How to Wake Up at 5 am and Not Be Tired

I wake up at 5:15 am every morning and besides the initial few minutes, I’m not tired. If I’m being honest with you, I never thought I could do this. I was never a morning person and I used to wake up around 11 am when I was in college. If you want to wake up at 5 am every morning and not be tired, it’s possible. Here are a few things that work for me.

What are the benefits of waking up at 5 am?

There is a lot of good that can come from waking up at 5 am each morning. Here are a few benefits you can receive from starting this new practice.

• Less distraction in the morning means you can be more productive and focus on important projects.
• You’ll be able to sleep better at night because you were up earlier and you spent your day productively.
• You can see the sunrise. There’s something so beautiful about being awake to see the sun rising in the morning. 
• Since you’re getting up earlier, you have more time to get things done. More time in the day means more success if you use it wisely.
• You can start a morning routine. 

Does waking up earlier affect your mental health?

Waking up earlier can actually help your mental health. According to a recent study, people’s sleep and waking preferences can affect their mental well-being. Researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder and the Channing Division of Network Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston investigated the relationship between sleep and waking preferences and the risk of depression. The early risers had a 12 to 27% lower risk of depression than “intermediate” participants, who woke up at an average time. Late sleepers, on the other hand, had a 6% higher risk of developing depression. This doesn’t mean that you’ll automatically be depressed just because you sleep late but it does mean that you may have better mental well-being if you wake up early. 

How to wake up at 5 am and not be tired?

Have a plan for the morning

If you want to get up early and not be tempted to go back to bed, you need to have a plan for how you’ll spend the morning. There’s no use getting up early if you’re not going to do anything during that time. Personally, I get up early to spend quiet time with God, have extra time getting ready for work, and work on the blog. When I first started getting up early, I literally wrote down what I would do each morning and how much time I would spend. It was really helpful.

Prep the night before

Preparation is key. If you want to have a successful morning, you need to eliminate decision fatigue. Decision fatigue happens when we’re faced with too many decisions. It can actually exhaust us because our brain is doing more work than it needs to. There’s no need to be making a ton of decisions early in the morning. Put your schedule on autopilot by preparing the night before. If you want an easy checklist to help you prepare for the morning, click here.

Keep your phone across the room

This is super helpful. If you want to get up earlier, put your phone somewhere across the room so you have to physically get up and walk to turn off your alarm. It’s much harder to hit snooze when you’re already up. 

Set ONE alarm and whatever you do, DON’T HIT SNOOZE

I am so guilty of setting multiple alarms in case I accidentally turn off the first one and go back to sleep. However, that isn’t helpful at all. You’re actually training your body to have a backup just in case you don’t get up at the first alarm. When you have a backup, you’ll use it. When I hit snooze or fall back on my second and third alarms, I end up sleeping in an extra thirty minutes to an hour for no reason. I get that you’re probably a little tired those first few minutes, so here’s what you can do instead. Turn off your alarm and then go sit somewhere for a bit to help you wake up. If you go back to your bed, minutes will suddenly turn to hours and you don’t want that. 

Turn the lights on 

Trust me, and turn the lights on. The lights in your home mimic the sun signaling to your brain that it’s time to be awake. If you turn the lights on immediately after waking up, you’ll feel much less tired than if you keep the lights off.

Drink a cold glass of water with lemon 

Lemon is known to help boost your energy and enhance your mood. Cold water helps to wake you up. Drinking a cold glass of water with lemon can instantly wake you up if you’re still feeling tired.

Be consistent 

If you want to wake up earlier every morning, be consistent. Your body will get used to your routine if you stick to it. It won’t necessarily be easy but it will definitely be doable. 

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Waking up at 5 am has many incredible benefits. It’s not easy and you may just want to go back to sleep sometimes but if there’s an important reason why you want to get up earlier, let that be your motivation when it gets hard. Believe you can and you’re halfway there. Remember, we can do all things through Christ who gives us strength. If you want to start a new habit, you definitely can as long as you make the effort and stick to it each day!