Always been a night owl. I struggle to get up in the morning, constantly snoozing until I have little time left to get ready for work.
Only times I feel excitement to seize the day is when I'm traveling and eager to get the day started and explore. But any other regular day, I struggle to find a reason. I'm sure depression might play a role.
But what or how did you get to waking up early on a consistent basis? Particularly those who were night owls. TIA
16 comments
An alarm, and the need to start work for the day.
Eagerness is vastly overrated. Recognise that you don’t really want to do the thing you are doing, but have to do it. So long as it’s done, thats what matters.
If things are hard, that’s okay. Don’t beat yourself up, it becomes a spiral and only makes it harder. Instead, congratulate yourself for getting up.
Get a job or enroll in some course that starts early in the morning
Needing to urinate.
I worked night shift about 90% of my life until December of last year when I started working for my city 8-5.
What helped be was getting a batter powered old fashioned alarm clock with the bell on top and putting it on the other side my of room. That way when it goes off I have to get up and go turn it off.
Usually get up early and take the dogs for a walk, come home and shower, get kids to school and head to work.
There are days where I don’t want to get out of bed, but sometimes you have to embrace the suck. Form a habit/routine and stick to it.
My sense is that it’s less about getting up ‘early’ than it is about being productive overall.
I was a night owl most of my life, worked day, evening and overnight at various jobs, and learned that my schedule was always anchored by my wake up time for work. I still have no desire to wake up and sit around the house for four hours before work, the hell with that.
Maybe take a more global look at what you’re trying to accomplish — are you trying to wake up early because I you feel you will be more productive? Can you wake up for work but make your productivity gains later in the day? Is it an issue of oversleeping on your days off? These answers will help you figure out what exactly it is you want outside of ‘get up early and grind’.
Kids
My family is my motivation to get up every morning and go to work doesn’t matter how I feel sick, tiredness, exhaustion. I want to provide a better life for my children than my parents did for me. I’m a self employed business owner so sometimes I work 12-14 hours a day. And sometimes times could be 7 days a week. I once worked 21 days without a break. The financial reward for those 21 days was well worth it. I’d do it again in a heartbeat for that kind of money!!
What started it for me was seeing how much different a good night’s sleep felt vs. staying up and waking up groggy every morning. I started to really pay attention to how I felt after getting semi regular bedtimes and tracking the quality of sleep I got via a smartwatch. Knowing that we are creatures of habit helped me realize that the more consistent I was, the easier it was to form the habit.
After that, my body just kind of started to wake up around 6am or so, and I would be well rested at 6 am with nothing to do…it kind of sucked at first. So I started going to my local gym for $20 or so a month. I would start with light cardio but didn’t really enjoy the gym until I started a little weight lifting. I got pretty into doing that and seeing results, (That was all well and good, but the next part is important)
Probably the biggest thing that KEPT me getting up was the realization that I had been seeing the same part of the day for over 30 years, and it was getting old. I started to find the stillness of the morning pretty fascinating. There was a whole new world that was going on before I would roll out of bed at 11 am. Birds and other animals, people, weather, hikes, traffic patterns, and even running early errands were like watching new episodes of old TV shows I had been watching for my entire life.
I still have late nights from time to time because I was cursed with video game lust and just enjoying the nightgime atmosphere, so I’ll pull a late night (1-2 am) once or twice every two weeks or so whenever the fellas are online and want to pew pew. I’ll wake up grumpy and worn out and remember why I started the whole morning thing in the first place.
Really just discipline, you don’t necessarily want to get up and do what you need to do but realizing it has to be done, I’m like you I’m naturally more of a night owl but most stuff happens in the daytime, I would say the tips and terms of getting up is just consistency, having a really good alarm, keeping some water next to you to sip on first thing and if you really find yourself sluggish into the bathroom cold water on the face and boom
You feel excitement to seize the day when traveling? Dude, you’re up on me. I don’t think I’ve felt excitement in the morning since Christmas of 1978.
I never wake up early. None of us sleep enough. If I have the opportunity, I stay in bed as long as possible.
An alarm I have to get out of bed to turn off. I worked overnights for 20 years, and I’ll still sleep until 11AM if I’m not forced out of bed. I can’t help with eagerness, I hate waking up.
Before I even read to your mention of depression, I was going to say my SNRI actually made the difference. I’m not depressed, but have adhd. I went on an SNRI for chronic nerve pain, and it also treats adhd. For the first time in my life I transition from sleeping to waking easily.
My other suggestion if it’s possible for you is to get an evening job and stop fighting not being a morning person. I work evenings now and while it’s great to no longer struggle for the first 2 hours of my day, I’m also not waking up at 6 am raring to go, it’s more like 0730-0800 which is early for me to actually wake up.
So if you have depression or untreated ADHD it might be worth checking out an SNRI (serotonin norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor)
Read Miracle Morning
👀👀