Waking up in the morning again

[Waker]

Dear everyone,
Recently I've been feeling my life going nowhere and not having anywhere to go.

One of the major symptoms of this is that I sleep really late which is not like me. I want to not only get back to my normal time of 6:30 but make it all the way back to 4:30 which means I will be up in time to see the sunrise (which due to my current sleep cycle I have noted the time of while sleep deprived).

Well before I get off track I wanted to ask what benefits other people have had with waking up early and is it normal to spend more than two hours falling asleep while lying in bed? I recently heard that its normal for people to fall asleep in less than 15 mins of going to bed which seems very strange to me.
I'm also looking to start exercising to get myself more tired, any sugestions for tiring activities?

[{aspiring_to_clarity}]

I hate to wake up early, so I can't tell you the benefits of that. Steve has an article about becoming an early riser. Have you seen it?

How to Become An Early Riser

And if you get a lot of caffiene, you can mess with your sleep schedule. Here's an article about how to give up coffee (or soda, etc.)

How to Give Up Coffee

It is not right to take 2 hours to fall asleep. Normally I fall asleep so fast I don't realize I even laid down! I did used to have a problem falling asleep. The articles below have a lot of information about insomnia. I used some of the techniques they talk about to get to sleep. Melatonin is a natural suplement that I also had some luck with. You can get it in pretty much any grocery store, I think. Eating right (and not too late) as well as good exercise should help.

How to Handle a Sleepless Night
Insomnia - Wikipedia Entry
Mayo Clinic - Insomnia
CBTforInsomnia.com - Conquer insomnia with CBT- no sleeping pills

Good luck and sweet dreams!

[ming]

Why would you like to wake up earlier?
I find sleeping the panacea for most human troubles.
it cures minor illnesses, depressions, makes you slimmer, rejuvenates you skin and rest your muscles, calm your nerves, improves productivity...
I just can´t stand people going against nature by trying to sleep less and less and being hyperactive and irascible.
From the botton of my heart let me tell you that the best time you can invest throughout your life, is the time you invest in sleeping.
and whenever you can have a after lunch nap.

[Jenny]

I get up every morning at 4:30 a.m. and absolutely love it. In the beginning the only way this worked for me was by getting up and getting outdoors right away. I walk 3 miles with a friend every morning (and love the sunrise). I then get home, make breakfast and just generally have a pleasant morning before taking off for the day. The only drawback is the only way this schedule works at all is if you are consistent so even on the nights I don't get to bed until really late I get up and walk.

Good luck.

[Sam988]

Waking up early is definitely better than waking up at mid day as i used to.

Benefits: Im waking up at around 4:30am-5am and its just amazing how much more energy i have. Its not that i wake up saying "yeaaa", i wake up drowsy sometimes, but i just go and take my shower then im fine already.

The energy i mean is that once i wake up i realize i got THE ENTIRE DAY ahead of me, and i realize i can do so much stuff ultil i go to sleep again. And i realized also that the morning is a highly productive period, at least for me, i really can't explain why, but in the morning i do so much more stuff and i have much more motivation to do things than in the afternoon (even when i used to wake up at mid day)


By the way, i'm only waking up early for the last 3 days and i'm loving it now that i finally manage to wake up early. I'm maintaning a biphasic sleep habit,
(http://www.stevepavlina.com/forums/h...art-here.html), because without biphasic sleeping, i had tried before, but never managed to contantly wake up early. I hope i keep managing to do it.


So you might try biphasic sleeping too. Saves you time and you wake up early!

[Waker]

Warrr! got up at 7:30. Just one hour off my target of waking up at 6:30 this Monday. I'm going to get myself an mp3 player if I can manage it which should reduce the amount of time I spend on the computer.
Aiming to get up at least once at 4:30 by Friday.
Took a lot longer than an hour to fall asleep but I woke up early so I'm kinda tired. Decided to give up artificial sugars for a few days and might go running soon (a weekend is a good time to start this kind of thing.)
It is not right to take 2 hours to fall asleep. Normally I fall asleep so fast I don't realize I even laid down! I did used to have a problem falling asleep. The articles below have a lot of information about insomnia. I used some of the techniques they talk about to get to sleep. Melatonin is a natural supplement that I also had some luck with. You can get it in pretty much any grocery store, I think. Eating right (and not too late) as well as good exercise should help.
I did get the good feeling of realizing I have the whole morning to get things done and think the first thing I need to do is tire myself out a lot more than I used to.

Thanks everyone, the motivation was a real help.

[Jenny]

Good for you Waker!