Few ever lived to a great age, and fewer still ever became distinguished;
who were not in the habit of early using.
- John Todd

Some people claim to be morning people and others claim to be evening people. They make it sound as if it were all about genes, but hey – it’s not. Thruth is that we can teach ourselves – that is, our minds and our bodies – to wake up very early every morning without feeling tired at all. It’s just a matter of habit.

If you’re into the whole online personal development movement, you’ve probably come across the concept of early rising before. However, most of the people writing blog posts about it seems to focus on the productivity, stress-recuding and time-saving benefits of it. As the health blog this is, I thoguht we should try seeing it from a different perspective: how it directly or indirectly affects our physical health.

1. Get more rest in less time

It’s said that the hours before midnight gives five quarters of sleep per hour – that is, your body will benefit more from the sleep you gain those hours than the hours later in the night. If this is the case, sleeping between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. should have the same effect as sleeping between midnight and 7:30 a.m., even though you actually sleep half an hour less if you go to sleep at 10 p.m.

This means two things: either you can reduce your amount of sleep but still become as rested as earlier (hey – now you finally got time to exercise), or you can sleep as much as earlier but become more rested and have more energy throughout the day.

2. Eat breakfast

It’s said that the breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and that 50 % of Americans do not eat proper breakfast. This is bad thing.

If you wake up early you will have more time to prepare and eat a good and healthy meal.

3. Exercise

Mornings are great for breakfast, both because you don’t have to do a lot of other things, and because it’s a very good time of the day to burn fat. When exercising before breakfast your body don’t have any food to take energy from, so it have to use fat as its source of energy.

Beware, though, because your body can also use muscle tissue as a source of energy. To prevent this, eat some protein before hitting the running track. Good sources of protein without much carbs of fat are egg whites, lean meat such as turkey or chicken and protein shakes.

It might take a few days or weeks to teach your body to use fat as its only source of energy, so take it easy in the beginning. If you find it hard to run, take a walk instead.

How to start doing it

The probably best way to start waking up early is using Steve Pavlina’s method. He promotes that we should go to bed when we feel tired (since we do not need the same amount of sleep every night), and go up at the same time every morning (weekends included). If we get too little sleep one night, we will be more tired the next evening and then we can go to sleep earlier that day instead to compensate it.

If you do this for a few weeks you will soon wake up this time by yourself, without the need for an alarm clock.

Recommended articles and sites

10 Benefits of Rising Early, and How to Do It – Zen Habits

How to Become an Early Riser – Steve Pavlina

How to wake up early

Related posts:

1. Getting Rid of Insomnia Once and For All