Getting back on track: sleep challenge
Sleep. Everyone knows it‘s important, however, sometimes I think we underestimate how important it can be. At least it seems I clearly did.
If you look a couple of months back, I had my sleeping routine all sorted: wake up early to go to work and then go early to sleep to get some rest, I‘m talking about 10-11 pm. Obviously, there were some deviations, but more or less everything was according to the plan, and productivity was on point.
Now fast forward a couple of months later, my sleeping pattern is a mess. I wake up late, like 10 -11; take naps through the day because I feel tired, and then somehow end up going to bed late, like 12-2 am. And let me tell you, it's no fun.
Because in the mornings I feel like I missed a better part of my day. Instead of doing some work after breakfast, I just procrastinate up until I force myself to be productive for a bit, but more or less I am very distracted. And I do not feel energized whatsoever.
So since I remember how good it felt to get up early and wanted to get back to that flow feeling throughout the day, I decided to do a bit of a reset in my daily routine, and challenged myself to get up at 5 am for a week. And on top of that, I tried to implement new morning rituals – meditation and journaling. So here‘s how my week went:
Day 1: Had an alarm set up for 5. And 5:05. After 2 snoozes got out of bed 5:10; Had a shower, meditation, gratitude journal, 3 pages of journaling, some tidying up. Seems like a brilliant start, and feel like I‘m winning in life already.
Day 2: Well day 2 definitely didn't go as smooth as the first one. After I went to sleep late (just didn‘t realise what time it was), the alarm woke me up at 5, but I was no way getting up in that state. Finally crawled out of bed at 7:20; After morning meditation I was ready to go back to sleep, but writing a gratitude journal and morning pages gave me some motivation and energy. Going to sleep late is definitely not the way forward.
Day 3: Even though I went to sleep a bit past my bedtime, I woke up at 5:00, and even though I hit the snooze button, I jumped out of bed at 5:03. Success. Still continued with my morning routine - shower, meditation, gratitude journal, 2 pages of writing, and a bit of creative work.
Day 4: It was a bit of a fail; only managed to get out of bed at 7:25; was literally sleeping through my meditation, but it got better after I have done some journaling and gratitude journal while listening to the music. So after that, I felt energized, tidied up, and was ready to do some work. Starting to love morning rituals, even though I hate getting up early when I go to sleep late.
Day 5: Because I watched a super interesting documentary about food waste, went to sleep late. Got up at 6:15. Not the best morning mood-wise due to lack of sleep, but happy to do morning rituals.
Days 5&6: because it was the weekend, I cheated and let myself sleep in; however still got up around 8 am.
As you can see, the challenge wasn‘t as successful as I wanted it to be. I clearly didn‘t get up at 5 every morning and wasn‘t always successful in going to bed early. However, I think I‘ve done pretty well, since I have been waking up much earlier altogether, and I can feel my body going back to its natural rhythm.
But I can definitely feel the positive shift in my mentality. I feel much more relaxed and focussed after my morning rituals, as I have some time just for myself before I start working and before the rest of the world wakes up. I structure my tasks better and am more productive throughout the day. And the best part is I definitely feel much more in control of life, which leads to increased happiness levels.
Now I‘m not saying 5 am is the best time to wake up for everyone, definitely not. For some of you, it would be absolute torture, some of you might only be productive evening time. So getting up early and being tired throughout the day and not getting anything done would be counter-productive.
Therefore it is very important to know yourself and your body and structure your days according to it, so you can be happy healthy and build that dream life of yours.
However, I still want to share a couple of tricks I noticed this week, that can help you get your sleeping pattern on track:
Prepare your clothes and anything else you need for the morning the night before: It‘s so much easier to convince yourself to get out of bed when you know you can just put your hand to the side and get dressed, or walk to your table, have a seat, and have all your journals ready in front of you. In other words, it becomes super easy if you can just do things without needing to think much because when you‘re sleepy that‘s the last thing you want to do.
Before sleep, and if you‘re having problems waking up, remember the reason you wanted to get up early, and exciting things that you want to make happen. Thinking about your dreams is definitely the best way to get inspired and make yourself jump of bed with joy.
This one is obvious, but the earlier you go to sleep, the easier it is to wake up early. Your body knows better, so do yourself a favor.
Don‘t eat at least a couple hrs before you go to bed. Nothing worse than having a bad sleep just because you had too much food and were rolling over every 5 mins to find a comfortable position. Let your body rest and recover.
Instead of getting up early and going straight to work or difficult tasks, come up with your morning rituals – time for yourself before the world awakes. Whether it would be meditation, exercise, a cup of coffee and a book, or a bath, do what makes you feel good and ease into the day. When you take care of yourself first, you are more productive as you feel good already.
Open the window before you go to sleep, or sleep with the window open. Nothing better than being comfy snuggled up in a warm blanket and breathing that fresh cool air. Best dreams guaranteed.
Now, these are just a couple of points I mentioned that made my challenge so much easier, so if you find what works for you, please share in the comments!
After this challenge, I will definitely still continue planning my days to start around 5-6 am and do my morning rituals, as it is the best way for me to be productive and feel happier. Starting small is the way to tackle bigger tasks, so if I start my mornings right, I will get things done.
Sleep well and chase your dreams!
