If you think waking up early is impossible because you have tried in the past, you are wrong: Today, I will share with you how I managed to transform from being the kind of night owl who would hate to Wake up early, to becoming the kind of early riser who no longer needs an alarm to wake up at 5 am.

Before I share with you two simple steps that will help you finally change your sleeping habits, lets first calculate your ideal bedtime, by answering these two questions:

1. By what time do you want to be awake, every morning?
2. How much sleep do you need to function at your best?

Most research studies claim that people need at least 7-8 hours to function at their best. This means that if I want to wake up at 5:00 AM, I would have to be asleep by 10 pm, latest.

Before you continue reading, please calculate your ideal sleeping time.

Okay, I can already hear you moaning that there is no way you can go to sleep before midnight!

That is why I have to introduce you to my two-step process, which I call the Browsing Buster Strategy.

This is how it works.

Step 1: Know your WHY:

First of all, you really need to know why we would want to torture ourselves with waking up earlier:

Without a good WHY, you will not be able to follow through with new sleeping patterns, especially once your friends will start making fun of you when you stop joining them for late video game nights or pull faces when you leave a party early.

So what is the benefit of going to bed by 10 pm?

For me, it’s the freedom I get from completing a lot of high-value activities in the morning and then creating valuable time for myself and for my family without feeling tired or exhausted. Thanks to waking up at 5 am, I am able to combine running a successful career with being a loving husband and dad and with having time for myself as well!

What is your reason?

Step 2: Create your bedtime routine

Once you have a clear WHY you are ready for step 2.

This is the practical part.

We want to create a bedtime ritual, whereby we go to sleep at the same time, every weekday, and dedicate a few minutes beforehand to slow down get us into a sleepy mood.

But let’s start off easy:

For the first week, plan to go to bed and wake up just 30 minutes earlier than what you are used to.  So if you usually go to sleep at midnight and wake up at 8 am, try closing your lights by 11:30 pm and getting up by 7:30 am.

Once you have completed the first week, you can then gradually add another 30 minutes every week, until you hit your ideal sleeping time. In this way, the whole process becomes more manageable.

OK, now let’s speak about what you should be doing before you go to bed so you can actually make this work.

Most people get into what I call a ‘’browsing loop’’, which looks something like this:

You go to bed and want to sleep, but before you do, you check your phone one more time for emails and text messages. Once you have answered everyone, you take a final look at social media, which triggers new ideas of things you still need to look up.

And that’s when the loop really starts- there is always just one more thing you want to check out, and this is how hours can pass without you even noticing.

And then, even when you finally go to sleep, your brain is still cooking thoughts related to a bad email you received, a text message you were expecting and the horrible news you read. So it takes you another hour to fall asleep, and we are not even considering the nightmares that have prevented you from getting a good night’s sleep.

Just by cutting out this browsing loop, you could probably hit your ideal bedtime, without any further problems, and drastically improve the quality of your sleep.

So that begs the question:

Why do we need to browse before we go to sleep?

The answer is pretty simple.

Most people are horrified with the thought of being left alone with a few moments of silence. This is why we fill every blank moment with browsing, texting or emailing.

Or said differently: We simply can’t stand being alone with our self, and with the many thoughts and worries that might fill up our attention.

It took me time to realize this, but once I did, I also knew that the secret to going to sleep early would be to replace browsing with a more soothing Bedtime Routine.

So here is what I did:

• I put my phone on airplane mode by 9 pm.
• I took a hot shower.
• I spent time doing something relaxing, like reading a book.
• Then I do a short meditation just before going to sleep.

All of a sudden, I would fall asleep almost immediately and sleep like a baby. I also started waking up early without an alarm, and feeling energized and excited.

I know that this kind of bedtime routine might sound a bit overwhelming, so here is how I would start:

Just create a 10- minute routine that includes closing down your phone and doing some kind of short meditation to slow down your thinking and help you feel more relaxed..

You will immediately reap the benefits.

So give it a try and follow through with just two simple things:

• Go to sleep and wake up 30 minutes earlier.
• Replace browsing time with a bedtime routine.

I’d love to hear from you how it goes by sharing it below in the comment section!

Warm regards,

–    Allon

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