How to hack your sleep and go from night assasin to morning warrior
Posted by Ben Lumley on Feb 17, 2010 in Goals, Productivity | 43 comments
photo credit: Mike Miley
I have 3 problems.
1) I like my sleep. I like my sleep a lot, so much so that I could quite easily argue that sleeping for 12 hours is a good thing. I’m not going to argue that, don’t worry.
2) I like staying up late working and sleeping in the following day. Working into the very dark parts of the night is something I can rationalise in my head as being good for my productivity as I get very creative in the evening.
3) I have a family and a day job. I need to help take care of my family, support them in everything they do and provide for them whenever they need something. I also, as many of you know, work during the day delivering aspirational workshops in schools to young people.
The thing is, these problems don’t work well together. I could justify working all night and sleeping all day if I didn’t have a 9-5 job and a family to look after. I could probably sleep a lot if I didn’t have a job to do and a blog to write for. All of these things create one big problem for me.
Until recently the pattern of my sleep has been as follows. Get up, go to work, come home, spend time with the family, write and work late, go to bed, get a little sleep and then start all over again. But remember problem 1; I like to sleep a lot. Surviving on a little sleep was leaving me completely wasted throughout the day to the point where my productivity and energy levels were falling rapidly.
So after a bit of thought and a good chat with my wife, I decided to develop an early rising habit. I wanted to go from dragging myself out of bed, getting off to work and feeling tired all day to waking up refreshed with the whole day ahead of me. Now I’d tried this once before, but for some reason, got out of the habit and went back to staying up late and surviving on very little sleep. But this time I was determined to see it through.
I’ve been working on my sleep habit now for just under a month and I want to share with how I went from a night assassin crushing it all night long, to becoming a morning warrior who could cleave their way through a todo list like it was going out of fashion. I also want to share my successes and failures with you, so that if you decide to do the same thing you’ll have a good idea what to expect.
1) Make the decision to change your habit
You need to just make the decision. There’s no point in saying that you’d like to try it, you’d be better off focussing your attention on something else if you’re going to do that. Make the decision. Set it as a goal. Write it down. Create an affirmation. Do whatever you have to do to make that decision real and start changing your sleep habit.
2) Just do it
Now you just need to do it. Set your alarm for 5mins before you want to get up and as soon as it goes off, get out of bed and start your day. Setting your alarm away from your bed is a good trick for making sure you don’t just roll over and go back to sleep.
3) Expect to be tired during the first day
It’s hard on the first day. All I wanted to do was go back to bed and forget about this stupid habit. But by occupying myself and working all day I got through to bed time. It won’t be easy for some people on the first day but isn’t that true of life?
4) Get an early night on the first day
You’ll probably be tired (and the rest) on the first day, so get an early night when your body starts to wind down. Get caught up on that sleep you lost out on in the morning by missing your lay in and you’ll be surprised how well you’ll sleep.
5) Keep getting up when the alarm goes off
This is a must. Get up as soon as that alarm goes off. Don’t hit snooze. Don’t pass go and do not collect $200. You need to physically get out of bed when the sound of your alarm rips you out of the dream you were having. If you don’t, the warmth and comfort of bed will take over your senses.
6) Get to day 3
This was a big deal for me because I knew when I got to day 3 that I was on my way. I started to feel better as my body was becoming accustomed to the change of routine. Plus my brain was realising that I’d achieved this for 3 days so my subconsious was able to start developing a positive attitude to getting up early.
7) Use your morning time wisely
If you plonk yourself on the sofa and watch TV, you’ll fall right back to sleep. If you don’t, you’ll feel shocking for it. Use that extra time wisely. Read, write, meditate, exercise, work towards a goal, indulge in an interest. Whatever you do, it’s got to be something you want to do. Personally I use the time to either catch up on my RSS feed and all those amazing blogs I like to read or just help my kids get ready for school and spend time with them.
8 ) Stick with it
You’ve got to keep going. If you made the decision to switch to this habit you need to stick with it. Many people fail because they give up along the way, usually when things are becoming difficult. Don’t – you won’t achieve anything that way. Everyday get up when you’ve said you will. Do the thing you’ve said you’re going to do with the extra time.
9) Nap if you need to
Don’t be afriad of this. As humans, we’re programmed to have 2 sleeps a day even though the traditional systems we work in from day to day do not always allow this. If you follow me on Twitter you know that my youngest has been teething and hasn’t been sleeping all that well so I’ve been getting up with her. There’s been a few days when I’ve had to grab an hour somewhere in the day just to make it through to bed time.
10) Reap the benefits
Once you settle into your habit of getting up early you’ll really start reaping the rewards. You’ll be sleeping better for one, which will make you feel better. If you choose to exercise in the morning you ‘ll start to see the benefits in that. If you’re reading or writing or engaging in your passion in the quieter times in the morning you’ll start to see how much you’re getting out of doing those things.
This is my story and what has worked for me. It might not work for everyone but if you’re sitting there right now reading this thinking, “I really need to start getting up earlier in the mornings” then I hope this helps you to realise that.
What experiences do you have of changing your sleep pattern?
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Ben Lumley writes about Success and Personal Achievement at 6aliens.com. He is a Personal Achievement Coach and Motivational Speaker.
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Hi ben,
Thanks for posting this. I am encouraged. It seems we live in the same worlds. I started reducing my sleeping hours even further 2 weeks ago when i came in contact with the infopreneur blog but thats different story all together. My 6 months old daughter is teething and she's refused to sleep in her cot so i share your pains lol!!!. I slept at 3am to wake up at 6am this morning because I have been writing a few guest posts and HASN'T FINISHED!!! I am off to work in 45 mins so….
I set 3 alarms to ring 5mins after each other lol!!! (2 phones and a wristwatch)
But in all this i find fulfilment and satisfaction in what I'm doing whether it's my job, studies, family, counselling practice or blogging. I am very happy doing it and wouldnt trade it for anything. I also make sure I crash on weekends and spend more time playing with my son, daughter & wifey. The only snag I had yesterday/this morning was watching the BRIT awards 2ce while working.
Take care and do have a lovely day.
Hey Ayo
How are you buddy? (Apart from a little sleepy)
Yeah James is an inspiration to a lot of people isn't he? I think as long as you are happy with what sleep pattern you have and your family isn't losing out (family always comes first) then it's all good. I've definitely seen the benefits of rising early.
Hope you enjoyed the Brit Awards Ayo.
Good to hear about your experiences Ben. I have got in the habit of rising early … I used to always wait till the last possible minute but now I get up about an hour and a half earlier and it has made a real difference. I think what really helped is that I love being on my laptop so much and this is one part of the day I can always guarentee some time to do that. That's been a great incentive to get out of bed! One thing I do need to work on is making sure I am as productive as possible in this time too, I use it to check messages, answer comments etc but I was just thinking this morning I could write a post in that time instead as I am trying to focus on creating more content at the moment, and do the other bits later in the day.
Yea productivity is a big thing in the mornings Jen. It's very easy just to slump on the sofa and not do anything useful. Much better though to find something constructive to do with your time.
I can really relate to your story. I decided to establish a regular sleep schedule and become an early riser as well and it definitely becomes easier when you reach day 3. You just need to be careful not to oversleep when you take a nap… I once took a 3 hours nap one afternoon and I had a lot of trouble falling asleep that night
I can relate, and I've awakened early as a habit before now… should probably start again. Here's the thing though, I know for a fact that there's no reason for me to switch at the moment.
I'm in college, only one of my days requires me to be awake and in class at 9am now; the earliest start other than that is 11am. I can try to rationalise it out that, you know I should be awake early to do x task but it's just not working for me at the moment because I know in my heart I don't view early rising as that important! So before I even attempt it again I'll have to come up with a genuine reason for myself.
That said, I enjoyed the post Ben; some sound advice in there.
Great to see you completed your 30 day challenge recently Phil. Well done.
Yeah you need to watch out when napping and really disciplined with them
Thanks Heather.
Yeah need to have a solid reason to do it, otherwise it just becomes a chore. But that's the same as any goal in life isn't it?
Pretty much
When I have a reason to though, I'll keep this post in mind.
It's great that you have now discovered the joy of waking up earlier and getting more done with your day. I started getting up earlier as part of my Just For Today Challenge and it's worked wonders for me. I now actually have time to eat a healthy breakfast in the morning, listen to the radio and get caught up on some of my reading. Lif'e's too short to be sleeping it away!
That's a great point Karen. Life is too short to sleep your way through it
I am finally getting into some routine that doesn't require a gallon of caffiene a day to function. There are some great tips here, like the snooze button, that is my biggest problem. I do set about 15 minutes ahead so I have time for snooze and still wake up when I need. Still not enough sleep. I am going to change some times and work on these things.
As for naps, I found in college a 5-10 minute snooze here and there, not even fully asleep, can work wonders. I used to have a quick snooze before night classes and it was the only way to finish the class awake. I still do that sometimes to finish the day and get the kids homework done. They tend to get testy when you are reading to them and falling asleep.
Thanks for the info Ben, I am going to start tonight. I will just have to record the olympics.
thanks for the RT's too!
Justin
Great post Ben. I remember about a year ago I was getting up at about half five to spend some quiet time in praying and the like before the children woke up. It only lasted about a month but it was the best month ever! I stopped because my youngest went through a spell of sleeping terribly and then never went back to it.
As much as I've become a night owl online, it's more because I had to rather than being natural to me. I'm really an early bird. To that end, I am going to set the alarm for 5am tomorrow. Any later and I'll be surrounded by children within minutes. As much as I love them, they don't do well starting at 5!
There, I've written it down now. That should be enough because I know you'll ask me tomorrow
Right, better get to bed now. Only kidding!
Cool post Ben. I admire your ability to completely change your habits. I used to be a person who would love working into the night (2 AM, 3 AM…). There's a peaceful feeling of writing when you know everyone's asleep and you can think more clearly (at least this was the case for me). But I realized that waking up at 10 AM or 11 AM to start out my day didn't feel right, so I go to sleep at 12 AM and wake up at 8 AM now. It's not the greatest I know, but I am going to still try and work on it. I think it's great that your waking up earlier to work on your goals. It's definitely hard to not hit that snooze button!
Ben, thanks for sharing your plans to change your sleeping pattern, a great idea!
It all seems such a long time ago that I had problems with over sleeping and having to set alarms to get up and work for somebody else.
I think my sleeping patterns took a beating when I was working shifts (such happy days – not at all) and when my two girls required care and attention during the night. They too, had teething problems and not sleeping, thankfully they are now grown up and working; phew.
However, now I have full control over my timetable which makes life easier. I do prefer early nights and early mornings rather than lying in.
Regards
Paul
Hey Ben!
It takes about 30 days to form a habit they say, so for things like this I'll draw up a “1-to-31″ chart which is just a A4 page divided into 31 boxes. Just like a calendar. At the end of each day I put a tick in a box if I've done the thing. Seeing all the ticks keeps me motivated.
There's just one rule…
If at any point during the 31 days, you can't put a tick because you didn't do the thing… You have to start again from day one!
Well done, Mr Morning Person!
That's a great suggestion Steve. It's 2am here so I guess I'll have to try again tomorrow
Good luck with it Justin. Let me know how you get on.
The benefits are definitely there
Yeah I fell in to the night owl thing Eleanor. I justifed because it was a good time for my creativity but it wasn't really productive.
I've found if I wake up too early, my youngest who's a lite sleeper will wake with me and then I struggle to get thinks done. But I've found even if that happens there definitely more peace in the morning
Ah man the snooze button is a killer! Lol
Yeah you can change a habit in a heart beat you just need to make a decision, change your
mindset and then put strategies in place to help you achieve the habit.
Thanks for dropping in Hulbert
Yeah Paul – I can imagine it's a lot easier when you have more control over your timetable. Young ones tend then to mix things up a bit.
Great to hear you're a fellow early riser.
Hey Steve! To be honest I'm never sure if you're an early riser when I talk to you online mate as I very rarely understand what time of day your in bein on the other side of the world from me. Hehe
I love the idea of this 31 box sheet! A great way to motivate yourself and track your progress I bet! You use it for any kind of habits?
Hi Ben,
This is a fabulous post, and you catch me reading it on a day I've stayed in bed till 8am. LOL!!
The whole thing of balancing energy is so important given the kind of work we do and the need to balance stuff that earns money with building online businesses. Like you, I could sleep for 12 hours a night, but then I'd achieve nothing.
One of the things that has worked for me is to set my alarm for the same time each morning, so that, even if it's early, there's a pattern to it that my body has now got used to. Even at weekends, although I set that alarm a little later, there's an alarm and there's consistency, so I don't start Mondays feeling like I've got jetlag.
I've been tired recently because I've gotten into the habit over the last few weeks of watching TV after 9pm. It can become addictive and I am in the process of weaning myself off of that and getting to bed earlier again.
Also, I do from time to time allow myself to lie in if I feel I absolutely need it. This morning was case in point. It's half term and I don't have a client till later this morning. Also, I was out till late last night (a combination of work, and trains being massively delayed because of signal failure), and have being doing a lot of gym recently, and I felt my body needed it. But the alarm will be back on early tomorrow.
Do you know my wife? lol, She loves her sleep!
Fortunately for me I can and do survive on very little sleep, what's that I hear you thinking? ''You shouldn't be surviving?''
Well yeah I get your point (I know you're thinking it) but for me the end is going to justify the means, so by working flat out now, I will get where I want to be quicker.
As you know being my life coach Ben you know how hard it is, but one day I will use these techiniques, thanks brother
Yeah Christine – routine is really important. The sooner you can get into a pattern (whatever it is you're trying to achieve) and the harder you can work to maintain it, then the easy it becomes.
I know exactly what you mean about TV. I have the same problem and can make it even worse if I sit in front of the computer late on. It's just too stimulating for the brain after 9pm which is the reason for a difficult bout of insomnia a few years back.
I think when you're not working a full time job James and running a massive site like yours you'll find it easier to work a sleeping pattern that suits you. Thanks for dropping in buddy
Hi Ben,
Reading this makes me sleepy, man,……… and I just started my day!
Ah but it's all good for you Jeffery
I haven't read the comments because I'm lazy like that, so apologies if I'm repeating what others have said.
What you say is cool and good advice for SOME people, but for me it's useless. I cannot tell you how many times over t he last 25 years I have tried this and it hasn't worked. I was simply trying to defeat my own bio-rhythms.
I used to swim a lot and my times in the morning were ALWAYS way down on my evening times. Similarly my best writing always comes in the early and occasionally late evening.
It is what it is and I think the key is play about with it, see what works and then go with it rather than fighting it.
Some people think there is something wrong with them because they can't bounce out of bed at 5.00am. There isn't, any more than there is something wrong with somebody that can't work through the night.
100% right Tim – you need to play with your sleep pattern and see what works. For me up early works far better than late nights whereas my brother-in-law is a all-night work junkie and it works a charm for him. Once you've found what works for you it's important to stick with it.
I think what a lot of people struggle with is finding strategies that help them to shift their sleeping pattern to somewhere that works better for them. I hope the advice I've given here will help people to do that but ultimately advice is just like medicine. I can give as much of it to people as I like but they are the ones who have to take it.
Can't tell you how happy I am having you commenting here Tim. Thank you very much!
James, all I can honestly say I got out of this, is that your gettng tired. Now whether that is true or not only you know. I imagine it's true. What I can tell you is 'this too shall pass' . I hear you screaming little brother, talking to yourself here not me or others. That's Okay, it's actually a benefit to you, as you can see it now because it's out in the open.
I've always, no matter what, always got up when the alarm went off. I have never been , let me repeat this, never been late for work from over sleeping. I usually get up B4 my alarm does. If I am extremely tired, I usually just don't go to sleep, I stay up so I don't miss work.
Now have I ever missed work, sure I have, but not because of the above.
To me this is not you. But maybe you are sharing the real you now. Hell I don't know. You are just too much of a stick to it person, to appear not to stick to it. You may be fooling Ben's readers but brother your not fooling me..
Quit impostering. Seriously, quit satisfying readers with what you think they want to hear. Sleep is important, meditating is much more important, but being honest with ones self is the greatest reward of all. No where, No time, except now have I ever seen where you was playing into someone else's hand until this post.
Sorry, you know I shoot from the hip and I'm firing both guns…
It just isn't or doesn't sound like it's even written by you.
Love ya bro… but don't comprimise your talents for the sake of others
Thanks for taking the time to comment – I will leave James to respond to you if that's ok?
Hi Ben, I'm glad this is working for you.
A couple of comments….
1. I can't believe you only have 3 problems !! (Maybe we should all have your life!)
2. The human body functions on circadian rhythms and consequently you should not try to hack this for too long a period as you could end up with weight gain or general lethargy in a few months.
3. Do you focus on doing the most important task of the day first? That way you'll have a great day from the moment you get up.
Hey Matthew
I'll respond in order of your comment.
1) I have 3 sleep related problems + there are more problems in other areas
who said that I should focus on the most important task of the day first, now I do that.
2) Yeah I've found after a bit of hacking about with my sleep that's once I've broken through the initial tiredness that my sleep patterns feel a lot more comfortable with me getting up early in the morning.
3) I used to focus on email first thing in the morning and then I read a great post by someone
Great having you comment here Matthew
Lee I didn't write this post????
Sorry, my bad. Now looking back over it don't know why I thought it was you. Sorry guys. And Ben.. my apology to you for letting it all out and me thinking it was someone else.. silly me. Live and learn. Hope no one took offense.
Truth be told, guess I was tired. I haven't been up too long now, I slept all day. Got a lot going on as well. Still have some very ill relatives a long with a recent loss. I had to give it a break today and get myself some rest. I feel bad cause I didn't even get my usual weekly friday post up . Frolicking Fridays. I'm going to get it up later or for tomorrow. Can't beat myself up as I've accomplished things with results this week so that's good. Peace
no probs brother
It's ok Lee – it's good to let it all out sometimes.
Napping! I have not done that for a long time, which is a good point and a must especiall if you are on work overload. With all that we do, blog, social networking, family, friends, work…you have too take time to rest. GREAT list….
Napping is great Winnie – 30 minutes naps are my personal favourite and give you such a massive energy boast
WoW! I'm impressed. This is a wonderful example of redefining yourself. Everybody always talks about being a morning person or an evening person like it can't be changed. You demonstrate that this is bullshit. The human mind is a fantastic machine but it needs to be controlled and when it is you can do anything.
Thanks Ralph.
Yeah you have to control the fantastic machine in your head sometimes. Not always but sometimes.
Glad you liked the post.
If only more people would read this.