myself to sleep. I guess I should note that my method does leave me lacking energy on a fairly regular basis. Its just that I haven’t figured out a better way of doing things yet. (Full-time student with a full-time job…schedules are always changing) Nice article, by the way.
May 30th, 2005 at 5:34 am
What do you do during daylight savings time?
May 30th, 2005 at 10:10 am
I’d adapt to daylight savings and keep getting up at 5am.
May 30th, 2005 at 5:42 pm
For the gentleman with four kids: You may want to look into co-sleeping (google it, I don’t have time to find good links, so sorry)
If your kids are sleeping on a matress in your room, it’s much easier to settle them at night. There’s some evidence it’s better for the kids as well, especially when they’re very small- being alone is something that skyrockets small children’s stress hormones, which makes sense. It used to be that if a child was seperated from their parents, they’d get eaten by a saber tooth tiger.
After a few weeks the kids should settle down. And it shouldn’t affect relations with your wife if you’re just a bit more creative about when and where. I have several friends who have done this and they’ve all been fairly pleased with the increased amount of sleep they’re getting at night.
May 30th, 2005 at 8:08 pm
Rise
So if you want to become an early riser (or just exert more control over your sleep patterns), then try this: Go to bed only when you’re too sleepy to stay up, and get up at a fixed time every
May 30th, 2005 at 10:07 pm
I didn’t read all 90-something comments, but did you REALLY post this entry at 3:15 am? Explain THAT one, Sleep Doctor.
Now something more personal. I’m almost 35 and I feel like I’m sleeping my life away. When I wake up, I’m exhausted … not rested. My body wants me up at 5:30am, when my cats get up. I’m alert and love that time of day. But my bed is a santuary of sorts. I feel safe there and don’t want to leave.
Maybe this is depression? I’ve felt this my entire life. So one thing you don’t address and that is VERY relevant to difficulties in getting up early and greeting yet another day is depression. Even in its mildest forms, depression can affect sleep and our willingness to get out of bed in the mornings.
My entire life and lack of success is wrapped up in my sleep habits/patterns. I so desire to get up early and to feel rested in the mornings, and time and again I’ve tried to “fix” this. But I can’t. I’m stuck. And it’s ageing me, hurting me, and tick-tock tick-tock … so many missed opportunities as a result.
So much I’m missing. Love, family, home. And honestly I blame THE VERY THING that keeps me from being able to get up at a reasonable time in the morning.
Thanks for reading this.
May 30th, 2005 at 10:35 pm
As someone upthread said, my main problem with this is that I prize my late-night time.
I have a young child (under 2) and another one the way. My days are very busy, and after 10pm, when everyone’s in bed, I have time just to surf the web, fiddle around, read, unwind. I love it. I just can’t seem to give it up.
So what happens is, I get up at the same time every day (~6:15), but by staying up too late every night I get progressively foggier throughout the week.
Then, on weekends, I binge and sleep in until 10 or 11am (yes, my wife is a saint).
This isn’t a healthy cycle, but I don’t know what can give. I just can’t give my alone, wind-down time. It’s precious to me.
May 31st, 2005 at 4:45 am
This is ridiculous.
93 comments on something a stupid as waking up early? This Steve must be some deranged lunatic who spends all of his time writing comments on his own blog masquerading as a variety of interested readers.
May 31st, 2005 at 7:41 am
Great post. But I agree about the 30 plus hour problem.
The most dangerous thing is to do a lot of exercise after midnight. When that happens, it’s impossible to sleep for two and a half to three hours after the exercise is done.
Example: going dancing. Stop at 3 am. Can’t sleep until six. Sleep cycle trashed. Perhaps the solution is to stay up all the next day after a night out dancing.
May 31st, 2005 at 10:44 am
@CBP: I’m not up writing blog entries at 3am. I often write new posts in batches and then set them to appear on different days (usually with a post time of 3-5am).
May 31st, 2005 at 12:50 pm
[…] (which I just found tha I think like he does (or the other way around)) and then, into the can’t sleep post that was linked to Steve Pavlina and get the right […]
May 31st, 2005 at 11:05 pm
[…] How to Become an Early Riser Steve Pavlina%u2019s Personal Development Blog How to Become an Early Riser Steve Pavlina%u2019s Personal Development Blog […]
June 1st, 2005 at 1:35 am
The Carnival Of Education: Week 17
Welcome to the seventeenth edition of The Carnival Of Education. Here we have assembled a variety of interesting and informative posts from around the EduSphere that have been submitted by various authors and readers. As with other editions, those en…
June 1st, 2005 at 4:37 am
[…] p://www.singer.to/index.php?p=421″ rel=”bookmark” title=”Permanent Link: “> How to become an early riser “The most common wrong strategy is this […]
June 1st, 2005 at 8:57 am
I have to wake up at 2:48 am for my first job, then I go off and teach full time. Rule 1: no freakin’ TV ; Rule 2: go to bed at 7:30 (7 if I’m smart), screw whatever else is going on; Rule 3: read for a bit. Then lights off.
John Derbyshire wrote that an hour of sleep before midnight is worth two afterwards. Good sentiment.
June 1st, 2005 at 9:05 am
[…] rd How to Become an Early Riser Just read Steve Pavlina’s How to Become an Early Riser and part II This ent […]
June 1st, 2005 at 10:40 am
Most people sleep 8+ hours because they are doing too much at once. The body tries to make up for a lack of sleep when we are not getting enough. Once we have worked off the “sleep debt,” our sleep pattern will usually return to normal. On a second note, not everyone needs 8 hours of sleep. Some can sleep as little as 6 hours, while other can go as long as 10-11hours. I must say that I agree that people who are sleeping 15 hours are going a little overboard
June 1st, 2005 at 11:15 am
I think i’ll give those tips ago, Its rather irritating when you go to bed and just lie there, staring at the ceiling and getting frustrated because, tired as you are, you won’t go to sleep. Or is that just me?
June 1st, 2005 at 5:27 pm
I would have to agree with your approach. I didn’t realize it, but use this method myself and it works well for me. I am in the office and working by 7am most mornings and I find that the biggest impediment to that would be when something is happening with my kids or there was an accident on the highway. I have found that on mornings when I have allowed myself to sleep in, even a little, I am behind the rest of the day.
Thanks for taking the time to analyze your own life and in the process helping me understand my own!
June 1st, 2005 at 11:31 pm
[…] arly Riser
Steve Pavlina has created a tremendously popular blog post called How to Become an Early Riser and has now followed it up with How to Become […]
June 2nd, 2005 at 6:17 am
Lifehack: how to stop biting your nails
I’ve been enjoying the recent lifehack meme by reading Lifehacker, the Flickr Lifehack pool, and the lifehack del.icio.us tag.
June 2nd, 2005 at 10:49 am
Great theory, but maybe not so great in practice. It’s mid-afternoon, I’m at work, and can hardly keep my eyes open. Should I go to sleep?
However, when I get home from work at around 7pm, I get a rush of evergy that lasts until about midnight. I would definitely love to try, but maybe my lifestyle doesn’t support it.
June 2nd, 2005 at 11:00 am
[…] oundctrl @ 7:06 pm
i’m convinced that waking up early cannot possibly be this easy. And yet I must try. I’ll let you guys know. (via kottke.o […]
June 2nd, 2005 at 11:28 am
[…] n Pope How to sleep and develop Interesting article on how to train yourself to become an early riser from Steve Pavlina […]
June 2nd, 2005 at 11:53 am
Do you perceive any difference in your sleep patterns between summer and winter? Biologically, I suspect we’re wired to sleep more in the winter (when there’s less natural light), and less during the summer (when the sunlight lasts longer). But I’d be interested in your personal experiences on that. Thanks.
June 2nd, 2005 at 12:03 pm
I do tend to sleep a little longer in the winter (mainly by going to bed earlier), but I haven’t been formal about measuring how much difference there is. I’ve been adjusting my sleep habits a lot too, so I have yet to go through a full winter with my sleep habits as they are now.
Here in Las Vegas, which is very far east in the Pacific time zone, it’s already getting light outside at 5AM. The official sunrise time today was 5:24. I was running hills this morning around 5:30, and the sun was well above the mountains already.
In the winter if I go running at the same time, it’s still very dark when I return. But I don’t think it’s any more difficult to get up at the same time across seasons. If my body needs more sleep during the winter, it just means I’ll end up going to bed a little earlier.
June 2nd, 2005 at 12:13 pm
[…] « sweet bongs How to Become an Early Riser How to Become an Early Riser alright i will try it adam […]
June 2nd, 2005 at 12:19 pm
Simple. Have kids. I have never been more productive since having a family. Plus it is fun!
June 2nd, 2005 at 12:50 pm
[…] ave no discipline. I going to try Steve’s techniques for a while, see if they help. » How to Become an Early Riser | Steve Pavlina’s Personal Development […]
June 2nd, 2005 at 12:56 pm
If I smoke pot the day before I will easily sleep till 10 or so. In all other instances I rise and am wide awake immediately around 7:30.
June 2nd, 2005 at 1:05 pm
… I liked his system, which is easy to implement, logical and suits me. Although I usually woke up about 6.20 in work days, I only had time to prepare myself for work. Now I rise at 5.30. This allows me first to do my daily exercises….
…The biggest change in his system, though, is not sleeping late on weekends. I thinks that’s a good advice, since this way every day is equal and the sleep patterns are not disturbed during the weekend. This should allow getting up early on the first workday easier than after a “sleepy” weekend…
June 2nd, 2005 at 1:08 pm
good writeup, but there’s one omission: different people have different optimal sleep patterns. some are most productive when they get up at 0500 every morning, others are most productive when they can work through the night.
June 2nd, 2005 at 2:54 pm
[…]
How Effective Are You? Can Sleep Help?
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June 2nd, 2005 at 3:50 pm
[…] #8217;s Getting Things Done. 3) As I type I am printing out a PDF of Robert Frank’s How Not to Buy Happiness. I’ve heard very good things about this ess […]
June 2nd, 2005 at 4:49 pm
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How to Become an Early Riser How to Become an Early Riser You can follow any response […]
June 2nd, 2005 at 7:59 pm
I have a deep problem in that if I go to sleep before, approx., midnight I will wake up and then no matter how tired I am not ever get back to sleep. Sometimes I do just a half-hour or so before the alrams go off and I have to start dealing with the kids.
I have started to move to just waking in the morning and not thinking about it, but because of my compassionless nature for my current employer I find the “tireds” getting a hold of me and pudhing me back into sleep in the morning. Is there any cues or clues someone has for overcoming stress related anxieties in the morning for getting up?
My whole midnight thing will never change I think, I am better at nights than days, even after six years of 8am-5pm work.
June 2nd, 2005 at 8:59 pm
I haven’t read all the response but the surest way to become an early riser is to have a child. Works every time!
June 3rd, 2005 at 1:59 am
[…] Become an Early Riser
Tag(s): Shorties, Hacks, Homo Sapiens, Insomnia.
How to Become an Early Riser — “[I]f you want to become an ear […]
June 3rd, 2005 at 5:28 am
Thanks for the advice & interesting article, I will be starting this tonight! not sure about getting up at 5am though.
June 3rd, 2005 at 5:33 am
This is a great post and (hopefully) really useful to me. I’ve always struggled with waking early, although lately I’ve been considering how best to shift my sleep patterns to enable me to do this (and I was intending to follow what you describe as the ‘most common wrong strategy’).
I often go to bed before I am tired enough, and almost always set the alarm to allow myself 8 hours’ sleep.
Seems I’m getting it all totally wrong and need to try out your suggestions.
June 3rd, 2005 at 6:01 am
actually I just remembered that someone told me years ago that your dreams (does not matter if you do dream or not) work in multiple’s of 3 hours. Therefore if you sleep for 3,6,9 or 12 hrs, etc (must be pretty much exact) you are meant to wake up feeling well rested. I have tried and tested this method for 3, 6 and 9 hours and it seems to work for me.
June 3rd, 2005 at 6:18 am
[…] leep Patterns
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Steve Pavlina writes an essay on how to become an early riser. He’s noticed the same thing I have; w […]
June 3rd, 2005 at 6:44 am
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June 3rd, 2005 at 7:06 am
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June 3rd, 2005 at 7:52 am
[…] my internal desire to train my body to wake at this new time. This is part of a series on changing sleep patterns. The first post is here.
[…]
June 3rd, 2005 at 12:54 pm
Great article. I’m hooked on this technique. I’m now going to bed when my body/eyes shut down, and waking up at 05:50 in the morning. Its almost 3pm now and I still feel energised, which is such a nice change from when I would normally crash at around 2pm everyday after 9+ hours sleep. Now I sleep around 7 hours per night. For years, I admired my father for being an early riser, never fully understanding how he did it. But after reading Steve’s article, I realised that he was applying this exact technique without even knowing it. Amazing!
June 3rd, 2005 at 8:20 pm
If I sleep late its impossible for me to wake up (when I’m at home)…Some times I put up to 10 alarms around the room/house at different times, and I still either sleep through them, or wake up in the morning finding them ALL turned off/unplugged/thrown out a window,lol(really did happen once). Though, I do want to try the telephone call technique. The problem may have to do with self-determination, because even in life, I kinda get lazy to get things done/study… Any ideas,websites,etc. Anyone???Steve? BTW I might forget to check here so can you please send to my e-mail at richyrichrich0@yahoo.com thank you
June 3rd, 2005 at 11:33 pm
[…] /”>
Sleeping habits Posted on 20050604 This post describes that getting up the same time each day is a good thing. […]
June 4th, 2005 at 12:16 am
I too follow the same principles; go to bed when sleepy, wake up at the same time every day. Now I’m a 5am person (with or without alarm clock), but on weekends, my body clock wakes me at 7am, not 5am as it does during the week.
I haven’t consciously trained myself to achieve this, but it happens nonetheless.
June 4th, 2005 at 7:38 am
[…] oft Assessment How to Become an Early Riser I really need to try this. On weekends, I don’t wake up until midday - it’s ridic […]
June 4th, 2005 at 9:16 am
[…] e n resume my sleep. Been doing this for the last six months. Anyway, I read an article on Being an Early Riser by Steve Pavlina linked by Jason Kottke. I think it d […]
June 4th, 2005 at 11:25 am
If I went to sleep when I couldn’t stay awake any longer, I think I’d end up going to sleep sometime around noon the next day
June 4th, 2005 at 7:48 pm
Question - what about days when you have to be up much earlier? Do you adjust your sleep patterns at all? Do you have trouble during the day?
I report to work at 9am. So I get up at 7:15. Last week I had to be at some 7am employee meetings. So I woke at 5am. Tough days requiring naps and I really slept in Sat am.
Just wondering if you had any input, advise or thoughts.
Thanks.
June 4th, 2005 at 8:54 pm
1. Discipline is the key. I have, in the words of my very own mother (who spent many years as a therapist), “poor sleep hygene.” Thanks, Mom. But I tend to go to bed at sub-optimal times (too late, after I’ve battled through sleepiness, or too early and I just lie there and stare at the ceiling). But I get up in the mornings when my alarm goes off. Sometimes it’s 4:30, others its 6:00. If it’s 6:00, I’m sleeping in.
I decide my wake up time when I go to bed. In the morning, it’s non-negotiable. I don’t have a snooze alarm, so when it goes off, I get up. Period.
2. Naps are a big benefit to me. When I’m sleepy mid-day, or simply mentally slightly exhausted, I take a 20-minute power nap. I’m embarrassed to admit I use help for this (software based: pzizz). I was pretty skeptical at first, but now I find it’s a very pleasant way to make sure my nap is exactly the time I want it to be, and I *always* wake up feeling more productive and refreshed.
Good post.
June 4th, 2005 at 10:56 pm
[…] the change here. By the bye, I recently stumbled upon an article by Steve Pavlina called How to Become an Early Riser that I thought a good read. I think that, pe […]