I wasn’t always a morning person. I love my sleep, and as an adult I could lay in bed until as late as 2pm, if work allowed. Obviously sleep needs change as we grow older. As young people, our growing bodies need sleep. The teenage years, it’s practically impossible to wake your kids. However, as you get into your twenties and thirties, we usually fall into a schedule due to work and school demands. Once you have kids, things take a drastic turn for the worse and you get no sleep at all.
I had my first child when I was almost 32. Since that day, it has been a struggle getting enough sleep. Being a mother, it’s almost this 6th or 7th sense you develop. I have become a light sleeper, and any noise can wake me, no matter how exhausted I am. I believe this is a natural instinct to protect your children.
Having a second child is a little harder when you are almost 40, as I know a lot of Mom’s and Dad’s out there can relate, as it seems we are having kids later and later. It might not be the most technical term for it, but I have called them my little energy vampires, with as much love as possible. ❤️
On a positive note, when you have kids, you have no choice but to get up and go when they need you. I find a lot of times, when you sit back and have nothing to do, it’s easier to just keep sitting. (Newton’s first Law states that an object initially at rest will remain at rest unless acted upon by external net forces). But, once you are up and moving around, for the most part, you are more motivated to do things.
The same concept can be used for getting up early. Three years ago, when I started my business, there was a lot of startup work to do. I had no idea where to start. However, a lot of the projects that I currently work on in my everyday business life were added as I went along. Sometimes I still ask myself how I even accomplished all that I did. Well, the secret was to actually get good quality rest.
I used to try and convince myself that staying up late was the answer. I would put my kids to bed at 7pm and 9pm respectively (although the oldest fights sleep and refuses to sleep by himself). Then, I would proceed to finish up any work projects I had started that day and I would keep going as late as 3am in the morning. In my case, I would get up with my kids at 6am the next morning, and I would basically consider myself a walking zombie. I had also convinced myself that I didn't need as much sleep as other people did.
The problem with this is that you can only maintain it for so long until your body just gives up. Either you start missing alarms in the morning, or, the quality of your work starts to suffer. Both of these things finally happened to me, but I was in denial. I think I continued this pattern for quite a number of years and I’m pretty sure I was clinically sleep deprived. I would live on caffeine and energy drinks, and have these dark, permanent under eye circles.
There was a point where I would start waking up before my alarm, about 5am in the morning. I decided to just stay up and see what happened. Naturally at first, I was tired and the day seemed so long. I couldn’t wait to crawl into bed at 11pm. After the days and weeks went by, I purposely started setting my alarm for 5am and here is why.
You can get a lot of things done in the morning. Cue the quiet. Cue the coffee. The first few minutes upon awaking, I am very groggy. The process of getting my cup of coffee and sitting down with my planners to complete my morning planner routine helps me to focus on important tasks for the day ahead. It is my direction for how my day is going to go. Having alone time in the morning helps me to relax, calm down and focus on the day ahead, like a breather before the big game. After my planning routine is complete, I immediately start on my morning projects. These could involve adding listings to my website or Etsy Shop, getting a head start on filming a video or editing. I will normally also write in my journal at this time as well as part of my alone, quiet time. Before my kids wake up around 7:30am, I usually have a very productive morning.
You have normalized eating patterns. I am a little old school here in that I think if everyone followed the Canadian Food Guide, we would all be healthy eaters. It is normally recommended that you eat 3 meals a day, with 2 small snacks in between the first and second meals. (You are keeping your metabolism up here, and the proportions are not as big as one might think). Also, following this guide, you are not eating before bed which is hard on digestion (I always get heartburn) and potentially keeps you from sleeping. So, if you are always sleeping in until noon every day, this pattern of healthy eating doesn’t stand a chance. If, on the other hand you wake up at 5am, you could eat breakfast at 7am, with a snack at 9:30am and lunch at 12pm. I for one cannot eat as soon as I get up. My morning coffee always comes first.
You actually get a better sleep at night. Getting up early makes you tired enough so that you can fall asleep at night. I used to have insomnia, and this was the only thing I could do to get any amount of rest. If you can maintain getting up and going to bed at the same time every day, it helps to regulate your body functions. It also will turn into a habit, and you will start to find yourself waking up minutes before your alarm, ready to wake up. If you do get a good sleep at night, you will wake up more alert and more ready to start your day. A good healthy night’s rest is very restorative - your body heals faster when you are asleep.
Your day feels a lot longer. I get up before sunrise, and I go to bed many hours after sunset, so my day actually is extended. However, even if you sleep for nine hours at night, you’ll find that if you start work first thing in the morning, by noon, you will be amazed at how much you got done. This is because…
Most people are more productive during the early hours of the day. Even if you have never been a morning person before, if you give it a try, you would be amazed to find that you will automatically get more done more quickly if you start earlier. (Technically, this tip falls under productivity, but I always try to do the task I would normally procrastinate because then you feel even more ahead of the game). This probably comes down to the fact that there are less people around, meaning less interruptions, hence more work done by you.
BONUS: You get to enjoy the sunrise and the songs from the birds :)
Thanks for reading!
Sandra
0 comments