How to become an "early bird"

This is one of my favorite articles by Steve Pavlina on self-development. Despite the wide popularity of the article, I could not find it on Habré, I decided to share it with you.

It is good to get up before dawn,
such a habit promotes health,
wealth and wisdom.
Aristotle

"Larks" are born or become? In my case, formation definitely took place. When I was a little over twenty, I rarely went to bed before midnight and almost always got up late. Usually I did not start my business until the end of dinner.

But after some time I could not help but notice the obvious correlation between success and early recovery, even in my personal life. On those rare occasions when I got up early, my productivity was almost always higher, and not only in the morning, but throughout the day. In addition, I was in a great mood. As a person who is actively pursuing his goals, I decided to develop the habit of getting up early. I just set the alarm for 5 in the morning ...

... and got up a little before noon.

Hmm ...

I tried again and again, but did not go very far each time. I must not have the “early bird” gene from birth, I thought. When my alarm clock started to ring, the first thought was to stop this terrible noise and continue to sleep. I postponed further attempts for an indefinite period, but once, after some investigation of the problem, I came to the conclusion that I approached it from the wrong side. As soon as I applied new ideas, I quite naturally became an “early bird”.

It’s hard to become an “early bird” with the wrong strategy. At the same time, with the right strategy, this is relatively easy.

The most common wrong strategy is this: you think that if you need to get up earlier, you need to go to bed earlier. Based on this, you determine how much you sleep now, then simply shift everything for several hours. If now you sleep from midnight to eight, it is assumed that now you will go to bed at 10 pm and get up at 6 in the morning. It sounds very reasonable, but usually nothing comes of it.

There are two main teachings about sleep schedules. According to the first, you need to go to bed and get up at the same time every day. This is the same as limiting yourself to an alarm clock on each side - you try to sleep at the same hours every night. It seems to be suitable for modern society. We need predictability in the routine. And we need enough rest.

The second teaching says that you need to listen to your body: go to sleep when you are tired, and rise when you woke up naturally. This approach is based on biology. Our bodies know how much we need to rest, and therefore we must listen to them.

Through trial and error, I found that each of these two teachings individually is not optimal. And none is suitable if you need maximum productivity. That's why:

If you sleep at certain hours, sometimes you will go to bed not too tired. If it takes more than five minutes to fall asleep, you are not tired enough. You spend time lying on the bed and not falling asleep. Another problem is the assumption that you need the same number of hours to sleep every night. This assumption is false: the required amount of sleep varies day by day.

If you start to sleep based on observations of your body - most likely you will sleep more than is actually required - in some cases much more, about 10-15 hours a week (the equivalent of a full day). Many people who follow this approach sleep 8 or more hours every night, usually this is too much. In addition, in the morning surprises are possible if you get up at different times. And due to the fact that our natural rhythms do not always coincide with the daily cycle, sleep time can begin to shift.

For me, the best solution was to combine both approaches. It is very simple, and many “early birds” do not even think about it, but for me it was an important achievement. The solution is that I go to bed when (and only then) when I want to sleep, and get up on the alarm at a certain time all seven days a week. It turns out that I always get up at the same time (in my case, it's 5 o’clock in the morning), but fall asleep every night in different ways.

I go to sleep when I'm already too sleepy to stay awake. As a test, I usually read a book: if, after reading one or two pages, I start to doze, then I'm ready for bed. In most cases, lying in bed, I fall asleep in three minutes. I lie down, get comfortable and instantly fall asleep. Sometimes I go to sleep at 21:30, on other days I do not sleep until midnight. Most often I go to bed at 22-23 hours. If I do not really want to sleep, I will stay awake as long as I can keep my eyes open. Reading is a wonderful activity for this time, it clearly shows when I'm already quite sleepy.

When my alarm clock starts to ring in the morning, I turn it off, stretch for a few seconds and get up. I don’t think about it. I realized that the longer I get up, the sooner I will try to fall asleep again. Therefore, I do not allow myself any reasoning that one could still sleep when the alarm clock rang. Even if you want to sleep, I still get up right away.

After several days of using this approach, I found that my sleep schedule came in line with the natural rhythm. If I did not get enough sleep in one night, the next night I will want to sleep earlier and sleep longer. And if I have an excess of energy, and I'm not tired, I will sleep less. My body learned to knock me out at the right moment, because it knows that I always get up at the same time, and this time is not subject to discussion.

Side effect: on average, I sleep at night almost 90 minutes less, but I feel better rested, because sleep lasts almost the entire time in bed.

I realized that most people with insomnia are those who go to bed without being sleepy. If you cannot fall asleep quickly, get up and stay awake for a while. Resist sleep until the body begins to produce hormones that turn off consciousness. If you go to bed when you really want to, and get up at a certain time, you will get rid of insomnia. The first night you will be late until late, but immediately fall asleep. During the day, you may feel tired because you got up early and slept little, but after work you will want to go to bed early the next night. After a few days, you will get used to going to bed at about the same time and falling asleep instantly.

So, if you want to become an “early bird” (or just learn how to manage your sleep time), here is a simple tip - you need to go to bed only when you can’t stay awake anymore and get up every morning at the same time.

Original article: How to Become an Early Riser - Part II (author - Steve Pavlina)

Translation: Sergey Biryukov The

article "How to become an" early bird ", obviously attracted the attention of many people. She brought more visitors to my site than any of my other articles. And judging by the statistics, the flow was not centralized (which cannot be explained by the mention of any of the large resources).

Alexa can give you an idea of ​​how popular this article was for StevePavlina.com (see the big leap in May 2005). Alexa is not particularly accurate, but is well suited for tracking general trends.

On Monday, I searched Google for the phrase “how to become an early riser” (in quotation marks). There were no results. See how many results are now displayed.

OK, the article has gained popularity. But why? The topic of getting up early in the morning is relatively harmless, isn't it? At least I was sure of it when I posted the article on the site.

Since there was interest in the topic, although I do not quite understand the reason, I decided to write a sequel with some details.

First, we will return to the question of going to bed only if you want to sleep ... To do this correctly, you need some awareness and common sense.

If you engage in vigorous activity before going to bed, this can drive away sleepiness for a period of time. In college, I usually played poker until dawn, after which we often went to breakfast. I can not sleep longer than my usual schedule, if I work, relax with friends or do some other active work.

But this is not what I had in mind when I talked about drowsiness. I mentioned a test when you cannot read more than a few pages without losing attention. This does not mean that you need to wait until you fall from exhaustion.

The appearance of drowsiness, which I am talking about, is the moment when the brain begins to produce hormones that put you to sleep. This should not be confused with ordinary fatigue. You feel like you are taking a nap. But for this to happen, you need to create the right conditions. Give yourself some rest before bedtime. I made sure that reading is a great way to relax. Some say reading in bed is a bad idea that you need to sleep in bed. I never had a problem with this, because when I feel sleepy, I just put down the book and fall asleep. But you can read in the chair, if you feel more comfortable.

Another test example. Ask yourself: “If I go to bed now, how quickly can I fall asleep?” If you think this will take more than 15 minutes, I would advise you to wait a while and continue to stay awake.

When you set a fixed time for waking up, it may take a little practice to determine the correct time for going to bed. Initially, large fluctuations are possible if you go to bed too late in one night and too early in another. But over time, you will learn to feel the moment when you can go to bed, while instantly fall asleep and wake up the next day well rested.

To protect yourself from lack of sleep, set a deadline after which you will go to sleep no matter what, even if you do not want to. I have a good idea of ​​the minimum amount of sleep I need. 6? 5 hours is quite acceptable for me, but I can oversleep for 5 hours and feel normal, unless this happens every night. My maximum sleep time is 7.5 hours. Until I started to get up at the same time every morning, I often slept for 8-9 hours, sometimes even 10, if I was especially tired.

If you use caffeine during the day, it can affect the rhythms of your sleep. The first article assumes that you do not use anything like this to stay awake. If you are addicted to caffeine, first get rid of this habit. You should not expect that natural sleep will come at the right time if you will be chemical with your brain.

The purpose of the first article was to explain how to develop the habit of getting up early. And the tips are designed to develop this habit. When a habit is fixed, it begins to act subconsciously. You can engage in vigorous activities, for example, work or play computer games, and you will still know exactly when it is time to go to bed, even if it happens at different times. The drowsiness test is important for developing a habit, but subsequently it will be replaced by subtle signs of the body itself.

You can always sleep longer than usual when you need to. If I do not go to bed until 3 o’clock, I won’t get up at 5 in the morning. But I will return to my usual schedule the next day.

I recommend getting up at the same time for 30 days in a row to consolidate the habit, after which you will adapt to this so much that it will be difficult to sleep more than usual. I wanted to sleep longer one Saturday morning and turned off the alarm, but automatically woke up at 4:58. I tried to sleep again, but could not. Like this. When a habit is developed, getting up is not at all difficult if you fall asleep when drowsiness occurs.

If you have children, adapt as much as possible. My children are 5 years old and 1 year old respectively. Sometimes they wake me up in the middle of the night - my daughter got used to appearing suddenly in the bedroom to tell her wife about her dreams or just chat. And I understand how it feels when a small child wakes up every few hours. If you are in the same situation, there’s only one piece of advice: sleep when you can. Children are not very suitable for following the schedule.

If you can not get out of bed when the alarm clock rang - this is most likely a lack of discipline. If you have discipline, you will stand up no matter what. Motivation also helps, but it is short-lived and can last only a few days. Discipline is like muscle. The more you develop it, the more you can rely on it. Everyone has a discipline (calmly, okay?), But not everyone develops it. There are many ways to develop discipline - I devoted a whole chapter to this topic in a book that is coming soon. Basically, it all comes down to taking on simple tasks, completing them and gradually moving towards more complex ones. It is like strength training. As discipline strengthens, such tasks as getting out of bed at a certain time will become a mere trifle.

Why get up early at all?

I would say the main reason is that you have more time for things that are much more interesting than a dream.

Again, I gained 10-15 hours a week by doing this. The extra time is very noticeable. By 6:30 I had already done exercises, took a shower, had breakfast and was ready to go. I can devote more productive work to more hours per day, and usually I finish work by 5:00 pm (this also includes personal “work”: reply to letters, pay bills, pick up my daughter from kindergarten, etc.). This gives me 5-6 hours of free time every evening, which I can devote to my family, as well as books, magazines, various hobbies, etc. And most importantly, I still have enough energy at this time. When I have enough time for everything that is important to me, it gives a feeling of harmony, calmness and optimism.

Think about what you could do in that extra time. Even 30 minutes a day is enough to do exercises, read a couple of books a month, blog, meditate, cook healthy foods, learn to play a musical instrument, etc. A small amount of extra time per day is reduced to significant values ​​on a yearly basis. 30 minutes a day is 182.5 hours a year. This is more than a month of working time (based on 40 hours per week). These numbers can be doubled if you save 60 minutes a day, and triple if you save 90. I just got about 90 minutes a day. It's like you get a free prize year every ten years. I use this time for affairs for which I previously had neither time nor energy. And that is wonderful.

Original article: How to Become an Early Riser
Author: Steve Pavlina
Translation: Sergey Biryukov
Audio version: WebDirector

UPDATE: I posted the continuation of the article .