#18: Becoming a Morning Person

Hey Friends,

Last week we broke down some reasons I think it’s beneficial to be intentional about establishing a morning routine, and more specifically why I think working out early in the morning is amazing.

This week, I want to talk through some of the steps you could be taking to actually become part of the 5 am club.

Weekly Action Point

😴For this week, actually make an effort to avoid screens of any type for 30 minutes before bed.

I feel like almost everyone has heard that screens before bed are bad for quality of sleep, but I also feel that almost everyone is using screens before bed anyways.

So for one week, challenge yourself to get rid of any screens for 30 minutes before you go to bed.

You could read a book, go for a walk, do some light stretching, have some screenless conversational time with your significant other, or try out a guided meditation video (you close your eyes during these videos usually, so I’ll allow the use of screens to look up a youtube video).

How to become a morning person

It feels like most people in society view going to bed earlier and waking up earlier as positive habits, yet it feels like so many people never actually make steps towards making it become a reality.

The best way to become a morning person is to, well, go to bed earlier. Easier said than done, I know.

I’ve heard people that typically go to bed around 11pm or midnight say that it’s impossible for them to go to bed early because they just can’t fall asleep when they try getting in bed earlier.

If you’re someone who’s been going to bed around 11 pm consistently for years, and then one random night decide to try going to bed at 9, yeah you probably aren’t going to be able to fall asleep. It’s a pretty huge shift in your body’s schedule.

So what I don’t want you to do after reading this newsletter: Don’t try going to bed 2 hours earlier than you usually do, and then when you can’t fall asleep just give up and tell yourself it’s “impossible” for you to go to bed earlier.

If you wanna start going to bed a little bit earlier, you need to be intentional about it. Becuase I promise that it won’t just accidentally happen.

So the first tip I have for trying to go to bed earlier:

💥Set a bedtime for youself and actually stick to it, and then make small changes💥 

For example, if you consistently go to bed at 11 pm, you might not be able to fall asleep at 9pm, but I would almost guarantee you could fall asleep at 10:45 pm.

Try going to bed 15 minutes earlier for a week, and then the following week make your bedtime earlier by another 15 minutes. Then, 8 weeks later you’ll be falling asleep by 9 pm because you made small adjustments instead of one big change.

And like I mentioned, if you want to be a morning workout person, the biggest thing you can do to increase your chances of success is going to bed earlier.

Aside from just adjusting your bedtime, here’s a couple other things that you could start implementing in order to become more of a morning person:

☕️Take away all sources of afternoon caffeine

Caffeine takes around 10-12 hours to completely leave your system. (Check out this article on the pharmacology of caffeine if you don’t believe me and want some light reading…)

In my personal opinion, you shouldn’t be drinking caffeine within 12 hours before bed to maximize sleep quality. I’m not a caffeine expert, but next week I’m gonna plan on writing my entire newsletter just on caffeine. I think caffeine is widely misunderstood and misused, so I’ll talk about my reasoning more behind this point next week.

🔁Have consistent sleep timing

It’s common for people to wake up early during the week for work and then stay up and sleep in much later on the weekend than they would during the week. In general, with this inconsistent sleep pattern you’ll continue hating the mornings, and you’ll be less likely to be a morning workout person.

🤘 Create a morning routine that you stick to

Having a morning routine will help you to be consistent in becoming a morning person. If you’re just doing whatever you feel like on that day, chances are your mornings won’t be awesome. Have a plan, and do it.

⏰Don’t snooze your alarm in the morning

When your alarm goes off, challenge yourself to get out of bed in 2 minutes. It might suck sometimes, but done over time it will help you stick to a morning routine. Snoozing your alarm completely takes away the structure you had by setting an alarm in the first place.

If you’re someone who knows they like to snooze the alarm, try just setting your alarm later. Get an extra 15-30 minutes of quality sleep that isn’t interrupted by an alarm, and then when your alarm goes off, just get up and get out of bed.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Find someone to hold you accountable

Like anything in health and fitness, I believe it’s better with a buddy. Going to sleep and waking up earlier isn’t easy, but I believe it has positive impacts on your life.

Find a friend, significant other, or front desk person at the gym and tell them about what you’re trying to do. Saying it to other people will help to hold yourself accountable.

Ben’s Best

🍽️Recipe for the week: Slow cooker spicy chicken alfredo. Love this stealth_health_life guy and have linked a bunch of his recipes. If you haven’t yet, should just give him a follow.

stealth_health_life

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🎙️Podcasts I loved this week:

• My First Million : The $600M Protein Bar Founder is Back Again | Peter Rahal Interview

  • More of a business-y podcast than a health podcast, but the guest is the founder of Rx protien bars, so I thought it was interesting to share.

• Mind Pump 2446: Stop Doing “3 Sets of 12” to Build Muscle & DO This Instead!

As I mentioned, in next week’s newsletter I plan to talk about all things caffeine. So many people associate caffeine with the morning, so I felt it made sense to dive into it a bit while I’ve been talking about morning routines.

Looking forward to chatting about some common caffeine myths and misconceptions.

Have an awesome week!

Ben