27 April 2018
Your Ultimate Guide For Waking Up Early.
Words by Zdravko Cvijetic for Medium.

As you know, waking up early has nothing to do with the alarm clock, but it has everything to do with these elements:
Your Goals & Mindset.
Your Evening Routine.
The Quality Of Your Sleep.
Waking Up & Your Morning Routine.
Let’s go through one thing at the time.

Image: Balaclava House by Archiblox
1. Your Mindset & Your Goals.
“Mind over Mattress” — Robin Sharma
We, humans, are creatures of instant gratification. And because of that, you will try to find any possible excuse to sleep in, especially in the first several days of the habit. The biggest thing you need to know is that you will have to sacrifice a lot, particularly in the first month. And you have to be prepared for it.
You will have to pass on a couple of parties, you will experience energy drops and your productivity will suffer, at least in the beginning. You need to put yourself in the first place. And you do that by setting goals.
There are two reasons why goals are important:
Goals motivate us.
Having goals gives us the boost, whenever we want to surrender to the infamous snooze button.
The more emotion you add to your goal, the bigger the leverage will be. Not only for waking up but for everything else in your life.
Goals dictate our activities.
There are goals, and there are systems. Each one of your goals has a set of activities that need to be done to achieve the goal.

Image: Flinders House by Archiblox
2. Your Evening Routine.
Most people think that waking up early begins in the morning, which is far from the truth. First, you need to set yourself for success the night before. And there are several ways you can do that.
Stop using technology before your sleep time.
Exposing yourself to too much blue light (from your smartphone, tablet, or computer) before bed has a negative influence on the quality of your sleep. That’s why 1–2 hours before you go to bed, go into so-called “Amish Hour,”turn off everything, and focus on yourself.
Prepare for the next day.
Instead of having to decide on these things in the morning and losing preciouswillpower and decision-making ability, decide on it the night before. Here are three things you should think about:
What are your top priorities for tomorrow?
What clothes you will wear tomorrow?
What meal can you plan for tomorrow?
Evaluate day and picture your ideal morning.
Time goes by fast, and if you don’t stop and reflect on things that are important to you, you will miss a lot of them. That’s why you should always ask yourself what worked today? What kind of progress did you make? What are you grateful for? What made you happy? And then picture your ideal morning. This alone will influence your motivation to stay awake and stay away from the snooze button.
Read.
With our busy schedules, it’s challenging to find enough time to read, but when you eliminate technology, you will easily find 30 minutes you can dedicate to reading. Whether it’s for personal or professional growth.

Image: Flinders House by Archiblox
3. The Quality Of Your Sleep.
Most of us go through life without knowing what affects our sleep and what we can do to make it better. To maximise your sleep quality, these are the things you should have in mind:
Stop the stimulants.
At least six hours before you go to sleep, you should stop drinking coffee and alcohol, because it will mess with your sleep.
You can drink green tea and water, which are a much better substitute.
Avoid eating big meals.
They’ll burden your digestive system and lower your sleep quality. Instead, have a small snack, like nuts and glass of milk, so you don’t wake up hungry.
Drink one glass of water.
Since you are about to sleep for 6–8 hours straight, your body will need a lot of hydration; that’s why you should drink at least one glass of water. If you have been drinking, make that at least two (and one when you wake up).
Avoid exercising before sleep.
Exercising less than 3 hours prior to bedtime can keep you awake. So try to do it earlier or in the morning.
Set the right conditions.
Find a quality mattress and pillow. Sleep in a dark and silent room (you can wear a sleep mask and have Melatonin as a supplement).
And pay attention to the room temperature, preferably you would want to sleep in a colder room.
Go to bed at the same time.
At the beginning, going to bed at the same time will be challenging because your body will operate on the old rhythm, and that’s why you should go to sleep when you are tired. After several days you will start to feel tired towards the end of the day, and then you can sleep more consistently.
Optimise your sleep.
By “optimising sleep” I mean that you should find the perfect time you should go to bed each night, and discover the ideal time you should get up to maximise energy and health. While you sleep, you go through cycles of sleep states. The first state in a sleep cycle is light sleep, followed by deep sleep and a dream state referred to as REM-sleep. A full sleep cycle lasts about 90 minutes (1.5 hours) and is repeated several times each night. Of course, you will not be able to hit it exactly to the minute, but over the time you will get better

Image: Blackburn House by Archiblox
4. Waking Up & Your Morning Routine.
At this point, we’ve covered almost everything that’s indirectly related to waking up early. Now you have to decide which of these two strategies you want to try:
The “Dive In” method.
As the title says it, you go directly to desired hour, and you try to maintain it from there. This strategy is possible, but you have to keep in mind that sudden changes will affect your energy drastically.
The “Gradual” method.
The most efficient method for changing the time you wake up is to do it gradually — 10–15 minutes earlier for 1–3 days until you feel used to it, and then lower it down. If you get up at 8 a.m. generally, don’t suddenly change it to 6 a.m. Try 7:45 a.m. first. Maintain for a couple of days, and then go to 7:30. This will take some time, but the effects on your energy will be minimal, plus it’s the most enjoyable and it has a lower chance of failure. Just have one thing in mind, if you tend to change time zones often, it might be more challenging for you.

Image: Balaclava House by Archiblox
To view original article by Medium Magazine, click here.