How to Wake Up Early

*This post is sponsored by Serta and Mattress Firm, but all opinions and good night’s sleep are my own!

via @theGoodQuote

Since sharing my early morning routine with you, I’ve heard from so many of you who either: 1) wake up early too and can relate to the sound of the alarm clock going off while it’s still dark outside, or 2) want to wake up earlier, but need a plan to start.

Today’s post is for you!  If you are in category 3) “I’m sleeping until the last possible minute and then pushing snooze too many times”, I totally get it! You might want to skip today’s post- except for the part where I review our new Serta iComfort TempTouch mattress with cooling technology.  You don’t want to miss that! 😉

1.  DETERMINE WHY YOU WANT TO GET UP EARLY

When the alarm goes off way before you’re ready for it to, you will probably start having a conversation in your head that goes something like this.  “I’m so tired. I’m not ready to wake up. Maybe I can sleep five more minutes.  Or ten.  It’s so cozy in this bed. I’ll workout/meditate/read/pray later in the day.  Tomorrow I’ll wake up early. I’m going back to sleep.”
You can’t listen to those voices!  You have to listen to the wiser part of you that made the decision the night before and immediately think of your reason WHY you want to wake up early.  For me, I want to workout.  But, digging deeper, I want to workout so I can be healthy, feel better in my body, be strong, have energy, not have to take time out of the rest of my day to workout, and start the day feeling ahead of the game instead of behind.
If you have this information immediately available when the rest of you is trying to persuade you to sleep in, it’ll be much easier to actually get out of bed.  Listen to your smarter self, not the saboteur!
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2.  GO TO BED EARLY

In the first days when you are trying to wake up early, your body probably won’t be ready to go to sleep as early as it needs to, so just know those first days are going to be rough!
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When I set my wake up early goal in May, it was to wake up at 5am.  I like a good 7-8 hours of sleep per night, so that means I need to be asleep by 9 pm.  Well, when you aren’t used to going to bed until 11pm, you won’t suddenly be ready to go to sleep two hours earlier – at first.
But, after a few days of waking up at your appointed early hour, you will be so tired that you’ll be ready to go to bed earlier.  And you need to!  If you don’t get to bed, you will be miserable the next day and probably grouchy.  When mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy!
I find it helps get me into bed early if I have something I want to read.  That way, I’m off electronics (goodnight Instagram and Pinterest) and TV (save OITNB and House of Cards for the weekends because it’s too tempting to binge late night).  I do read on my kindle, but I’m pretty good about shutting it down when I feel sleepy enough to fall asleep.  Or you could meditate with the headspace app and that may help lull you to sleep.

 

3.  GET A GOOD NIGHT SLEEP

The next key to waking up early is getting a good, restful night’s sleep.  If you make it to bed early, but don’t actually get good sleep, you won’t feel good the next day.  I’ve taken to wearing earplugs if I need to drown out the sound of someone’s snoring (they work!) and we found a solution to getting too hot in the bed too.

 

We recently upgraded our mattress to a Serta iComfort TempTouch Memory Foam bed, exclusively sold at MattressFirm and we love it!  The cool;) thing about it is that it has TempActive technology that helps keep you cool at night because it dissipates heat away from you as you sleep. As soon as we lay down on it the first night, you could feel to the touch how much cooler it was. Even James wanted to test it out that night, so we let him sleep with us.  Everyone agreed it was awesome!
Not only does this mattress keep you cooler, it’s super comfortable.  Buying a mattress is one of those things that is hard because a quick test at the store might not tell the story for how you’ll actually sleep on it for several hours at night.  But, from the first night, we loved the comfort of this bed with deep reaction memory foam.  After sleeping on it for a month now, I can say it’s my favorite mattress I’ve owned.

 

4. GET RIGHT UP

As soon as your alarm goes off, get right up! Do not hit snooze, do not push pause, do not pass go! All of those things are just little sneaky tactics your inner sleep persuader will use to get you to forget your goals.  If you get out of bed, the chances are slim that you’ll get back in bed.  But if you don’t get up right away, chances are high that you’ll fall back asleep and miss your early wake up time.  So, get up, covers off, feet on the floor!
One thing that has helped me get right up is using Hue lightbulbs in our lamps.  They work with an app on your phone, so I can set them to turn on bright white simultaneously when my alarm goes off. That’ll wake you up!

 

 

5.  GET TO KNOW THE FEELING OF ACCOMPLISHMENT

What I mean by this is accomplish whatever it is you set out to accomplish by waking up early.  Feel how good it feels to be productive in that way.  This feeling of accomplishment builds momentum and success breeds success.
When my alarm goes off at 5:00 or 5:30 am and I get up and go workout, come back home, get showered and dressed all before my kids wake up, it feels amazing!  Now I have that experience to keep me going the next day.  On the days I don’t get up early and workout, I don’t feel as energized throughout the day.
Even though it’s hard in the moment to wake up early, it’s better for the rest of the hours of the day. The short term “pain” is worth the long term gain!

 

So are a ‘wake up early’ or ‘sleep-in’ kind of girl?!

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Meet Megan

Hi! I’m Megan, mom to a thoughtful teenager and spunky young girl. We call Houston home and recently moved into our dream home. I traded my lawyer hat to become a full-time blogger in 2010. I love sharing my passion for affordable fashion, home decor, organization, & fitness to help inspire you to take care of you!

9 Comments

  1. I don’t mind getting up early, it’s the going to bed early that I need to work on 😉 Now that #2 is living back home and has to get up early for work, I get up with her (and help with her sweet puppy if needed). But hubby is not a fan of getting up that early (does but not happily LOL). Does Jimmy get up at the same time as you? Do the lights coming on bother him if he doesn’t? Gotta find a happy medium.

  2. When you get up early to work out…do you eat before or after you work out? If you do eat, what do you eat?

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