How To Wake Up At 6am Every Day

Getting good sleep was something that felt impossible.

It just wasn’t in my genetics, or in my environment.

Nobody in high school sleeps early, and certainly no one in my family did either.

When you realise it’s gone to shit, you start pulling all-nighters to try to fix it.

It doesn’t work.

Even when you use caffeine to stay up all night and somehow sleep earlier, it was only a short-term fix before it derailed into the nightmare of waking up late again.

I knew waking up early was the perfect recipe to get shit done, but I just couldn’t figure it out.

Eventually though, I found a solution that stuck, and I will never let go of it.

What Actually Got Me Waking Up At 6am For Months

What helped me wake up at 6am every day was having to be at a certain place at a certain time.

I have to be awake by 6am every day to get ready to go to the gym with my partner.

I can’t just bitch out and sleep in.

If I’m not there by 6:45am, then I’ll be considered late which is just poor on my end.

I know not everyone has a partner or friend who can just wake up early and do something.

But if you’re on this journey with me, then you may know others who want to do the exact same thing as you.

Never assume before you ask.

Some guys just can’t wait to do some good work and become something great!

It doesn’t have to be the gym, but make it positive and enjoyable so you’ll look forward to it.

You could:

• Go for a run

• Go on a walk

• Go to the gym

• Go and get cold

• Go and make breakfast

“But you can’t train every day!”

I knew you were going to say that, so I wrote about it later on in “Manage The Load With Active Recovery.”

Why This Solution Actually Works

Getting up early and exercising first thing in the morning aligns with the biology of the body.

According to Stanford neuroscientist Andrew Huberman, we have a body temperature that closely follows our ‘circadian rhythm’ or our internal 24-hr body clock.

Our core body temperature starts rising drastically after waking and usually peaks in the afternoon.

Our lowest dip in body temperature or ‘temperature minimum’ is usually about 2 hours before waking, before it starts to rise again.

The rise in core body temperature increases our levels of alertness, focus, and energy, which is perfect for waking up and staying awake in the morning and throughout the day.

To further increase core body temperature and alertness, you can:

• Take caffeine

• Intermittent fast (e.g. skip breakfast)

• Take cold showers or do cold water immersion

• Do any form of exercise that raises your body temperature

By being fasted, taking cold showers daily, exercising, and occasionally taking caffeine in the morning, I have effectively adjusted my body temperature and alertness levels to start aligning with a 6am wake-up time.

As a result, my body temperature rises dramatically around 6am, priming my body to wake up.

This is why you sometimes wake up earlier than your alarm.

Eventually throughout the day, my body temperature cools down until bedtime, priming my body for relaxation and sleep.

The Alarm That Made Me Stop Snoozing

I had so many alarms at one point I couldn’t even add any more!

The maximum amount was 50 alarms and I ended up deleting them.

These days, I only use one alarm.

This alarm, known as Alarmy, bypasses my horrible habit of snoozing until the very last alarm.

Alarmy is a free phone app which uses clever ways to wake your brain and body in the morning.

You can wake up with Alarmy by:

• Shaking your phone

• Solving a memory puzzle

• Scanning a QR code or barcode

• Solving a math problem (58% of users use this)

• Taking a photo of something with your phone (what I use to go outside my room)

Alarmy also has premium ways to wake you up like:

• Typing sentences

• Taking a number of steps

• Squatting until you hit your target goal

The free methods are more than enough to wake you up.

I take a photo of my shoe cabinet outside my room which requires me to:

1. Get up

2. Open my door

3. Take some steps until I reach the shoe cabinet

4. Take a photo that closely aligns with the set-up photo of the shoe cabinet.

Might sound a bit tedious but it gets the job done (I don’t snooze anymore!).

Why pay for premium when you can be creative?

Manage The Load With Active Recovery

If you’re going to workout like I do.

Don’t workout like everyone else does.

Don’t do 2-hour workouts every morning

Instead, spread out the load into 45-minute workouts or even 30-minutes or shorter per session.

Doing 30-45 minutes is very manageable for most people.

But if you need a rest day, then by all means go for it.

In our rest days we don’t lift, but instead do other modes of exercise like cardio and sauna.

Active recovery is more effective than passive recovery because it gets the blood circulating into the muscles, speeding up recovery.

Plus it’s a way to get us active in the morning and consistent with our routine.

If we can’t hit the gym, we just go for a nice walk in the morning.

Active recovery can be applied even if you’re not hitting the gym.

For example,

If you want to run 5 days a week for 10 minutes a session, have 2 days where you just walk for up to 20 minutes.

It’s not much at all to get a bit of active recovery in (you’ll 100% have a chance to sit down later).

What If It’s Rest Day Or Your Partner Can’t Make It?

Even if one day my routine changes and I no longer wake up at 6am to train with someone, I have now established the set of behaviours I’ll be doing every morning to start my day.

This is because I made it a point to be at a certain place at a certain time most, if not all days a week.

The more times you go, the greater the habit is formed.

You might not be able to go 7 days a week, but if you can do 5 times then that’s great.

Once your circadian rhythm adjusts to waking up at 6am, waking and getting up will be easier.

But what happens when you don’t have something to do?

Trust me, there’s always something to do.

For example, you can have multiple routines like this…

Your exercise morning routine:

• Wake up at 6am

• Get ready by 6:30am

• Meet your partner at 6:45am

• Run from 7:00 to 7:30am

• Get home by 7:45am

• Write from 8:00 to 9:00am

Your rest-day morning routine:

• Wake up at 6am

• Get ready by 6:30am

• Write from 6:30 to 7:30am

• Take a break

• Write from 8:00 to 9:00am

This morning routine doesn’t require you to exercise, but exercising makes it more effective, getting it out of the way and making the rest of the day a breeze.

When you get consistent, you probably don’t need to have your commitment partner anymore because you’ve built a solid routine and adjusted your wake-up time.

But having someone there with you is always going to be better IMO to make you accountable, have moral support, and push each other.

Plus it’s a lot more fun!

The ‘Cardinal Rule’ Of Waking Up Early

The ‘Cardinal Rule’ I’m referring to is sleeping early.

Most people break this too often.

Staying up late one night is okay, but two nights in a row?

You’re risking breaking your sleep schedule.

You must sleep early to support waking up early, and you must sleep even earlier than what you think you need

You Need More Hours In Bed Than You Think

7 hours in bed does not mean 7 hours asleep. Period.

There are many ways to track your sleep, from paid to free.

I personally use the Oura Ring to see how long it took me to fall asleep, the quality of my sleep, and how long I slept.

Before Oura Ring, I used the free phone app Sleep Cycle for ages.

By tracking your sleep, you’re able to gauge your ‘Sleep Efficiency’ which is basically:

• How much time you spent in bed

• How much time you spent asleep

Sleep efficiency is a measure of how much sleep you actually got.

The higher the sleep efficiency, the better.

If you spent a lot of time in bed, but not asleep, then you have a lower sleep efficiency.

If the time you spent in bed was mostly sleeping time, then your sleep efficiency is good.

Higher sleep efficiency is usually correlated with having good ‘sleep hygiene’ where you:

• Are sober

• Aren’t anxious

• Aren’t thinking a lot

• Aren’t eating before bed

• Aren’t looking at screens

• Only use the bed for sleep

If you struggle to fall asleep, make sure your sleep hygiene is good!

How Much Sleep Do You Really Need?

Some people like myself need up to 9 hours of sleep, whilst others can go with 7 hours.

I suggest you try both 7 hours and 9 hours of sleep and see how you feel after a few weeks.

Oura Ring says if you fall asleep in less than 3 minutes, then you were too tired.

If you make the switch to 8 or 9 hours, and your mood and energy is better than on 7 hours, then make sure you continue to get it.

Remember, time in bed does not equal time asleep!

I’ll be diving deeper on sleep so make sure you’re subscribed.

What Happens If You Break The ‘Cardinal Rule’

I learnt this the hard way, and it’s just not worth staying up every. Single. Time.

Even staying up just 1 hour past my bedtime can make me feeling tired and unmotivated the next day, and imagine doing this even 3 days in a row!

Breaking the ‘cardinal rule’ will make you:

• Stressed out

• Weak and tired

• Complain and whine

• Burnt-out and unmotivated

• Make bad decisions and do bad habits

• Want to sleep in and break your sleep schedule

You don’t need me to tell you it’s not worth staying up.

You become a lesser version of yourself.

Unless you want to go back to waking up at 12pm or later, don’t do it.

Don’t go back to the never-ending loop of ‘trying’ to fix your sleep schedule.

Got it?

I’ll see you next week.

Laters,

Henry