You’re reading this because you’re probably up late now…
… and are really wondering how to wake up early when you’re going to bed late at this hour.
You might want to wake up to:
– Go to school early
– Get to a meeting early
– Or catch a flight
Whatever it is, it’s important that you wake up NOT feeling groggy.
Even when you’re going to bed late in the night, it’s important to NOT wake up feeling groggy the next day so you have a clearer head and are able to focus all day long.
But the problem is…
Most experts & modern science agrees that an average human needs 6 – 7.5 hours of sleep per night, and anything less than that – is NOT – an ideal fit for you.
While that’s the optimal strategy to follow, not all of us are blessed with the freedom during certain times.
It could be because of late night work, socializing all night long, or maybe, it’s just that you’ve been watching Netflix or Playing games.
So what’s the solution?
How do you wake up early even when you go to bed late in the night and not feel groggy?
There’s a solution for that.
I first came across this in the book, The Power of Full Engagement by Tony Schwartz in 2014 when I read his book.
In his book, Tony goes into detail about the various sleep cycles that we fall into right from Stage 1 to State 2 and to REM induced sleep.
On any given day, we sleep through 5 or 6 of these sleep cycles and each of these cycles last 90 minutes.
If you wake up during the middle of a sleep cycle using an alarm or a noise and force yourself to get out of bed, you end up waking up groggy because that sleep is incomplete.
And when you’re groggy & tired, it’s really difficult to get your focus back until & unless you wake yourself up fully with a workout & a lot of endorphins, dopamine and caffeine.
The trick & solution, therefore, is to plan your sleep and set your alarms in such a way that you wake up at the end of one of the sleep cycles and NOT in the middle of the sleep cycle.
Imagine going to bed at 4 PM and waking up at 7 AM & feeling alert and energetic, how amazing that would be?
Well, you can do that when you follow this process.
Luckily, there is a tool to help you wake up early when you go to bed late at night.
It is called Sleepyti.me
With this tool in hand, it will exactly tell you what time you need to wake up based on when you are going to bed.
Or you can also plan to wake up at a specific time & find out the time to wake up.
How Did Sleeping In Cycles Work For Me & Did It Help Me Wake Up Early?
Initially, I thought this wasn’t possible, but as always, I am an experimenter and so I decided to give it a try…
Back in 2015, I had a yoga class that I’d need to attend to which was at 6 AM.
Prior to attending the class, I wanted to finish my morning routine as soon as I wake up, so once I finish Yoga, I’m ready for the day.
Until then, I always used to wake up at 5:30, 5:45, 5:00 or 6:15 and feel really frustrated when I used to go to the Yoga Class.
It wasn’t working.
After I started using this structure, I planned my sleep cycle accordingly.
I would need roughly about 6 hours of sleep in the night in order to go through 4 sleep cycles.
7.5 hours for 5 sleep cycles.
And it would take me about 12 – 18 minutes to fall asleep.
As soon as I started implementing this method, on days I was early, I’d hit the sack by 9 PM and wake up at 4:45 going through 5 sleep cycles.
During other days, I’d use the same method to go to bed at 10:30 PM and still wake up at 4:45.
But if I went to bed at 10:00 PM, when my alarm went off at 4:45, I’d wake up groggy and would want to sleep more.
And on days, when it was over 11:00 PM, I’d take until 12:00 Am to turn myself in.
This in turn helped me wake up refreshed & recharged and allowed me to consistently attend Yoga for many weeks and months.
And I tried this method yesterday when I was going to bed at 3:30 so I could wake up at around 7:00 ish, and it worked.
I woke up feeling refreshed and it is about 1 PM today, and here’s what I have done:
- I woke up early
- Followed my morning routine perfectly without experiencing any sluggishness (which I experienced as I did not follow the above method for the last 2 years or so)
- I cooked a full meal – I’m a newbie to cooking, and still learning
- I am writing this blog post
- And I’ve been patient, focused & sharp throughout the day…
As we are all going through the COVID 19 Lockdown, we all know staying focused at home is harder, and I’ve been a victim to that as well.
But today, my feeling & energy levels are completely different. I do have the occasional yawn, but it works for me.
So what do yo think? What time do you want to wake up tomorrow and how are you going to plan yourself?
Type it in the comment box below.
See you soon.
Fortune favors the brave,
Harry Ramsay
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