8 Benefits of waking up early – And how to do it properly

Today I’m sharing how you can instantly gain incredible benefits of waking up early. Benefits that famous movie stars and successful entrepreneurs have used to boost their way to success. On top of that, I’ll share how to avoid the common mistakes that can hurt the quality of your life, if you do this improperly.

Maybe you have heard some success gurus and life coaches telling you how their lives have changed. Or maybe you just want to ramp up your life by waking up early. What benefits does it have? What downsides? And how do I do it properly? If you want to find out the answer, read on my friend.

Table of Contents

Why should you wake up early? – The benefits

More productivity

When you wake up early, you’ll have way more time to do whatever productive tasks you have. Usually, the first 3-4 hours of your day are the most productive ones, since you’ve just slept and you haven’t completed any tasks earlier that day, which could have required effort.

If you wake up around 5-6am, chances are there’s nothing mandatory to do, so you can focus on what is important for you right there. Maybe a quick workout before the work or some personal project that requires a laser-sharp focus.

A head start to others

Has your boss ever told you to go home early because of being effective and doing the tasks early? This is exactly the same feeling when you gain a head start for the day. Imagine the feeling when you have already started your day super well without any hurry when other people are still waking up and rushing to work because of snoozing too long.

You’ll also gain momentum, which makes other tasks easier since you’ve already started the day by doing something productive on your own terms. When waking up early, you’ll also have more time to reward yourself and relax after the day.

No distraction

No one’s bombarding your phone or disturbing you at 5 or 6am. Do you know what’s annoying? When you’re trying to focus on something and you’re getting distracted by something that you couldn’t care less.

Maybe your Instagram is screaming new stories where people are sharing some useless content, or your family member wants to know why their toothbrush is missing. When waking up early, there’s nothing to distract you, however. Such a great feeling.

Some me-time

Maybe you’ve heard that the way how you start your morning determines your entire day. As I mentioned above, there’s nothing to distract you when waking up early. This means you can take a relaxing start for your day by going through your thoughts and possibly a morning routine to get your day going.

Be sure to use the first hours of your day well, because they’re the most important ones. Do some meditation, visualize your goals, or make a journal, and above all, set yourself in a great mood.

Feel good about yourself

When you achieve something, you naturally feel that you have succeeded at something. When you manage to get yourself up early, do something productive, and get a great start for the day, your self-esteem and mood increase instantly. That’s a better morning than waking up in a hurry and stress.

More time to take care of yourself

Needless to say, proper nutrition and exercise are vital for you. When you wake up early, you’ll have more time to put effort into your breakfast or do a quick workout.

Some people ignore some important steps like breakfast or brushing their teeth because they want to sleep 30 minutes longer. When you have time to take care of yourself, your life becomes way healthier and better in general. Simple as that.

Waking up early improves your sleep pattern

When waking up early and doing it properly, your sleep pattern becomes natural. This means getting up about the same time when the sun comes up and making it easy to fall asleep at a reasonable hour. You’ll also avoid bad habits like staying up watching Netflix or getting drunk. Yes, doing those things sometimes is great, but don’t let it become a habit.

The golden hour – biggest benefit of waking up early?

What is the golden hour? It’s the hour when you’ve gotten up and you’re enjoying the beautiful sunrise and serenity without distraction while doing your morning routine without any hurry or stress.

All these feelings and factors combined make the golden hour. It’s a little hard to explain here because you have to experience it yourself. This is probably the best one of the benefits of waking up early.

Best time to wake up – How to gain most benefits of waking up early?

What is the best time to wake up? The way I see it, it depends on several factors. Let’s take a look at some important ones.

Your goals

One thing to consider is that what do you want to achieve by waking up early. Different tasks take different more or less time, so calculate the amount of time and effort you’ll need to complete them.

If it’s a quick workout or just a peaceful morning without distraction, one extra hour before your actual day can be enough. However, if you want to be a super-achiever who completes a 20km jog, morning routine, and more tasks before your actual day, you’re going to need several hours.

Your schedule

Your schedule plays a huge role here. If your workday begins at 7am, you’ll probably need to wake up at 5am or earlier. If you have an evening shift, you’ll probably have a lot of time even if you happened to get up at 8am. This factor and the previous one are the most important ones to consider when waking up early.

The sunrise

I remember when I was in my military service, and we used to wake up at 6am. One major factor to make it easier was the sunrise. In summer, getting up in a forest camp was much easier since the sun was already shining and getting up was natural. In winter, during my first war exercise in a forest, it was pretty terrible.

Don’t stress too much about this one. During the winter, you’ll probably have to get up when the sky is dark, but this to your advantage if possible.

Examples – The benefits of waking up early in a perfect time

Let’s say we have a person who starts working at 8am and wants to do some cardio and a specific morning routine before rushing to work. Getting up at 5:30am will give two hours to complete the tasks and 30 minutes to drive to work.

However, if you have a day off and you just want to do some personal projects before getting together with your friends in the afternoon, you could easily stay in your bed until 8-9am.

It’s not about being an ascetic who gets up at 5am just for the status. It’s about figuring out your goals and schedule and acting accordingly.

How to wake up early

“What do you mean how to wake up early? Just get out of the bed!” Well, it may not be that easy. The urge to stay there, especially if you have nothing mandatory to do, is huge. Here’s how you can make your morning easier.

Discipline

Needless to say, discipline is the most important thing you need. It’s about knowing what you have to do and committing to your decision even when every cell in your body wants to stay there and sleep just a little bit longer. You’ll have to make a clear decision. Are you really going to get up at 5am on the next day? Can you promise it to yourself?

When waking up early, think about the quilt and shame of you snooze for two hours and end up hurrying out of your house and missing the benefits of waking up early.

That pain is worse than getting up and suffering for few minutes. Trust me, it gets easier when you get your body moving.

Motivation

Although motivation is something that you may run out of, it’s useful when doing something difficult. Ask yourself, why do you want to get up early? How can your life change if you get your tasks done? How will it feel when you have done it?

Visualize your goals, listen to some inspirational music, watch a motivational video, do anything that motivates you. Discipline is more effective, but motivation makes it more enjoyable. Especially when chasing the benefits of waking up early.

Get enough sleep

The required amount of sleep to stay sharp is personal. Most of the people need 7-9 hours. If you want to enjoy the benefits of waking up early, you’ll need to get enough sleep too. Just go to bed at a reasonable hour, and put your cell phone away.

Figure out how much sleep you need and do it. Even if you find it hard to fall asleep, which you probably will sometimes, don’t pick up your phone or anything that makes you more alert. And never check the time, it only makes you more stressed if you know that you only have four hours until the alarm.

More tricks to wake up early

Spark your emotions to gain the benefits of waking up early

Do you have a song that always motivates you? Or a picture of your ex who dumped you? The first five minutes are the most crucial ones when deciding whether to stick to your plan or just give up and get back to bed.

If you have a song that motivates you, use it as the sound of your alarm, or be sure to put your ex’s picture on your table, so that will be the first thing you see. Do anything that disturbs your emotions and makes you motivated to get up and fight the urge, since the first minutes are the hardest. You’ll thank yourself later.

Set your alarm clock away from the bed

The hardest thing to do is to get up. If your alarm clock is a few meters away from your bed, you’ll have to do it to get rid of the sound. Yes, you can just stay there and enjoy the lovely ringing, but chances are it gets pretty infuriating and you’ll have to go and get rid of it. Boom, you’ve gotten up.

The waking up early bet – My personal invention

If I want to get up at 5:30am, do you know what I do? I tell my friend that if I don’t send him a picture of me fully dressed and awake before 6am, I’ll owe him 200€. Gaining the benefits of waking up early sounds great, but saving 200€ is even greater. People are more motivated when moving away from pain than moving towards pleasure. Use it to your advantage!

Common mistakes that destroy your benefits of waking up early

Although waking up early is a great habit, some mistakes will ruin it. Here are some things to avoid, when trying it.

Staying up too late

As I said before, an average person needs 7-9 hours of sleep per night to stay sharp. Whatever you do, you do it better when you’ve slept well. Therefore, when you’ve decided to wake up early, don’t stay up too late. This should be a no-brainer, but I know it’s easy to get stuck watching Netflix and scrolling social media. The benefits of waking up early aren’t that great when you can’t focus on anything because of too little sleep.

Snoozing

Do you know what’s even worse than getting up and feeling tired or sleeping longer and feeling guilty? Snoozing for two hours and losing both the extra time and some quality sleep. Whatever you do, don’t snooze every five minutes until you have no choice but to get up. This makes you lose both the benefits of waking up early and few hours of quality sleep.

Being too hard on yourself

Whatever you do, remember that failing and making mistakes is inevitable. If you happen to lack discipline or snooze too much, don’t be too hard on yourself. We’re humans so we make mistakes. Just learn from them and try again.

Lack of motivation and decisiveness

When you do something challenging like waking up early, you’ll have to be decisive. One major mistake is a lack of decisiveness and not having a reason to do it. Make sure to figure out why you’re doing it and them make a rock-hard decision to do it.

Should you wake up early?

Possible downsides

Although waking up early has some great benefits, it may have a negative effect on your life. If you constantly sleep too little, the benefits of waking up early are useless. Trying to force yourself up every single morning with not enough sleep, you’ll be both physically and mentally exhausted, and nothing will work out.

Inportance of good sleep

If you have something to do until 11 or 12pm, waking up at 5am will be a terrible idea.

Also, do not stress about it too much. Waking up early has tons of benefits, but if it means constantly sleeping too little and ruining your social life and performance in work, it’s simply not worth it. I recommend trying it, but not overdoing it. Simple as that.

Is waking up early over-rated?

If you’ve been scrolling through the success pages of Instagram or following some gurus online, you may have seen some content about waking up at 5am every single morning, sacrificing your entire social life, and hustling 24/7.

Sure, doing that would bring you huge results in whatever you’re doing, but there’s a catch. If you force yourself to get up at 5am every morning with only 5 hours of sleep and work 14 hours per day, you’ll burn yourself out.

Secondly, the biggest reason people wake up early is that the first 3-4 hours of your day are the most productive, and chances are there’s nothing mandatory to do at 6am. If you schedule your day well by doing the hardest task first and so on, you can easily get up at the noon and still be productive.

To succeed, you’ll have to exit your comfort zone and push your limits sometimes, but you need to rest both physically and mentally. Always remember that working smart is better than working hard.

I’ve sometimes forced myself to do some tasks early in the morning regardless of only having five hours of sleep. That makes me more productive, but doing it day after day will only have more negative consequences than positive ones.

Benefits of waking up early – FAQ

Is it better to wake up early?

In a nutshell, there are great benefits of waking up early and therefore it’s better than waking up late, but if you do it improperly (a.k.a ignoring the importance of good sleep and burning yourself out), it’s worse. If you create a habit and shift your sleep pattern properly, it is better.

Is waking up early bad for you?

If you don’t sleep enough and commit the mistakes like snoozing for three hours, it is. Getting enough sleep is something that you can ignore occasionally, but doing it constantly will lead to severe consequences. Waking up early is bad for you if you do it improperly.

How to start chasing the benefits of waking up early?

It’s simple. Figure out the proper time based on your goals and schedule, set your alarm, avoid the mistakes that I shared in this article, and use my tips to make it easier if you have to. And above all, figure out why do you want to do it and just decide.

Are the benefits of waking up early necessary if you want to become successful?

The way I see it, no. If you do it properly, the benefits of waking up early will help you tremendously, but there are more important factors too. Factors like scheduling your day well by using the most productive hours well, working smart, and staying consistent.

Conclusion

There you have it. My guide about the benefits of waking up early and how to do it properly. I’ve sometimes woken up early to get something important done before my school or work, and the benefits have been awesome.

In a nutshell, waking up early is a great habit and a tool to skyrocket your productivity and life, but only when done properly. I recommend for everyone to try it and possibly start doing it constantly if you need to get some projects done in a shorter time.

I hope you found my content valuable, and above all, thank you for spending your time with me. See you next time!