To wake up at the time of your choice is a super-power not many of us have but it is something that can be developed. Several scientists, psychologists, and researchers have analyzed brain patterns, human psychology, and behavioral metrics to understand what it takes to form the sustainable habit of waking up at the intended time.
How to wake up early
1. Don’t pull the trigger, identify it
Before we try to manage the triggers that make it tough for you to wake up early, it is important to spend little time and effort identifying them. Go through your routine mentally, and find your weakest moments that make it tough for you to get up in the morning. For example, ended up watching too much TV the night before or went to bed on time but could not sleep, it is critical to go through the routine very minutely to identify these triggers and then manage them gradually.
2. Don’t take the leap
Let’s say you’re used to getting up at 8 in the morning. You may one day set an alarm and wake up at 5 am using all your will-power but struggle to do the same next day or day after. The key is to not make it a battle of will-power, you will lose to yourself, it is inevitable! So instead of fighting with yourself at 5 am, try waking up at 7:30 am for a week, then 7 am for the next week and slowly build towards your goal. Take the smaller step towards the goal and don’t take the leap.
3, Give it a break, will you
To err is human and so is to be able to forgive yourself for that lapse in the process of habit formation which happened due to things outside your control. If one day you are not able to wake up on time or unable to manage that trigger effectively enough, do not go on a guilt trip that all is lost and you now have to start from scratch. Keep some room mentally to forgive yourself and get yourself back on track on the path to waking up at the desired time
4. Give yourself not so gentle reminders
Always keep reminding yourself the benefits of waking up early and if possible write them down using a pen and paper. There is no better way to motivate yourself than to reinforce the benefit of the task at hand. Make sure the prompts to tell you’re doing something that helps you are explicit, loud and not gentle. This is absolutely critical to sustain.
5. Switch to Swish, an NLP technique
Swish is a neuro-linguisting programming (NLP) technique, performed in 3 steps. Deeply visualise yourself sleeping till late and still waking up tired. Next visualise yourself waking up early and doing things you’ve always wanted but did not have time for. End this with an image of yourself in an extremely positive and accomplished state. This is a great way to program the brain to say this is what we want and not that.
