I've been waking up at 5 am. for about 2 years, lately I'm getting back into the habit after losing it for a while.
The reason for me was simple, I HAD to get up to deliver newspapers. If I didn't get up and deliver I'd get a call, waking up my parents and a pissed guy on the phone for a amazing half an hour of sleep (he'd call at 5:30, that guy was sick. He woke up every morning for the past 10 years or so at 3 am. getting to bet at 9 pm every evening). In the two years I've overslept I think 2 or 3 times.
For the first half year or so my schedule would be something like, get to bet at 11 pm and up 5 am during weekdays. Get tired in the weekend and sleep in untill 7 am. (to deliver newspapers lol) while going out the night before. I usually needed 3 or 4 hours of sleep on sundays to catch up again. I was functioning quite well, although fridays where horrible.
After about half a year I got smarter and went to bed earlier during weekdays around 9 pm most of the time. I occasionally needed some additional sleep on sundays if I had a big party the night before.
My morning routine looked something like this:
Alarm goes of at 5 am.
Immediatley get up and GET DRESSED without thinking
Eat
Drink
Leave
Worked without fail unless my alarm didn't go off...
Often I'd wake up 2 minutes before the alarm goes off, which is a awesome feeling.
Going to do a slight variation on this now to get back into the habit:
Alarm goes of at 5 am.
Immediatley get up and turn the lights on
Write down my dreams
Get dressed in jogging cloths
Eat
Drink
Leave
Slight variation and it should work fine.
My advice:
Find a reason to get up every morning thats either binding (you gotta do it no matter what) or motivating/exciting and develop your own unique morning routine for the first 5 minutes (the toughest).
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