How to wake up early and not feel tired

Early in the morning, wake up feeling tired? Always sleepy, no matter how much sleep you get.

But want to know how to wake up refreshed?

Then, in this article, I will share some of the key ideas that help me wake up every day at 02:30 am with lots of energy and peace of mind to start my day with a bang. 

Let’s explore those ideas without any delay.

1. Find what Chronotype you are

For many people, waking up early in the morning is like a challenge they can never face or want to give a try.

No matter how hard they try, they can’t wake up in the morning. Even if they do, they feel tired like they haven’t slept for many days.

Now, what’s the problem here?

They don’t know their Chronotype. They don’t know that they are the right person to wake up in the morning. Is their body compatible with waking up early?

Think for a second, a programmer who’s working late till 03:00 am, is it possible he/she would be able to wake up at 06:00 am?

Even if he/she manages to wake up early, he/she would feel no energy in the morning.

So, for people with this kind of situation, I’d suggest, don’t try to wake up early. Just try to complete your sleeping hours. 

However, it’s still important that you find your chronotype because who knows you’re working late in the night with the wrong type.

For humans, or perhaps in animals, there are 4 types of chronotype. But in this article, we’re only going to discuss 2 types that are:-

1. Lion – This means you’re a person who can wake up early in the morning and feel very good about it.
2. Wolf – Your body isn’t abatable to wake up early and do the squats. You’re much more productive in the night and evening and find the morning for relaxation. 

Now, how to choose what chronotype you are. Simple, if you like to work, exercise, or do some creative work in the morning, then you’re a Lion chronotype person. Whereas, if you like to do the activities mentioned above in the evening or night, then you’re a Wolf chronotype.

However, knowing these 2 chronotypes won’t help you completely wake up early in the morning.

The 2nd essential thing you need with these is that you know your productivity time as well. Meaning when and what hours you’re more energetic.

For instance, I like to work out and do other self-development activities at night. Not completely night, but when people are sleeping, the environment has calmness. And for my office work, I like to do it in the morning till the sun goes down.

Therefore, to manage all these, I wake up at 02:30 and follow the following schedule, 

2. Prepare your mornings in the evening

If you don’t know what you’re going to do in the morning, then it will be hard for you to leave your bed.

It’s important to know what gets you out of bed in the morning.

So, you can, for real, make an effort to get up early.

Just remember, when you’re a kid, how exciting it was to wake up on the day of Christmas. Nothing can stop you from waking early. Because you wanted to see your gifts. You had a purpose behind your waking up.

Perhaps, you aren’t a Christian, but I believe there were some moments in your life when you were a kid, you were excited to wake up.

For instance, when your school is going on a picnic. Your parents have decided to spend the week at your grandparent’s house. And more, I believe you had those moments in your life. 

Now the question is how you’re going to do it—preparing your mornings in the evening. You can read multiple tips about this on the internet, but the 2 points below are enough to rule them all.

a. Make a schedule

Write a clear and concise schedule that would eliminate the distractions and value the priorities.

Ensure you include when to wake up, what to do after waking when to take breaks, and finally when to go to bed in the evening.

Once you made this schedule, comment to yourself that you’ll respect it. You’ll follow it. Because without respecting your plan, you can’t remain the discipline. So, make sure of it.

b. Make a determination

Once you made the schedule, have a pep talk with yourself. Remind loud enough the tasks you’ve mentioned on the list. Remind yourself 3 or 4 times that you’re going to wake up early and what’s the purpose behind it.

Why you want to wake up and why it’s important for you.

Not in a silly way but more consciously. Like you start to shout like when we’re on the top of the mountain.

Instead, make the determination either in the bed or having a short walk. I do it while taking a short walk before going to bed.

And it does help.

We become more concerned about this thing. When we try to wake up in the mornings, some part of our pep talk remains in our mind, and we simply get up. 

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3. Sleep early to wake up early

There’s no doubt about it. If you want to wake up early in the morning with energy for all day, you have to sleep early. Early, early and early. 

But like waking up in the morning, sleeping is a challenge too.

And in today’s world, it has become more challenging than ever before. Because now, we’re surrounded by numerous things that disrupt our brain and don’t let us sleep early.

Even if we get into bed early, we simply can’t sleep at the right time to wake up at the right time. Things have become super hard; however, it doesn’t mean we cannot overcome them.

We can, and the following points can help you sleep early. 

a. Make early sleeping the main task of your day

Doing so, you’ll remind your mind over and over that you have to sleep early.

You will keep yourself out of the chaos and other distractions to get into the bed at the right time.

You’ll finish your task and job at the right time and be ready to sleep early to wake up early.

b. No Caffeine after 2 pm

A study shows that late hours of caffeine can reduce our time of sleep.

Meaning if you want to go to sleep early, then you’ll struggle with it.

Therefore, it’s required for you to not take any caffeinated beverages after 2 pm.

If you’re still unable to help yourself with caffeine intake, then you can watch the below video,

c. No nap after 3 pm

Just like caffeine intake, a short sleep provides energy to your brain to help you work better for extended hours.

However, similar to caffeine intake, if you take a nap at the wrong time, i.e., in the evening, you may find it hard to sleep early. Because as time passes, our body starts to lose energy.

It’s all controlled by our internal cycle, which is also known as the Circadian rhythm.

During the entire day, our body’s temperature rises and falls down, and with that decreases the energy as well.

And when we take a short sleep, it boosts the energy. Once the energy is raised, we find it hard to sleep at night.

So, avoid late hours or evening short sleep. (A short sleep or nap in the evening is helpful if you’re sleeping in phases. Read more about this in the 6th point.) 

d. Dinner early

Our body digests food in 6 hours, and it’s done better when we’re asleep.

So, if somehow you’re not able to complete your sleep hours and want to wake up early, then the food you ate early won’t create any indigestion problems — like Fatigue, Chest pain, and Nausea — and you don’t feel like you wake up tired. 

To understand this point clearly, assume that you sleep at 11 pm, and want to wake up at 03 am.

Now the amount of sleep you’d take is 4 hours, and if you’ve eaten the food before sleeping like at 10:30 pm, then the amount of time your body gets for digestion is like 04:30 hours. Not enough.

However, if you eat early, like at 8 or 9 pm, then your body will have the right amount of digestion time, which is 7 or 6 hours, respectively, even if you have fewer sleeping hours later.

e. No electronic devices in the bedroom

The blue light that smartphones and other electronic devices emit charges our nerves & make it difficult for us to sleep early.

Look at your screen and close your eyes for a moment.

You’ll see a bright yellow light in your eyes and find it hard to sleep or even remain your eyes closed. It (the blue light) delays the release of sleep-inducing melatonin — the sleep hormone — our brain and body have to connect with each other and deliver sleep messages through the nervous system.

When we use our smartphones, we have light in front of us, which always causes melatonin to not get produced.

So, we simply find ourselves unable to fall asleep.

Therefore, to sleep early, it’s best to leave our mobile phones out of the bedroom.

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4. Sleep around 6 to 8 hours

It’s recommended. An adult needs 6 to 8 hours of sleep. And if you’re a teen, then to wake up early and not feel tired, get around 9 1/4 hours sleep.

This can all be achieved if you follow the above early sleep points. Our mind and body need energy, and for humans, energy comes from recovery.

However, a single long hour of sleep isn’t necessary because many individuals follow an infrequent lifestyle that requires them to wake up more and sleep for less time. You’ll know about this more in the latter point 6.

5. Do some light exercise before sleep

How do you sleep on those days when you feel tired. I guess you fall asleep as soon as you lie down on your bed. Why? Because your brain and body muscles were out of energy, and they require a quick recharge.

So, this is how a light exercise before going to bed will help you fall asleep early. Studies 1,2 & 3 have found it useful to get a better goodnight’s sleep. But keep some things in mind,

a. Do it 1 hour before your sleep time. Like if you want to sleep at 09:00 pm, then your exercise should end at 08:00 pm.

b. Don’t overwhelm yourself and your body with a high-intensity workout. 

c. Grab dinner with less gap in your exercise time, like 15 mins before or 10 mins after.

d. If possible, walk rather than do any muscle training. A walk for 20 minutes a day is enough for you to remain healthy. And you can find this time in the evening before sleep as your opportunity to get healthy.

6. Follow Circadian Rhythm

People are stubborn, right?

Do you agree with that?

Even after finding their chronotype as Wolf, they still want to wake up early. Or perhaps you’re the right person to wake up early, but your responsibilities don’t let you sleep early in the evening. So, how you’re going to wake up then? How you’re going to make peace with your chronotype.

I’ll tell you how. There’s a little science behind it. And which is, following a circadian rhythm. 

Meaning our body’s temperature adjusts according to the sun’s movement. When we wake up early, energy and temperature are high. As the day passes our energy slowly starts to decrease. And when we don’t sleep for the right amount of time, we don’t have the energy to go all day.

So, in this type of scenario, it’s good to follow the circadian rhythm. 

Just like footballers, pilots, and night guards sleep in phases. Footballers take 90min sleep for more than 4 to 5 times a day. In this way, they recover better and keep their energy for the whole day and its purpose.

So, if you’re someone who can’t sleep at night early and still want to wake up early without any tiredness in the morning, then short naps are good. You don’t have to take a long sleep of 7-8 hours; do it in crunches. You can take 4 naps of 90 mins, and the other can be of 20 to 30 mins.

In this way, the same as football players, you’ll be able to wake up whenever you want and keep up the energy for the whole day.

7. Keep your alarm away from the bed

Sleep is tricky, and we’re doing it for decades, and we can’t change our sleeping patterns with just an alarm clock. And for sure if it’s set near our bed. When it buzzes, and when we turn it off, we don’t even remember it.

Snoozing the alarm is another thing we do when we are awake and don’t want to get out of bed. In heavy sleep, turning off the alarm is like we did it as we were sleepwalking.

So, how are we going to overcome this challenge? 

Simply put the alarm clock as far as you can from the bed, and you can listen to the clock’s buzz sound clearly.

In India, we have Roshandan (skylight window) in each room above the entrance gate, so I simply put my alarm clock there. When to turn it off, I need a chair to get there.

So, after putting it there, I take all the chairs out of my room. So, whenever it buzzes in the morning, I have to turn the light on, then go outside (my room is on the roof), bring the chair, and turn the alarm off. 

With this effort, my sleep goes away, and I get up at my best. One extra thing I do in the winter is that I sleep with fewer clothes, so I need to wear them back to go outside.

The time I wear my clothes, my sleep completely goes away. I believe you, too, have some places in your room that are far from the bed and where you can set the alarm clock for 4 am, 5 am, 6 am, or whatever time you call it early morning. If you’re an Indian, then I believe you know what Roshandan is.

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8. Rub your palms

As soon as you wake up in the morning, to entirely awake your system, rub your palms together.

In this way, you’ll produce energy and heat in the palms, then put them on your face. Your eyes, face, and head would feel the energy and heat you’ve produced, and the nerves that were still in the phase of rebooting will get a charge and quickly become active.

Your mind will receive this energy, and you’ll come to your senses in seconds. You’ll be awake more than ever. 

This technique was shared by Jaggi Vasudev, also known publicly as Sadhguru. He’s an Indian yogi and author, and you can read more about the science behind rubbing your hands in the morning by him on this link.

9. Drink light warm water

When we sleep for around 6 to 8 hours, multiple things happen.

And from those, one is that our body doesn’t get any water, and it produces several amounts of toxic. Our brain is about 75% of water, and when we don’t drink water during our sleeping hours, it faces a shortage. So, when we wake up, it doesn’t function on a full reserve of water.

Therefore, it simply can’t think faster, be more focused, and be energetic. It’s another form of dehydration. 

However, when we drink a glass of warm or normal water after we get up in the morning, we simply provide our brain with the amount of water it needs to function at its best.

Moreover, the toxicity our body produces in the brain and other parts of our body also gets detoxed with the help provided by the morning water to the liver and kidneys.

So, if you want to wake up early and not feel tired, then a glass of water can help you be like that. Moreover, there are other health benefits of drinking water in the morning.

It’s essential and beneficial for us if we want to remain healthy more of the time.

Nevertheless, when you start to drink water in the morning, save yourself from myths surrounding the internet about detoxification and everything related to it.

10. Mediate

By following the above points, you’ve woke up early and charged your mind to function at its best and for the best.

However, you’re still one step away from totally waking up and having the clarity for the entire day. And meditation provides clarity and other essential aspects like calmness, focus, stress relief, and a better you.

Sometimes life doesn’t work as we like it to. And during those moments, waking up is pretty hard. However, somehow with determination, we get up early, but the problems we are facing don’t let us remain focused and stress-free. 

Therefore, for those moments, it’s very important that we know how to guide our minds in the right direction.

We know how to train it for both the hard and better times of our life. And meditation is the only way to help us face those times without getting an appointment with the doctor.

So, during your hard times, meditation is the key that can help you wake up early and not feel tired.

11. Repeat all these for 45 days

To establish a new habit, you require 21 days straight. But 21 days alone can’t help you much.

I have followed many habits for 21 days, but after that, I was able to break them again. So, if you wake up early in the morning for the next 21 days, there’s only 50% certainty that you’ll do it for the remaining years of your life.

Therefore, to solid-state your early morning routine, you have to do it for the next 45 days—the first 21 days to adopt that habit and the next 24 days to adopt that 21 days routine.

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I hope the information I’ve shared above would help you wake up early and not feel tired. Try it for the next 45 days, and let me know what your experience was, does it works or if whatever I mentioned is not worth it at all. Well, it worked for me, and I hope it should work in your case as well. I have put all this information from experience as well after doing so much research, so it should work.

Moreover, if you have any suggestions or something you want me to write about, you can contact me without hesitation. You can also join our free newsletter to get these self-help articles right into your inbox. 

Apart from this, I believe you might want to read more self-help articles, then you can try to articles that my brother has put here.

1. True definition of success in life & how to achieve it in simple steps
2. How to be patient in the face of impatience?
3. Seven benefits of all the small things in life

Thank you

Nathawat Brothers 

Putting thoughts for everyone

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Cover image from — freepik