KenNubo has inspired me

[silicon toad2000]

I had my last exam for the semester today. I feels strange not having this buzzing guilt in the back of my mind telling me that I should be working or studying.
I was a bit critical of Ken's Project mayhem thing. I think i was jealous of the free time that Ken appeared to have available.
So here I am, listening to Metallica's S&M album relaxing thinking maybe it's time to put up or shut up.
What do I want to achieve?
I want to become an early riser and improve my physical shape.
Measurement: early rising - up at 5am every day
physical shape - loose 1kg per week
Methods: early rising - just do it, I think I will use my phone as an alarm as i tend to listen to the radio too much in the mornings
physical shape - hit the gym 1hr per day with a mix of cardio and weights. stick to a nutritition plan.
obstacles: early riser - my wife is a "night owl" I am begining to be able to ignore this. I find it difficult to go to sleep before she comes to bed. Also my mind is great at making up reasons to stay in bed, I'll need to condition myself to rise before my conscious mind gets a chance to put a word in.
Physical shape - I should be able to do this, I have been to the gym kinda regularly previously. the problem here will be time and the time the gym is open. Work will get in the way a little there is a lot of work to be done over the next few months. rising early will conquer this as 6am is the ideal time to go to the gym, i don't miss out on family time or work time then.

well hopefully I'll post again about 5 tomorrow morning.

[silicon toad2000]

Morning 1
well I didn't quite make it to 5am, the alarm went off and I couldn't believe just how much i felt like I didn't want to be awake. I got to sleep about 11pm which is earlier than normal and I got up at 6:30am which is an hour earlier than normal.
I live next door to some industrial units and some young people affiliated with one of the biker gangs here have rented the end unit next to my house. Last night they set off some firecrackers at 3am. maybe I should have gotten up then, i felt much more awake at 3 than I did at 5.
I was pleased to note that I have not gained any weight in the last week while studying for my exams. I snack a bit while studying.

[silicon toad2000]

Morning 2
A mate popped over last night so I didn't make it to the gym and didn't get to bed until midnight.
I forgot to set my alarms for the morning, but I still managed to wake up at 6:30. I'm pretty pleased with that.

[Susie]

Hi just wanted to let you know I'm following your thread because I can relate-- I woke up at 6am this morning and am aiming for 5am tomorrow! (I'm usually a hard-core nightowl) Keep it up!

[silicon toad2000]

Morning 4
night before last was awefull. A couple from down the street were having a domestic between 2 and 3am up and down the street. They had a break between 3 and 3:30 then started again from 3:20 till 4:30. Someone else got involved and chased the bloke off but then more of the blokes mates arrived, though I was going to have a little war out the front of my house.
Anyway needless to say I overslept. I dragged myself out of bed at 7am.
Luckily I went to bed last night at 10:30, I didn't wake up even when the mrs came to bed. I was up at 6:30 this morning and it's a saturday. I normally sleep in till 8:30 on saturdays but I feel one of the keys is to just keep getting up early.
It's great it's 8:30 now, when I would normally get up, and I have allready showered, had breakfast, read my internet stuff, spent time with the kids, done some work.
I have a real target now, I need to be up at 4am on Thursday, I have a 6am flight interstate for work. I really want to go through that day unaffected by the early start.
Unfortunately I put on a little weight this week, I haven't been weighing my dinner, I normally weigh my dinner out to 300 grams and that made a major difference in my weight loss.
Well done on the 6am rise susie, I'm going to aim for that tomorrow (sunday morning) and try to go half an hour earlier each day. I have remote access to work on my laptop now so I will have something to do when I get up.
Now as soon as the mrs gets up I'm off to the gym.

[silicon toad2000]

Morning 5
The alarm went off at 6am, I opened an eye and looked at it, the hit the snooze button and next thing I know it's 7:15. Time to put the snooze button out of reach I think.

[Gemini15]

Good luck Silicon toad2000.

I like your honesty and enjoyable report of your day.

Remember lots of small wins/changes may be better than larger changes. If you miss that early morning exercise then ask yourself "what can I do this morning that will improve my health that I never used to do"?

It could be a walk at lunch time, walk up stairs instead of taking the lift, if you are on the 10th floor walk the 1st 3 flights then catch the lift. Tomorrow walk to the 4th floor etc.

The thing is these regular changes will provide life time benefits. You will then always be thinking, how can I make this situation benefit my health?

Good Luck

[silicon toad2000]

Morning 7
Thanks for the encouragement Gemini.
Well I'm kinda back on track with the early mornings. It's now 5:06am. I set the alarm on my phone and put it on the other side of the room.
In my first post I said one of the obstacles might be that my wife is a night owl. She came to bed 1 and a half hours ago. Admittedly last night was out of the ordinary, we help out with an online p2p community that's having issues at the moment and she's putting in some extra time.
I have noticed I'm tending towards bi-phasic at the moment. I'm finding I go to sleep kinda easily at first and then wake up after a half an hour and have trouble getting back to sleep for a couple of hours.
It was strange I woke up breifly at 4:40 this morning.

[silicon toad2000]

morning 8
I did the 4:30 thing this morning. Putting my phone on the other side of the room so I have to get up to switch it off has really helped.
I get up and go to the loo, all before those naysaying voices figure out what's going on. Then the arguments in my head start. Tomorrow there won't be any arguments, I'll be up at 4 but I have an early flight so there is no argument to go back to bed, Friday is going to be difficult. Up till now I have been getting ready for my 4am rise required tomorrow.
I need to figure out what time I want to be getting up most mornings, how early is early.
Any thought?

[Iksander]

I get up at six am every morning, which leaves me an hour to do stuff and get ready, then an hour to drive to work...

I am aiming for five am, mostly because mornings are the most quiet and productive time for me to meditate, run, and do my exercises - it is tough though because I am naturally a night owl as well; I love the night...

I think 5 am is a good start.

[Sleeping Dude]

Good luck with your experiment! I you want some help make sure to check my site ^_~

[silicon toad2000]

morning 9
i made it up at 4am, have to leave in a min to catch my flight.
thanks for the tips guys.
things have settled down a bit, im not waking up an hour after i go to sleep anymore.
I think 5 is a good time also, it fits nicely, the kids go to bed at 8pm, so if i go to bed at 9 it gives me an hour to catch up with the mrs and then half an hour to read after i have gone to bed and then i will still get 7.5hours sleep.

[Iksander]

Yeah, I don't seem to function properly on anything but 7 - 7.5 hours of sleep...

I generally end up taking naps which wipe out my sleep schedule.

It is odd, if I take a 1 hour nap - I am not able to sleep for an entire night; I get VERY concentrated REM sleep during naps as opposed to my nightly resting period.

I might try altering my schedule a bit to test this out, maybe stay up till around 2 or 3 AM - get up at 5 or 6 and then take a 1 hour afternoon nap and repeat; that would be interesting...

[silicon toad2000]

morning 10
I was very tired last night, I went to sleep at 9:30 with the aim to get up at 5. I didn't put my alarm on the other side of the room so I slept in/snoozed until 6am, that gives me 8.5 hours sleep, I'll have to see what effect that has tonight on getting to sleep.
I let myself have that little catch up sleep as I have a lot of work to do over the next few days. The group accountant from our parent company rang and wants all my year end stuff done by monday, 3 days to get it done in. I know what I'm doing this weekend.
Iskander I often have naps on the weekend, I know what you mean about it being difficult to get to sleep the night following a nap. I read a few posts on here about biphasic sleeping, sounded ok, i could nap for 1.5 hours from 8pm to 9:30pm and then have a 4.5 hours core sleep to rise from 2:30am to 7am. Problems I can see are the disruptions to that pattern, I don't know how often that schedule would be disrupted and what effect that might have.

[silicon toad2000]

Morning 11
I had a few things that I felt needed to be done last night, as a result I didn't get into bed until 1am and did not get up until 7:30am. Bit of a setback.
I guess all I can do is get back on the horse so to speak.
I said in a previous post that 5am is probably a good time so I'll aim to get to sleep about 9:30 and get up at 5, see how i go with that target.
SleepingDude I just had a flick through your website, some cool tips in there. I think my best tip for myself is to set my phone alarm and leave it across the room, I am just so used to sleeping through my radio alarm, lol once my mind worked a radio into my dreams to keep me asleep.

[Susie]

Hi, Well for having gone to bed at 1am, a 7:30 awake time is pretty darn good! If it were me I might have conked out until 9am.

Just keep working at it. I'm a little bit surprised that the hardest part of this getting-up-early thing for me is actually getting into bed early, that is the part that is taking focus and discipline for me, not the waking up part (as long as I get about 7.5 to 8 of hours sleep, that is ) I can't follow Steve's advice of bed whenever you're tired, rise at exactly the same time each day. I need to get into bed at the same time each night, I guess I'm lucky that I don't ever have trouble falling asleep once I'm in bed. Who knows, maybe once I get more used to this up early thing I'll start with the flexible bedtime, rigid wake time, but for now if I get to bed late, I will let myself wake up later so that I'll be functional during the day. The first few days I was doing this I stuck to 5am each day no matter what and I was really downing the caffeine to stay functional.

Good luck and keep with it!

[silicon toad2000]

Evening 12
no good this morning either, 8:15 I got up after a midnight bedtime. I felt tired all day until about 4 this afternoon. Planned on working today but that just never eventuated.
It's 9:30 now I'm about to go to bed and try for a 6am rise and put my phone on the other side of the room.
Susie I'm getting to know what you mean about the discipline being in getting to bed early enough. If I don't get my 7.5 hours sleep my productivity drops off at work so I may as well have taken the morning off work, have a nap and go in at lunch time, i'd possibly still get the same amount of work done.
Still considering the merits of bi phasic sleeping, I think if can get to bed early for most of this trial i might try bi phasic for the next trial.

[silicon toad2000]

Morning 14
Bah, it's all going pear shaped. I keep finding myself still up and doing things way past the time I have set to go to bed. Once the kids are in bed (8:30) and I have done a few things and sit down to have a chat with the mrs, it's well after 9. We have a chat about things and before you know it it's after 10. If I get engrossed in an article I'm reading or find more posts here interesting than I normally do it pushes those times way back.
I think I'm going to set my alarm to go to bed aswell as an alarm to get up.

[silicon toad2000]

evening 15
massive failure today, lol got up at 7:45am, planned to get up at 6:30. going to put my phone further away this time.
I stuggled to get to sleep last night. The time kept ticking away. I got up each time was lay awake for more than 15 minutes and read my book.
Try again tonight.
I'm reminded of that line from the karate kid movie where mr maogi says do or do not, there is no try. hmmm

[silicon toad2000]

morning 16
did it, up at 6am this morning. It's now 7:30 lol, I have been reading this site for an hour. Still it's a nice way to spend the first hour of the day or the rudder of the day.

[silicon toad2000]

morning 17
6am rise again, it's 6:30 now.
I keep waking up my oldest daughter when I go into the kitchen to make breakfast. Normally I'd microwave myself a poached egg. I was trying to be quiet this morning and I had cornflakes instead.
It was cold this morning and the bed was so warm.
I have been using a shower to keep warm and wake up, but we are on water restrictions here and are supposed to keep our showers to 4 minutes.
My productivity today will be interesting. I stayed up later than I should have last night watching that 'the great global warming swindle' doco.

[Jenny]

Hey silicon toad 2000 & Susie,
Been watching this thread with interest. Hang in there. This past March I started getting up every morning at 4:40 a.m. to go walking and get my day started. In all honesty it took me about 1 week before getting up was no longer a struggle but about two months before I no longer was angry about the time in my head (and it was easier for me I think because I met a friend to walk every morning).

At this point my day no longer feels right if I miss the morning walk or wake up late. What worked for me regarding not getting enough sleep is I would get up and walk no matter what (even if I had only been sleeping for an hour or two) but then come home and go back to sleep for an hour or a couple... It worked and sometimes (like this morning) I still do that and it is a heavenly feeling!

[silicon toad2000]

evening 17
wow my mind wandered a lot today. I know steve recommends to set a fixed wake up time and go to bed wehn you're tired but I think I really need my 7.5 hours a night or I'm useless as a chocolate teapot.
I gave up trying to work at 4pm and went to see a friend i have seen for a while. I figured i deserved an early hour as ill be working through the weekend.

[Susie]

Originally Posted by silicon toad2000

evening 17
wow my mind wandered a lot today. I know steve recommends to set a fixed wake up time and go to bed wehn you're tired but I think I really need my 7.5 hours a night or I'm useless as a chocolate teapot.

My sentiments exactly.

Jenny, maybe for the rest of these 30 days I should do what you mention-- get up at the set time each day even if it means I need a nap later. I'll try that starting tomorrow.

[Jenny]

Originally Posted by Susie

Jenny, maybe for the rest of these 30 days I should do what you mention-- get up at the set time each day even if it means I need a nap later. I'll try that starting tomorrow.

Hey, good luck. I'll be checking to see how you're doing!