How to Wake Up Early Every Day

Let’s be honest- most of us hate waking up early. I used to be that way- I dreaded having to wake up early, no matter what the reason was. Even when I did it, I would always miserable and exhausted throughout the day. Unsurprisingly, that put me in a less than desirable mood.

After living this way for far too long, I finally decided to learn out how to wake up early on a regular basis. It didn’t happen immediately, but it’s paid off. Not only am I waking up early regularly, but I’m also more productive and happier. The following three tips will help you do the same.

Ease into it

If you try to get up early after sleeping in for so long, it’s going to make that task impossible. I found having to drastically change my sleeping habits was the hardest part. Having to wake up so early isn’t just difficult, but will also make you dread doing it.

To make the process less painful, take baby steps. For example, say you want to wake up at 4 AM- but you currently wake at 8 AM. Start easing into the goal by first waking up at 7 AM. Do this for a couple of weeks until you find yourself used to it. Then start waking up at 6 AM, get used to it, and then begin waking at 5 AM. After getting used to that, you should find it easier to adjust to waking up at 4 AM regularly.

Personally, it took about a month for me to work from getting up later to waking up much earlier. That may sound like a long time, but working up to an earlier wake-up call made it less painful. Plus, t made me feel more accomplished overall!

Distance yourself from your alarm/phone

We’ve all been guilty of keeping our phones by our bed. You probably don’t even think about it- you crawl into bed after checking your phone one last time, set it on your nightstand, and then bundle up to drift off to sleep. Then, when your alarm goes off (by an app on your phone or on a separate device), you grab your phone right off the bat. As you continue to try and wake up, you begin to scroll through Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter…the list goes on. That makes waking up much harder- and I know because I did the same damn thing for many years.

Nixing this bad habit is simple: put your phone and/or alarm far from your bed. (I put mine on my work desk!) When your alarm goes off in the morning, you’ll be forced to physically get out of bed to shut it off. The trick here is that by having to get up to stop your alarm, your body will feel more awake, and therefore you won’t feel inclined to go back to bed.

Lay everything out the night before

Whenever I have to wake up early, I like to lay out everything I need for the next day. This includes my deodorant, makeup, morning skincare products, my outfit, and perfume. It’s all laid out for me on my desk, which sits a couple of feet from my bed. Doing this makes me excited to wake up early because I look forward to getting ready. It motivates me to freshen up, put on my war paint (sorry, I mean makeup), and look put together for whatever today’s events hold for me.

How does this relate to waking up early? Well, spending the night before preparing for the next day puts me at ease. I know that doing all this will make the next morning run smoother. Preparing for the next day makes getting up easier and way less stressful.

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I know I said it once already, but I’ll say it again- most of us hate waking up early. But if you have to do it or want to start doing it, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. With a few tips, some time and a lot of patience, you can surely pull it off, too.

xo,

Elizabeth