If I had to name one of my biggest life struggles, it would be waking up in the morning. Now that I am a consultant by career, I have started applying the consulting strategies myself. I am my own consultant and client. Now, as a client, my challenge is waking up in the morning. As a consultant, my job is to fix that by providing effective solutions. As this has been a struggle for years, I have naturally applied multiple solutions to this already. I have also made notes with each strategy and heavily analyzed which method works and which doesn't. So today, I will focus on sharing those strategies to help elevate your mental health and lifestyle.
Why Do I Want to Wake Up Early?
As consultants, we are taught that the first step to every problem is to figure out the need or the why behind the problem/use case. So why do I want to wake up earlier in the morning? I have multiple reasons:
I want to give myself that peaceful time in the morning before work where I can focus on myself and possibly read a couple of pages of a book after the morning prayer (fajr) instead of rushing to get ready for my first meeting.
I also want to have a proper breakfast or at least a routine to get my day started.
I want to be more productive and know my ideal sleep time to function better throughout the day.
I want to learn more skills or start a side hustle to learn about my interests outside of work.
Nothing is more embarrassing than people at work in a group setting asking you, "What is a fun fact about you?" and you reply, " Well, I don't really have any hobbies, but I like to sleep a lot". It might have been me recently🙃
How My Mornings Look Like Now and In The Past
If someone intrudes on my phone, my biggest fear will be them looking through my alarms. I am one of those who have alarms every five minutes and end up snoozing all of them. No phones have ever been harmed in the mornings, just an FYI. All I do is set up five alarms five to fifteen minutes apart, sleep through two, and snooze or shut the rest of them.
I give myself this motivational speech every night. "I will start my hustle grind early in the morning, finally tomorrow". Then my first alarm rings, and I immediately remember why I needed that motivational speech in the first place.
When you don't know your ideal sleep time, you often wake up in the middle of a REM cycle, which impacts your energy levels throughout the day. I experience crashes that even coffee can't fix. The only solution is a twenty-minute nap. After that, I drink two glasses of water and return to work. To remedy this further, the consultant in me suggested wearing an apple watch to bed and tracking sleep with an app. This app gives me detailed data on how often I woke up during the night, how often I had a deep or light sleep, how long it took to go to bed, and my overall sleep score. Once I have a month-long data, I will further consult about this.
In the past, people have also suggested that I just get up and go to the bathroom. This will wake me up. But sadly, I have gone back to bed even after brushing my teeth. So that won't cut it. We need a better solution.
Some Other Strategies On the List
So there is a list of things my consultant shared with me that I have yet to try. Here are some of them:
Turn on lights automatically at the wake-up time using a smart device
Use a gentler wake-up alarm
Actually, sleep the recommended amount of eight hours instead of cutting corners
Don't snooze. Immediately get out of bed at the sound of the alarm
Adjusting the alarm to a different time
Commit and have a reason to wake up early
My Current Routine
At the moment, my morning routine only involves two alarms that are five minutes apart. One at 6:25 and another at 6:30. Those five minutes are for me to check my phone, and by the time the 6:30 alarm rings, I'm supposed to be ready to leave the bed. Honestly, it's been pretty effective so far. I also wake up and drink some water. Another piece I will start this week will be having Alexa turn on the lights for me at wake-up time. Let's see how this turns out, and I'll let you know.
Thanks for reading, see you next time, Peace🤲🏼
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