Up at 5am 30 day trial!

[Lena Carpenter]

I'm doing it, yay! I woke up at 5:15am today. To give you a little background, I would wake up around 9-10am, if I let myself sleep and go to sleep at after midnight. I'm staying at home with my two year old son right now. For the past two weeks, I got into a habit of waking up around 6am. It did take effort and I had my very tired days. I always take a nap during the day, which is intentional and a part of my routine, that I decided on beforehand. I usually end up going to sleep 11:30pm. I would do it at 11pm daily, but sometimes I can't get my son to go to sleep. He is a real night owl for his age!

I'd really like to keep going with waking up at 5am because that was my goal from the start. I love being up early! I feel kind of sleepy as I'm typing this, and it takes me a little while to get going, but I think that might have to do with some of my habits too.

My habits: First, the great! I have done daily meditation for the last two weeks now. My son wakes up after 7am, so I have had at least an hour to myself, which is heaven for this mom! I also write daily in my journal now, mostly about how I feel about waking up, but also some dreams, and some other experiences. I do write about my habits a lot, which makes me feel focused. Second, the good! Sometimes, I manage to squeeze morning yoga in there too, although honestly, I don't feel like moving much in the morning. It comes a lot more naturally at night time. I'd like to start doing some active exercise to keep myself awake after my meditation. Third, maybe not so good! I started drinking coffee! Now, it really doesn't prevent me from going to sleep because I drink it early or after my afternoon nap. I love how it energizes me and lets me get things done, especially mentally, such as reading quickly. My body just doesn't like coffee all that much, so I hope to wean myself off.

I'll update this every few days. Let me know if you have questions or input.

Lena

[MartinP]

Great plan, will be interested to see how things go!

[Lena Carpenter]

Went to bed at 11:45pm and woke up at 5:15am, which was my second alarm. I set two on my phone, that I have under my pillow.

Nap 4:30-6pm

Wow, today I felt so tired. It really was as if I went straight from getting up at 9 to getting up at 5, even though I have been waking up at 6 for two weeks. That one hour made a huge difference! I will keep going, but I'm hoping it won't take quite so much will power on my part.

Coffee: I had a cup at 7am. I definitely regretted it! It's a perfect motivation to quit the coffee drinking habit in its early stage. The thing is, I'm breastfeeding my son, so when I breastfed him at 1pm, he must have gotten a dose of caffeine because he went nuts. He usually takes his nap a lot earlier than he did today, which was 4:30pm. He was just so hyper, and when it wore off, he was very cranky. I was cranky too, and we had a big cranky party lol

Productivity: I did manage to do my morning meditation and wrote in my journal. For exercise, I went for a walk, but at a pretty slow and sleepy pace It was a pretty social day though since light social interaction is good, when I don't have concentration for other stuff ha!

Hopefully, we'll get to sleep in another hour, before 11:30pm.

[AndrewOlson]

Congrats! Doesn't it feel great to be up early?

One of the hardest parts of building a new habit of waking up early is consistency. If you get 2-3 days into it and miss one, it makes it so much harder to wake earlier the next day. Use the idea of "overwhelming force" (i.e. doing anything/everything possible to get yourself out of bed on time) for the first 7-14 days and you won't have any trouble at all.

As far as the sleepiness in the morning goes, that will continue for a few days until it's a habit. Weaning yourself off coffee can help as well. I did that a few months ago and it was a GREAT decision. I feel so much better all day long, get to sleep earlier and wake with much less grogginess.

[Lena Carpenter]

Night sleep: 11:25pm to 5:25am.
Nap: 2:50pm to 4pm.

Honestly, I'm a little baffled right now. I didn't think I would be taking such long naps. I only expected to take half an hour to 45 minute naps, and only ten minutes, when I don't have time. It's twenty minutes after my nap and I feel kind of like I overslept. I really hope to reduce those over time to half an hour, since not having free time, when my son takes a nap, defeats part of the purpose of waking up early. I could always try sleeping for five hours at night.

Positive aspects: I read some experiences of some biphasic sleepers, who had trouble falling asleep during a nap. That is like the last problem I would ever have LOL I fall asleep immediately and sleep deeply.

I felt so much more energy today, and even though there is still a hint of sleepiness, I can tell that somehow there is more energy for me to work with. Yay!

Habits: Goodbye coffee! I didn't drink it, nor did I really feel tempted to. I did substitute for decaf green tea, but more for my enjoyment, than for caffeine. Seems like I am trying to make up with more sugar intake. I had some fruit juices, fruit spread on my toast, and a muffin for lunch. At least it was a vegan muffin! But it was not all that healthy ha ha It was completely while flour. Maybe I can work on my eating habits, once I master my sleep a little better. In fact, I'm off to make a list of other 30-day trials!

[Lena Carpenter]

Originally Posted by AndrewOlson

Congrats! Doesn't it feel great to be up early?

One of the hardest parts of building a new habit of waking up early is consistency. If you get 2-3 days into it and miss one, it makes it so much harder to wake earlier the next day. Use the idea of "overwhelming force" (i.e. doing anything/everything possible to get yourself out of bed on time) for the first 7-14 days and you won't have any trouble at all.

As far as the sleepiness in the morning goes, that will continue for a few days until it's a habit. Weaning yourself off coffee can help as well. I did that a few months ago and it was a GREAT decision. I feel so much better all day long, get to sleep earlier and wake with much less grogginess.

Thanks, Andrew. I really am very excited about this positive change! I actually slept through my alarm, but managed to get myself up anyway, in a big panic too, cause I thought it was after 6. My challenge is having to comfort my son to sleep before getting up. It makes me want to fall asleep again. But oh well, I can usually mentally stimulate myself enough and get myself excited about getting up, so I don't fall asleep. I'll definitely be thinking about overwhelming force these next two weeks!

[emeadow]

Great job Lena! I love my extra time in the morning now, even though I used to get up by 6 am before, now I am consistently up at 4:30 am (I am more a morning person), have time for meditation before work, and am able to get out of work earlier so I have more time in the afternoon to exercise, ect. The extra time on the weekend is great (I used to sleep in sat/sun), I love to get a long meditation or writing period in, maybe go to the grocery store really early (Sunday morning early is SUPER empty).

One thing I do, especially when I first started, was when the alarm went off, I would make myself think about something I got to do in the early morning hours that I really enjoyed. Maybe it was a meditation plan I was looking forward to, or imagining the quiet time for me to do my yoga with no interruptions. I use those as motivators to not hit the snooze when I first started the early waking challenge. I will sometimes plan them the night before, mentally programming myself to think of the positive reason to get up the next day. If I am super sleepy, I stretch before I meditate, helps get the blood flowing

Great to hear of your progress! Keep us updated!

[MartinP]

Hi Lena,

congrats on the progress.

I read somewhere that power naps should be no more than 20 minutes, because any longer, and you wake up drowsy.

But it depends on if you are power napping, or actually trying to make up for less sleep during the night.

[vilbara]

Keep on great progress! I like those periods in my life when I constantly manage to wake up earlier. Somehow I keep dropping out of this habit, especially during vocation.

... woke up at 5:15am, which was my second alarm. I set two on my phone, that I have under my pillow.

I would put phone with alarm clock somewhere more far away:
1. Who knows what effect it may have on your brain/body when sleeping whole night on it.
2. You will have no choice but to get out of the bed to turn it off.

[Lena Carpenter]

Originally Posted by vilbara

Keep on great progress! I like those periods in my life when I constantly manage to wake up earlier. Somehow I keep dropping out of this habit, especially during vocation.




I would put phone with alarm clock somewhere more far away:
1. Who knows what effect it may have on your brain/body when sleeping whole night on it.
2. You will have no choice but to get out of the bed to turn it off.

Vilbara, this is not my first time getting up early! I have tried before, once with pretty good success for a week or two. I don't know how I dropped back to waking up late. This time I'm trying to make it nice and comfortable for myself so I can keep up the progress.

As for your advice, unfortunately, that's not really practical for me. Keeping it under my pillow is the only way to keep hubby from getting up and turning it off. I'm a pretty deep sleeper myself, so he is the first one to wake up. Sometimes I also hear it and hear him turning it off, but I don't get up ha ha Keeping it under my pillow, I found pretty effective for me because the process of searching for it quickly not to wake everyone else up, gets me out of sleep. Hopefully, there is no effect, since it's off the whole night!

[Lena Carpenter]

Night sleep: 12am to 4:45am
Nap 1: 11:40am to 12pm
Nap 2: 2:35pm to 3pm

Interesting, I have never taken two naps so close to each other, even really short ones. I have to say, I did feel more energetic after the first one, which might support MartinP's theory that 20 minutes is better than 25 and longer. It was slightly harder to get up this morning that yesterday. I'm not sure if it's because I went to bed later or woke up earlier...I really kind of tend to think the second one is the case.

Productivity: On the increase, since the first day, although I know that it will be even higher after a few days. It's pretty good energy for easy book reading. Meditation felt more like a nap this morning even though I was sitting up straight. I kept having to clear dream images out of my head.

Eating: It's all right. I still craved comfort foods. Had some fruit, mango and bananas, in the morning. Then, went to Taco Bell and got a cheesy bean burrito for lunch. I don't eat much dairy, and never have any in the house, but I still really like those burritos. Plus, if I am out and about, and have no time for something healthier, it's very tempting! So far I snacked on some prunes and walnuts before my second nap, and it's an hour later now. I'll be aiming to have a nice vegetarian dinner with a bunch of vegetables!

Thanks for following my progress!

[mikemann1991]

I tested a wake-up early trial and quickly realized it was going against the grain for an 18 year old in the middle of summer.

My friends can be nocturnal.

Edit: Good luck, Lena.

[tsjechov]

Good luck lena, i'm sortoff in the same boat although i start this month with going to 7 o'clock. Hopefully earlier later on, but for now that is my goal in June.

[Lena Carpenter]

Night sleep: 11pm to 5:40am

Originally, I woke up at 5:10am and I seemed to be completely awake, but then I closed my eyes for a minute, and bum, fell asleep for another half an hour! I have to give myself credit for waking up a half an hour later instead of an hour or two

I just wanted to post and say that I feel a lot more awake today, than I did yesterday. It's only 6am, so I didn't try meditating yet, but I think it will go better. I love being up again! Maybe going to bed an hour earlier made a difference? I think it did! I'm sure I will do great with just a short nap today.

[Lena Carpenter]

First of all, thanks for the support everyone, who is reading this, and especially those, who gave feedback. It feels great to receive some encouragement.


Nap: 3:25-4pm

It was longer than a power nap, but it refreshed me quite a bit. In fact, I'm feeling almost completely my normal self right now, that it's 6pm.

Habits: Journal and meditation as usual. I did yoga for the first time in the morning since I started getting up early (which was roughly three weeks ago). I guess I felt good enough to do it! Incidentally, I'm doing 90 day yoga challenge, starting today. I won't be talking about it here though. I'm also starting to make daily entries in my food journal. I want to eat more healthy foods, and want to track what I'm eating out of habit first. So far I figured out that I'd like to eat more vegetables! (eating a bowl right now) Oh, and less sugar and refined flour. I think white flour is such a filler, and it's even better to eat whole grains, rather than any kind of flour, even wholegrain flour.

My intention for tomorrow is to get up at 5am!

Emotional effects: I noticed, that I didn't mention anything about this. Mostly, because I make updates in the afternoon, and I forget how crabby I get at night time ha ha Last night, I went to a nice discussion group on Abraham/Hicks work, and I still wasn't happy, oh the irony! I stayed interested the whole night, but then I left and was annoyed in my head at various people. I was thinking about how nobody wanted to watch my son, when I was at the meeting, and how selfish it was of them, and that they are not there for me. I guess I was feeling unsupported, which brings up an interesting question. Was it because my new sleeping schedule threw off my mood, or was it because it was actually emotions surfacing, that I have been ignoring before? I would say that those are surfacing for a reason, just like any other healing program. In fact, I would venture to say that's why people don't make it all the way through, a lot of times. They can't yet handle to deal with those surfacing emotions.

I hope everyone else is enjoying getting up early! Or late, whatever you like

[Lena Carpenter]

Originally Posted by tsjechov

Good luck lena, i'm sortoff in the same boat although i start this month with going to 7 o'clock. Hopefully earlier later on, but for now that is my goal in June.

Good luck to you! I also started out with getting up a little later. I only lingered there for a few days and then two weeks at 6am. I think some gradual progression did help not to burn out right away.

[GuideMySpirit]

I recently started my Children of the Law of One schedule, which is pretty tough to do considering there are many meditations, some that require 30 minutes each. I wake up around 6:45 AM and find that tough to do, but my goal is to begin earlier and earlier.

Quiet nice how you can manage to wake up that early!

[Lena Carpenter]

Originally Posted by GuideMySpirit

I recently started my Children of the Law of One schedule, which is pretty tough to do considering there are many meditations, some that require 30 minutes each. I wake up around 6:45 AM and find that tough to do, but my goal is to begin earlier and earlier.

Quiet nice how you can manage to wake up that early!

Wow, sounds interesting! I think having something to get up for is the key to success.

[Lena Carpenter]

Night sleep: 12-5:20am
Nap: 8-8:30am

Yes, I took a nap at 8! It's not something I would like to keep doing on regular basis. It felt much like sleeping in. In special circumstances, taking a short nap works fantastic. Today we went on a short road trip and I knew we wouldn't be home until 6 or 7. I wanted to be energetic, and it worked pretty well. I did get sleepy around 5pm but we were going up and down hills and it was really hot, so I would have no matter what my sleeping schedule.

Another special note is that last night, from 11pm to sometime after 12am, I dosed in and out, never really falling asleep, and being constantly woken up, but trying to sleep nevertheless. My toddler was fussy and kept knocking on my door, even though I couldn't get him to go to sleep. Apparently, daddy wasn't entertaining enough.

Habits: Same all, same all. Got yoga and meditation done by 7am, and had a nice relaxing breakfast. Had a pretty healthy lunch, but on a road trip, we ate a bunch of chips and muffins. Granted, they were all the healthier versions with whole grains and no hydrogenated oils, but still! Although I also had some prunes and walnuts. Probably OK once a week, but not every day. I might have some veggies for a snack before bed, if I get hungry, and make sure to have a nice big salad for lunch tomorrow.

[Timothy Smith]

Excellent 30-day trial, Lena! The last time I ever woke up on 5:00AM was 4 years ago when my little sister Kayliya and she reminded me I had a really early meeting.

[Lena Carpenter]

Night sleep: 10:20pm-4:20am

I did dose off on the couch for ten minutes from 4:35 to 4:45. Maybe I should go sit outside in the morning or something. Sitting on the couch makes me sleepy. Meditation didn't work so well, even though I got a good amount of sleep, maybe it was a little too early for my body. It's 15 minutes to 6 and I already had breakfast, and will try meditation and yoga in another twenty minutes or so, and journal until that time. OK, I'm outside for journaling and it feels refreshing.

[nickynoodles]

Hi Lena,

I posted something like this before to people doing 'up at 5' 30 day trials...

The fact is, humans need about 7 hours sleep a night to remain healthy. If you don't get this, you build up a 'sleep debt' which carries over from day to day. You end up feeling more and more tired. There is plenty of research on sleep to back those two statements up.

If you want to get up a 5am, you need to be asleep at about 10. Which, for me, is way too early. So the compromise I came to was to sleep for 7 hours. I set an alarm 7 hours later than I go to bed (unless I *have* to be up for something). This usually means I'm up at 6:15, and I never have to nap.

I realised that just because Steve goes to bed early and gets up at 5, doesn't mean it a good fit for everyone. If you're needing naps, your body is desperately trying to make up its ~7 hours. So my advice is to find a 7 hour 'time slot' that's right for you, and you can be satisfied that you're not 'wasting' any time over-sleeping.

[Lena Carpenter]

Night sleep: 10:50pm-5am
Nap: 3-4:30pm

Day 6 nap (since I didn't update): 7-7:20pm

Yesterday was a really good experiment to see what happens if I take a late nap, instead of a really early one, like the day before. I'm thinking I like this late napping thing! Plus, if I start working 9-5, I can nap after work.

Habits: Yoga in the back yard (ah so refreshing!) and half an hour meditation by seven.

One week mark review:
* Now that I'm semi-used to being up at 5am, I feel pretty energetic. I feel more awake during the day time! In fact, I remember while over sleeping, I could feel worse than this.
* I love being up at 5am and doing yoga in the yard, before I hear people moving around.
* One downside that I noticed is that my acne seemed to worsen. I went through healing crisis before my skin cleared up, so I wonder if it's one of those? Or perhaps, since I'm messing with my sleep schedule, my hormones got out of whack, and it will take another couple of weeks to settle them down. I do believe it will clear up, once I'm comfortable with the new schedule.

[Lena Carpenter]

Originally Posted by nickynoodles

Hi Lena,

I posted something like this before to people doing 'up at 5' 30 day trials...

The fact is, humans need about 7 hours sleep a night to remain healthy. If you don't get this, you build up a 'sleep debt' which carries over from day to day. You end up feeling more and more tired. There is plenty of research on sleep to back those two statements up.

If you want to get up a 5am, you need to be asleep at about 10. Which, for me, is way too early. So the compromise I came to was to sleep for 7 hours. I set an alarm 7 hours later than I go to bed (unless I *have* to be up for something). This usually means I'm up at 6:15, and I never have to nap.

I realised that just because Steve goes to bed early and gets up at 5, doesn't mean it a good fit for everyone. If you're needing naps, your body is desperately trying to make up its ~7 hours. So my advice is to find a 7 hour 'time slot' that's right for you, and you can be satisfied that you're not 'wasting' any time over-sleeping.

Thanks for your suggestion, Nickynoodles. There have also been a lot of studies done on the benefits of naps. Furthermore, I believe that it was quite natural for our human ancestors to sleep short periods of time. Mothers needed to take care of their children in the middle of the night, and hunters needed to watch out for predators. I've never seen any studies, concluding that a block of 7 hours is better than 5 or 6 hours with a nap. It might be conventional wisdom, but conventional wisdom is often simply a habit on mass scale. There have been a lot of geniuses and successful individuals, who required a lot less than 6 hours of sleep.

Also, by your logic, I would be feeling more and more tired with each day of my trial, and I found it to be quite the opposite; I feel more and more energetic.

[Lena Carpenter]

Night sleep: 11:40pm - 5:10am
Nap: 12:15-2pm

I seem to be making up sleep time with my naps. I felt really sleepy at about 8am and until my nap time. I feel strange today, like I don't feel like moving. It doesn't even feel lazy, just kind of still. I did go on a 6 mile walk yesterday and I kept up yoga every morning for the past few days, so it might be that I'm a little tired. I felt kind of groggy after the nap. I seem to prefer shorter ones, but an hour after the nap, I don't feel sleepy at all. I'm just trying to relax and not pressure myself into doing things, that I don't really feel like doing. I figure that's what weekends are for, laying back a little I still have to keep up with a toddler, so it's not completely laying back lol

[Lena Carpenter]

Just for the heck of it, I decided to see how much my sleep adds up to for the last week. The number is 7.5 hours! It's definitely more than I expected. Means I sleep pretty close to what I was sleeping before I started getting up early. Of course, my main intention has always been to get up early, and the secondary goal of reducing number of hours spent sleeping, being somewhat of a by-product. Actually, the amount of time I'm sleeping got reduced by about an hour. This next week I'll be averaging about 5.5 hours of sleep every night and 30 minutes to 1 hour during nap, so that will reduce the number of my hours by about another hour. I'm really curious what that will do for my energy level! It can go either way, I suppose. I think that a second weak should be higher energy anyway, but with an hour of sleep less on average? We'll see what happens!

[Lena Carpenter]

Night sleep: 11:30pm-4:50am
Nap: 1:30-2:30pm

Major change for today is that I wasn't sleepy much at all. It was a very active day. I spent a lot of it outside and socializing, so that might have kept me up a bit. I seem to be drinking lots of green tea. Had at least three cups today. It's 11pm and I definitely want to go to sleep! I'm very happy with how these trial is going and hope to keep going for a long while. I am starting to see that it can be pretty sustainable long term.

My entries are getting a bit boring, so I might not post daily from now on and only once in a while, especially if there is something interesting I want to talk about.

[tsjechov]

Hi Lena, You are doing great. For me you're posts are not boring, you are doing a 30 day trial so I think it is good to log every day.

[Lena Carpenter]

Originally Posted by tsjechov

Hi Lena, You are doing great. For me you're posts are not boring, you are doing a 30 day trial so I think it is good to log every day.

Ha ha I'm glad to hear that. I feel like I should be writing something more sensational

[tsjechov]

We cannot be sensational every moment of the day... And certainly not in the morning!
But serious, i think you do very well, and it is interesting for other people to see what helped you, what not, what the advantages are etc. And with a 30 day trial it is also good for you to log here every day, a personal log is really about you. Others do it too, so why wouldn't you? I do think it is great to have an option like that here at SP's site.