I thought I would just give a brief update on my first 8 days as an ‘early riser’. Well, it’s going ok. I wouldn’t call myself an early riser but I am certainly getting up earlier, not sleeping until I am actually tired and forcing myself up at the same time each day.

The natural body clock is starting to kick in now and I am waking before the alarm. It’s still not perfect, I still feel like crap in the morning and I still need to rise earlier but I am planning on reducing the waking time by 30 minutes every week.

Keep posted on how its going over the next weeks and whether I can make my 5am rising time by day 30! Subscribe to my RSS feed so you never miss a thing.

How do you make sure your up early everyday?

So the main thing on my mind is are there two types of people, morning and night time people? I certainly believe I am a night time person. I tend to work better at night and I’m more productive though this is not fitting in well with my life. I’m in my mid 20’s and still at University I rarely go to bed before midnight, and I almost always sleep in late. I usually don’t start waking until around noon.

There are times when I do rise early and I can’t help but notice that i feel more productive and get more things done when I do. I also noticed a significant feeling of well-being due to this increased productivity and extra time. I therefore tried to be an early riser everyday. I’d set my alarm clock for 6am and guess what?

……………I’d wake at noon, not even remembering the alarm clock going off!

There appears to be two schools of thought on sleep. Firstly (and as my doctor has recommended) going to bed and waking up at the same time every day. The issues with this were that I really don’t feel tired at the same time every night. When i was doing this I was having to use sleeping tablets and I was waking at 4am! This method did not work at all. The second method is to go to bed when you feel tired and get up when your body wakes….. is this not what I was doing before? I think i have already proven that this is not a good technique. My sleeping pattern slipped and I was back to being nocturnal.So to the question, how am I going to become an early riser? Combine the two methods!

My waking time will be fixed rigidly but my sleeping time will be governed by when my body says its time to sleep. Eventually my body will make me go to bed earlier or later depending on how tired it is. It will know when as it will know when I wake up and know that this time is fixed and will not change. I’m going to keep a log for the next 30 days to let you all know how it progresses.