I woke up at 5am for 30 days

Oh [Music] early in my career as a freelancer I was a late-night worker not not like a prostitute I would just procrastinate through the day and so I couldn't put off my work any longer I'd often be up past 2:00 a.m. it was until I started living with my partner Natalie that I decided to shape my schedule around hers it's at that point that I fell in love with early mornings there's something special about watching the Sun Rise with a cup of coffee even in a city like Los Angeles things seem to go quiet in the morning well not all the time I usually wake up between 6:00 and 7:00 a.m. but my schedule fluctuates I wondered how much more productive could I be if I force myself to wake up at 5:00 a.m. every single day for 30 days how much more could I get done how would it change my life it didn't go as planned so I'm gonna be setting up my alarm for the 30 days of waking up at 5 a.m. how many hours of sleep do you need each night we're gonna go with 8 hours so my plan is to go to bed 9 p.m. every night let's see how this works out getting a bed by 9 p.m. isn't isn't a problem I'm getting kind of old anyway and that and I for a long time we're going to bed around 9 o'clock so this is nothing new waking up early isn't an excuse to neglect sleep the research is clear the serious consequences of getting less than 7 hours of sleep per night is severe according to Matthew Walker's best-selling book why we sleep the shorter you sleep the shorter your lifespan the old maxim I'll sleep when I'm dead is therefore unfortunate adopt this mindset and you will be dead sooner and the quality of that shorter life will be worse the real challenge here isn't waking up at 5:00 a.m. it's getting 8 hours of sleep there was an adjustment period for the first week it was a bit like jet lag and my sleep quality wasn't the greatest for the first couple of nights I had to get used to going to bed at a different time than that but after a couple days I felt a lot more like myself and my morning started to get a lot more productive then I had to deal with the real jet lag I'm heading home to New Jersey which is three-hour time difference so just as I finally got adjusted to these early mornings now I'm gonna have to completely reset this is probably going to be the biggest test so far [Music] what's that yeah LAX that's right Alaska Airlines I never would leave an apartment with a banana as is a rule of mine never leave an apartment with no it's not because then you have the skin then you have to get rid of and then you just hold onto it for 45 minutes exactly 45 I'm having a dilemma there's nowhere to sleep I'm supposed to be sleeping on that couch right there Oh perfect thank you mom appreciate it I see so it's just past 11:00 now finally get into bed I'm getting no sleep tonight if there's one thing I've learned about habit change it's that life gets in the way when you least expect it life will punch you in the face and that's what happened with my trip home multiple late nights hanging out with my family combined with jet lag and I struggled to get quality sleep so it's just past 9:00 right now and this is I just found out that this is daylight savings time it's been a long time since I've experienced sleep deprivation but that night in particular hit me hard over my first two days in New Jersey I got a total of nine hours of sleep and it completely changed my personality very few times very few times it's that low you weren't just upset and you were so frustrated I decided to catch up with my sleep and snooze past 5:00 a.m. two times during the trip and this is what happens to me all the time when I try to wake up early or if I try to build a habit I try to start exercising eventually something's gonna happen you're gonna get sick you're gonna travel you're gonna go on vacation and you're gonna get jet lag and you're not gonna be able to keep up with the same exact routine that you've been trying to build this was just a reminder that I need to put my health and my wellness first above this religious dedication to an arbitrary challenge after getting back to LA it took another week until I started to get into a rhythm again and travel wasn't completely to blame so finally after about 20 days of waking up at 5:00 a.m. and after a really unproductive week one of the most unproductive weeks that I've had in a while I started to build a bit of a morning routine here at 5:00 a.m. that works for me and a part of that is by 5:30 a.m. I'm on my way to go to the gym to get a workout in and I found that since the Sun at least right now it doesn't rise until 7 a.m. it's really difficult for me to feel motivated to feel like I have the energy to do really creative work first thing in the morning so if I go to the gym I can get more energy I feel good I've gotten something personal for myself done at the beginning of the day and then by the time I get home and shower around then the sun's starting to come up and I can make a cup of coffee and I'm ready to actually get to work so it turns out that waking up at 5:00 a.m. every day did change my life it just happened to be in a negative way well I did have about 7 hours and 53 minutes in bed every night I didn't get 8 hours of sleep in fact it usually takes me about 30 minutes to get to sleep so I probably got much less than I needed I noticed that my energy levels weren't as high as normal and while I did eventually put together a routine that worked for me going to the gym in the morning and then eventually getting to work by 7 a.m. I did I wasn't any more productive than I normally am and there was just too much that I sacrificed you can you can ask Natalie I mean she sacrificed a little bit too I thought I was complete bull I'm exhausted why are you exhausted because been waking me up for him every morning I did not opt into this challenge next month with meditation yes I'm rather excited to do that with you this was another challenge I opted into I was forced into one of the things that I love most about running my own business is having a flexible schedule I'm glad that I experimented with this ridiculously strict 30-day challenge because I know that I'm actually not missing out on anything and I'm excited to get back to my regular routine of waking up between 6 or 7 a.m. because well life can get in the way thanks for watching do you want to join me for future 30-day challenges if so subscribe to my newsletter Matt Diavel accom / newsletter there's a link down in the description you can also find out through social media on Instagram and Twitter there's also links down there as well if you want if you enjoy this video if you want to support my channel and if you also want additional content that I don't release anywhere else you can get that at patreon on patreon at patreon.com slash Mandy Avella if you sign up for the exclusive videos tier on patreon you'll get instant access to over twenty videos interviews and podcast episodes with new videos coming every month like my full one-hour interview with essentialist author Greg McEwan get my monthly am a podcast where I answer patron questions about creativity and minimalism and get behind-the-scenes videos on how I make my videos plus it helps me pay the bills and invest back into my videos here on YouTube all for $12 a month thanks for considering and of course if you do not have the money to contribute please do not feel pressured to do so the fact that you watch my videos is enough for me see you next time

Channel: Matt D'Avella

Views: 4,489,685

Rating: 4.8863058 out of 5

Keywords: wake up early, wake up, morning routine, 5am, early, rise, early riser, miracle morning, waking up at 5am

Id: 4fsgqnat758

Length: 9min 24sec (564 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 09 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/S9ulgan]

430am since forever gz

[u/Felwintur]

Never have kids.

[u/davisfamous]

Whiny

[u/KaneinEncanto]

I'm usually just settling into bed by 5am, maybe asleep by then. Evening worker, life tilted 90° off from everyone else. Rough on the mind, but frequently convenient to get things done while most other people are working, if you can get out of bed before noon...