Last week, I started creating the habit of becoming an early riser, specifically getting up at 5am. I have to admit I’m so jealous of the people who told me that they have no problems getting up, or that they simply cannot sleep past 5. Wow, I’m really hoping I catch on to that. So far I’d say my success rate is about 50%. With only 1 day being 5am on the dot, but the others being 5:30 or 6.

Observations

• I feel so much more productive and just better in general when I get up early. It’s like sleeping in late sets me up for being lazy all day.
• The earlier I get up, the more excited I am about it. Getting up at 6 when the sun is coming up isn’t as cool as getting up at 5 when it’s dark.
• I love having quiet alone time. I used to get this at night, but if I do it in the morning I set the rest of the day up for success.
• I’ve been able to fall asleep at night easier for the most part, but I have more energy during the day overall. Friday night we lost electricity until about midnight and I couldn’t sleep, so I caught up on the first half of Spies of Warsaw on my laptop. Then Saturday morning I was up before everyone at 6, and I thought I would regret it during the day, but I felt pretty good.
• I’ve found that if I make it absolute, and say to myself, “This can either be an awesome day where you totally kick butt, or a lazy day that you waste your life away”, and make things black and white about getting up, it’s easier to get up even if I don’t feel like it. I’ve kind of boiled it down to making the right or wrong decision, and this morning (at 6) I decided I wanted to make the right decision (although late) and got out of bed.
• I’ve been using Alarm Clock Xtreme on my phone. I just it pretty much like the standard alarm app, but I like that you can set the music to go off and gradually get louder. I have it set to increase to 100% over 5 minutes, even though it usually only takes a couple of seconds to notice it. 

Problems

• Twice I woke up between 4-4:30 and was wide awake, but went back to bed “til 5”, which turned to to be closer to 6. Not a huge failure, but I should’ve just gotten out of bed when I woke up.
• I like to get up and brush my teeth, and get dressed first thing in the morning before doing anything else, but I’ve been putting it off til later so I won’t wake anyone else. Not a huge deal, but my mouth feels pretty gross for a while.

Goals

Even though I haven’t been completely successful, due to my own lack of will power, I will keep trying. I don’t see me changing my mind about this being a great decision, so hopefully I’ll train myself and then stick to it.

I love having uninterrupted time in the morning, and I feel like I want to get as much done as possible. So far, my routine has been to put the kettle on for tea, and do a quick and quiet workout. I’d love to be able to do 45-60 minutes so I invited Bob Harper and Jillian Michaels to be my at home trainers for a bit. Thank you public library for having these available! I watched through some of Jillian’s last night (we’re already on a first name basis) and it looks pretty good. I think I might run through the dvds and when I return them write down a list of the exercises. Now that I have them, I’m questioning about playing them in the morning because I want to be super quiet, I also want to keep the jumping down to a minimum, so we’ll see how it goes.

What is your morning routine? Any tips to make mornings easier?