The world belongs to those who wake up early is a phrase that we have all heard but with all the amazing series that you can binge watch at present on Netflix, waking up early would only be possible if we didn’t go to bed at all!
I am determined to find the perfect wake up time that will give me the best results in terms of productivity during the day as well as plenty of happiness.
After reading many books on the subject, watching plenty of podcast and reading articles online, I decide to investigate further 3 possible wake up time. The ones that I shortlisted seemed to have the best reviews and many people were swearing by them.
The first one which is also the earliest wake up time of the 3 techniques follows the morning routine of the Dalai Lama.
THE DALAI LAMA
At 86 and arguably one of the busiest people in the world, he still finds time to practice a nourishing morning routine for body and soul. His routine lasts 6 hours! He wakes up at 3 a.m. Yes, you have read well 3 o’clock in the morning!
After a morning shower, he begins his day with prayers, meditations and prostrations until 5 a.m. Then, he takes a short morning walk around his home. If it is raining outside, he has a treadmill to use for his walk. I'll be honest, personally I hate to exercise. Which is why one of the things that surprised me the most is that the Dalai Lama is exercising every morning. He often jogs on his treadmill, which is even more surprising given his age. Many of us claim that we are too busy to exercise, that we just can't get by. But here's an 86-year-old man with an incredibly busy schedule who wakes up at three in the morning and jogs - rain or shine. It also makes one think about the excuse many of us use, "I'm too busy to exercise or meditate.” During his morning routine, the Dalai Lama plants many seeds through prayers, meditations, exercises and prostrations. This seeds then ripen into positive qualities that makes him the wonderful person that he is.
You will tell me "Yes but I am not the Dalai Lama, I'm a normal person with kids to bring to school, bills to pay, and I'd rather sleep 3 to 4 hours longer than exercise and meditate. I get it too, so this is why I explored a second technique based on an ancient Indian Ayurvedic technique.
AYURVEDIC RITUAL
In India, the ancient Ayurvedic ritual called Brahma Muhurta helps you synchronized your body rhythm to the movement of the sun by making you wake up 45 to 60 minutes before dawn. Dawn is roughly 90 minutes before sunrise and its time obviously vary during the year and is earlier in Summer. The belief during this technique is that there is a lot of energy in the atmosphere around dawn and there is a second energy boost 30 minutes before sunrise that will awake your consciousness and channel itself through your body. It is the perfect time to focus on your intentions for the day, meditate and receive answers to your questions.
If you are not use to wake at such an early time that most would normally consider the middle of the night or start of the night if you have been busy catching up with the latest serie on Netflix, maybe the third technique I looked into is maybe the right one for you.
THE 5 AM CLUB
The method described by the Canadian author, Robin Sharma, in his worldwide bestseller with a self-explanatory title “The 5am Club”. In this amazing book, he explains how most billionaire on the planet follow a particular morning routine that starts at … you have guessed 5am every morning. I can imagine you already giving up as you reading those lines as you would not even wake up at 5am to catch the preview of the long awaited 5th season of “Money Heist” on Netflix.
A 2 HOURS WINDOW
I am not myself a morning person, but I really wanted to start creating my personal morning routine to take back the control of my time, reduce my stress level and start to enjoy more time during the day to do things that I love. After checking how long I need to practice my perfect morning routine, I realized that I needed to wake up 2 hours before my first appointment if I stay home thanks to the lockdown or 2 hours before I need to leave the house if I need to go somewhere. I used a progressive method to manage the transition. For about a week, I went to bed 15 minutes earlier than the day before and woke up 15 minutes earlier than the day before. After 8 days I was waking up an amazing 2 hours earlier and was ready to face the world stress-free thanks to a great routine.
DON'T PROCRASTINATE
As a mom, this method gives me 1 hour to myself in the house with total peace and quiet and the opportunity to have a shower without having a knock on the door from my daughter to tell me something urgent and super important like “Wonder Woman came to see me in my dreams to ask me to help her with finding her invisible plane”!
So whatever your motivation is to wake up earlier, don’t procrastinate about it and just start by going to bed 15 minutes earlier tonight and you will soon be picking up the rewards from this new habit.