Early to Rise?

[Alethea]

I know we must have some early risers on this board. I am not one of them, but I believe it is a fantastic lifestyle choice, and fantasize about being one of those go-getters someday. Are you naturally an early riser? Did you train yourself to be? How do you do it? What do you do with those extra hours the rest of us don't have?

[Guest tparker]

My body rises when it's needed to.

Hard to explain, but after being in the Corps for 5 years, and in combat zones for several years of those five, whenever it's time, my body gets up. After that I was an on call field mechanic, so again, when it was time, body gets up.

If I need to be somewhere or do something at 3 am, my body will rise on its own, or 7 am, doesn't matter. Days that I have nothing else to do, no matter how late I go to sleep, my body default is 6:30.

It's very useful, and if I make plans, my body goes into it, usually use it to go running before the heat gets too bad, and so I can shower before I head up to school (probably to much appreciation to people around me.)

[spezzy]

i wake up at 7am every day. Sometimes 6:30. If I'm on vacation, my body wakes up at 6 (go figure). I used to not know that 7am even existed.

I think its just from waking up that early for so long, your body just gets used to it.

[Alethea]

Cool, Tparker! I read on Marks Daily Apple that people can set their internal clocks like that. Exercising in the morning is the biggest appeal for me. I end up doing it @ 11:00 p.m. half the time.

Nice, Spezzy. Do you just get ready/go to work, or do your use your mornings? I don't remember.. you switched your hours so you work out in the morning, was it?

[67alecto]

Easiest way to become an early riser - have kids.

My kids, regardless of what we did the day before, are up at dawn the next day.

Sleeping in, for me, is between 7:00-7:30 on the days when my daughter decides to amuse herself in her room for awhile instead of immediately running in and jumping on my head.

Beyond that, I had a job where I had to get to run system maintenance, reports, backups, etc before everyone got to work. I was working something like 4:00am-1:00pm. It took a long time to get used to that schedule, and just about as long to get off of it.

[spezzy]

Cool, Tparker! I read on Marks Daily Apple that people can set their internal clocks like that. Exercising in the morning is the biggest appeal for me. I end up doing it @ 11:00 p.m. half the time.

Nice, Spezzy. Do you just get ready/go to work, or do your use your mornings? I don't remember.. you switched your hours so you work out in the morning, was it?

Before I switched my hours I would try to get in 45 minutes of cardio in the morning, so I'd get up, go to the gym, and then go to work.

Now I'm going to be doing my weights in the morning, but its the same idea.

I've found that if I get everything ready the night before, I can get up, grab my stuff, hop in my car and go. The first week is PAINFUL, but after that you just do it out of habit. I actually have found that on weekends, when I don't HAVE to be anywhere, I'm still up and at the gym at 7:30, because my body is programmed to just get up, hop in the car, and go to the gym.

I do something active EVERY morning, including off days, even if its a quick 15 minute cardio session in my apartment (I could write out my 'quick no equipment morning cardio routine' for you if you're interested). I've found that this wakes me up and gets me energized better than anything else.

[Dantes]

Consistency always seems to help.

If your continuously waking up at 7am then your body will keep waking you up at 7pm instinctively.

That being said, it helps if you go too bed earlier as well.

If you live in an area that isn't to urban you could try leaving your curtains open and letting the natural light wake you.

Or, Automatic timed curtain openers. (Have these been invented? If so I want some.)

Shut when you go to sleep, they open to wake you up.

[hotacidbath]

I get up at 6:30 everyday and in the past month I've only been woken up by alarm clock once. It has gotten to the point where I just naturally wake up at 6:29 and I'm able to hop up, turn my alarm off, and go about my morning. For me, it's just something I've trained myself to do and now it's to the point where it is physically impossible for me to sleep past 8:00 no matter how hard I try. I've always been a morning person though. I'm not sure the best way to go about it except for simply waking up early everyday until your internal clock figures out what's happening and decides that's the routine.