- Honesty, I'm such a morning person Lou.
(laughs)
It's like (comical noise) all my ideas are happening now.
I've been sleeping through my best hours.
I woke up at 5 a.m. for 30 days and it almost broke me.
But that was never the plan.
5 a.m. was supposed to be the starting point
to a healthy morning routine,
waking up earlier, working out, getting more work done
and most of all, beating the heat.
- An intense heat wave across much of Europe.
- Have put July on course to be the hottest month
in recorded history.
- [Anchorman] And in Greece, 100 people lost their lives
in wildfires last year.
- [Man] 43 degrees Celsius.
- [Woman] And it's going to get even hotter.
- All people have to be conscious about this heat wave.
- [Dana] You see, my husband Lou and I live in a van.
This is our 38-year-old Mercedes 307D.
Van life is great, but trying to work inside a van
when its 105 degrees outside is tricky.
- Oh my God, it's so hot out!
- [Dana] So that's when we decided to create
a new productive morning routine starting at 5 a.m.
when the world is quiet and peaceful,
and it's still nice and cool outside.
(inspirational music)
- [Dana] Five o'clock.
5:05 too?
- [Lou] Probably 5:10 just to be safe.
- [Dana] 5:10.
I'm putting three in.
- Okay tomorrow is the first day of waking up at 5 a.m. Lou.
- [Lou] (exhales) Wow.
- It's already 8:30 now and we haven't had dinner
so I feel like our
evening routine is off to a horrible start
to wake up at 5 a.m.
But I'm really excited, like I need this.
(alarm rings)
- [Dana] Our first 5 a.m. wake up was rough.
So rough, we forgot to turn on the microphone on our camera.
I can't say I felt any of the benefits of waking up early
that first morning.
We tried to establish a healthy morning routine,
meditating like we do everyday for 20 minutes,
then sprayed lavender to help calm down
from the shock of the 5 a.m. alarm.
And attempted to enjoy the fact that waking up early
meant that it was finally nice and cold in the van.
The world was asleep but we were awake.
We knew day one of the 30 day challenge would be tough.
But as we setup our standing desk that morning on July 23rd,
I could tell that waking up at 5 a.m. everyday,
would help make this the most productive month ever.
- Well I'm already loving it Lou.
- [Lou] Yeah?
- Yeah, it's so nice.
It's like, I think it's 7:30 now
and we already had a full morning, the sun has risen
and I think I'm gonna love this challenge.
- [Lou] I'm not so sure.
- About me or about you?
- [Lou] About me!
(laughs)
- [Dana] To be fair, Lou's not really a morning person.
But me, well, I had some extra incentive
to wake up at 5 a.m. every day.
My mission for the next 30 days was to finish writing
our eBook, "Live Creatively", which meant I needed to write
about 100 pages this month.
- which is like 3 pages a day
and already today I haven't done that because I was like
organizing myself but
I don't know, we'll see.
I really would love to finish this challenge
with a finished eBook.
- [Lou] You can do it.
- Yeah?
- [Lou] Yeah.
You just have to write six pages tomorrow now.
- And we're about to hike up a mountain.
(lively music)
- [Lou] Oh my gosh!
- Wow, Ody climbed a good portion of the mountain for us.
- [Dana] Yeah, thank you Ody.
- [Lou] At least we're going to bed a little earlier.
- [Dana] I know, I'm so proud of us.
It is 8:07.
It is weird falling asleep with the
sun still out.
- [Lou] Yeah I never thought I'd be going to bed
at eight o'clock at night.
(laughs)
- I know.
We're like really nerds now.
We don't drink, we only eat vegetables,
now we're going to bed at eight o'clock.
But like when you do stuff like this,
you do feel good.
(reggae music)
- [Dana] Five o'clock.
- [Lou] I don't think so.
- Oh my God.
Lou!
(laughs)
Lou!
- [Lou] Good morning.
- Oh my God I cannot see.
What is that?
- [Lou] Flashlight.
(laughs)
Good morning.
- Good morning.
- [Lou] Hey honey, I love you.
- I love you too.
I cannot,
Oh my God I cannot.
(laughs)
It's crazy in here.
- [Lou] Good morning.
- Ready to go.
(sighs)
I feel like this is
the time I should always be waking up.
- [Lou] No!
- I like it!
- [Lou] Yeah?
- I really like it.
I don't know why it just feels like,
peaceful and happy.
(yawns)
(cheerful music)
Now we're gonna do one hour of focus work.
No interruptions.
Put on the timer.
(cheerful music)
But yeah, so it's really exciting and I feel like
honestly I'm such a morning person Lou.
It's like (comical noise) all my ideas are happening now.
I've been sleeping through my best hours!
5 a.m. wake up is like, really my jam.
(clicks fingers)
- [Lou] Tada!
- All clean.
♪ There's no one like you, my little girl ♪
♪ Your eyes so blue under those brown curls ♪
♪ Soon you're on your way, promise me that you know ♪
♪ The world is yours, ♪
♪ strike them with your glow ♪
- Yeah. Ching ching!
- [Lou] Ching Ching!
♪ Go on now, ♪
♪ be good, ♪
♪ be fine ♪
♪ Live your life ♪
♪ Dream big don't, forget, ♪
♪ to be kind ♪
♪ Live, it's your life ♪
- [Lou] We couldn't see anything today
anyways - [Dana] It's (mumbles) yeah,
we woke up today and it was just pure clouds.
The sun is just rising now
and I wanna go home.
(cheerful music)
- [Lou] We made it.
♪ We need more than ♪
- [Dana] That was really hard. ♪ Hopes and wishes ♪
♪ For us to make it through the night ♪
- Would you like one?
- [Lou] Yeah. ♪ Stormy weather, weary eyes ♪
(engine starts)
♪ Hope to make it through the night ♪
♪ Before this night is over, I will guide you home ♪
- It's so hot.
(laughs)
Oh my God.
This is our first time being inland, not by the coast.
(sighs)
Luckily this thing is nice and cold.
- [Dana] Good thing I put it in the fridge yesterday.
(sighs)
- Oh my God, it's like a
giant icepack.
(laughs)
- [Dana] It's gonna be an icepack for your belly.
(sighs)
Look how delicious this looks.
This was a really good idea.
- [Dana] Remember how I said I woke up at 5 a.m. for 30 days
and it almost broke me?
Well, this hike right here,
this was our first breaking point.
This day marks the peak of productivity for the first week
of our 5 a.m. morning routine.
We'd climbed the most iconic Greek mountains
and I'd written 15 single-spaced pages of the eBook.
But things started to go downhill that night
in the 102 degree heat.
- We made it home.
(sighs)
Wowzer
Oh no it's hot.
- [Lou] The water is hot?
- Yeah.
(laughs)
- [Lou] That's not nice.
- It's already 9:30.
Finishing dinner at 10 o'clock is not ideal.
- [Lou] It's off.
It's 5 a.m. again.
- [Dana] Mmm hmm.
- I feel like
then we went to bed at 10 but
we probably didn't fall asleep til like one.
- [Dana] If that.
I know like, last night was a little bit rough for me.
- It was a really rough one.
I feel like I slept really well from like two until four.
- [Dana] Mmm.
- [Lou] It's so hard to sleep when it's hot.
- [Dana] Yeah.
- I can't believe we still have 24 more days.
- [Dana] Just when we'd started to get
the hang of our 5 a.m. morning routine
the heat had obliterated our sleep,
so to compensate we increased our morning caffeine dosage,
a lot.
- So lately, we've been making an extra
huge pot of green tea
and then once it cools down a bit
we put it in the fridge
and so then,
when Lou's driving he can have an ice green tea because
he got into a naughty habit
of drinking Red Bull,
which was like, obviously we don't wanna die on the road,
but we worked pretty hard to like keep his arthritis
in check and not have process food.
So to have a Red Bull on the road it's kind of like,
(snaps fingers)
(whispers)
- [Lou] So this is where we slept.
There is not much going on here.
- It's actually our last morning in Greece
and then we're gonna head towards Albania today
but the real goal is to get all the way to Dubrovnik
in the next three days.
Lou has a flight out of Dubrovnik
so we kinda need to get there and get settled.
And he needs to get the van all ready
because I'm gonna be alone in the van for 10 days.
Be safe okay.
- [Lou] Yeah.
(lovely music)
- So Lou just left for the airport and I guess I'm gonna see
if I can do this 5 a.m. thing,
our whole morning routine on my own.
So that means meditate,
and write
and live
and be completely on my own in Ody for 10 days.
Which is kind of crazy because I've never even been
on my own in Ody for one day let alone a week and a half so.
I'm a little nervous but
I'm also really excited like now I have a singular focus.
Just write this eBook.
(upbeat music)
I'm in a
whoa, I can't even talk.
I'm like so--
This is crazy!
Writing a book is no joke.
Man, I am beat!
I don't know how many more days I'm gonna be able
to keep writing.
I feel like my brain is
going to explode.
But it's also really excited about what's to come and
that's all I have to say but
hopefully you're having a good day.
And Lou, I love you in the edit.
Thanks for watching me chit chat.
- [Dana] Meanwhile, I'm guessing by now
you've made it to Italy Lou.
I miss you,
but I'm glad you're off learning how to drive
your cousin Tim's new car in the Italian Alps.
All that practice will come in super handy
when the two of us are driving Gregor
through some crazy rivers in Iceland in a couple of weeks.
I'm so curious if you're still waking up at 5 am.
- Still sticking with the 5 a.m. even
while sleeping in that thing
in the middle of the Italian Alps.
- [Dana] Well, hopefully, you were able
to buy some earl gray tea.
You'll probably have to come up with your own
little 5 a.m. morning routine,
reading quietly for a couple of hours each morning.
But I'm sure the scenery must be incredible.
Have a safe flight tonight,
because tomorrow morning you land
it's going to be over a 100 degrees Fahrenheit
here in Croatia.
- I'm so tired.
I'm so hot.
(sighs)
It's like two o'clock and I can't do this day anymore.
- [Dana] I know.
- And we have to go to bed at like seven or eight
and it's still gonna be so hot.
- Over all the challenge I not going amazing.
Beginning did go well but yeah,
now we're on our last 10 days.
Sorry. Focus.
Say what you need to say.
My brain is like, frazzled.
10 days.
That's all we've got left.
Thank
goodness
because the 5 a.m. club is not for Lou and I.
(laughs)
Not in a van.
Not when you're like
it makes it so much worse to go to sleep when it's dark out
not when it's light out.
Yeah
but.
Oh we got--
should I tell 'em about our plan?
We have a plan for the last 10 days.
- [Dana] Our plan for the final 10 days
of 5 a.m. wake ups was simple.
Get at least 8 hours of sleep every night,
buy some fancy plant milk and black tea,
eat delicious fresh healthy food,
and most of all,
reconnect with the benefits of waking up early.
Make time to work out every morning,
swim in the ocean when the world is asleep,
and give everything I've got
to get to page 100 of our eBook.
And all that depends upon getting to bed early.
- We made it to bed before eight.
It's a win.
(sighs)
It's so hard to get to bed
early enough to make eight hours of sleep.
But we're doing our best
and we're really trying to get a lot of sleep now
the next few days because when we get to Germany
for Lou's grandma's hundredth birthday party
we're 100% gonna be staying up late so,
lets gather the sleep now so that we can party later.
- Oh boy.
- [Lou] That's not great!
- Tomorrow's gonna be brutal.
(yawns)
(Good morning, we are in Germany!)
I'm okay now.
Just had to get out of bed.
(Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you.)
Oh my gosh.
We're back.
(sighs)
I'm so happy.
- [Lou] We made it!
- Yes!
Oh my God.
(sighs)
Drive me some place nice please?
- [Dana] There are three days left,
then two,
and then one,
but it all blurs together at this point,
floating through florescent worlds,
cleanup in aisle five,
the fridge empties and fills,
- [Dana] Sad fridge!
- [Dana] the pages keep flowing,
80,
90,
100,
Croatia,
Germany,
Greece,
Albania,
Montenegro,
Switzerland,
Austria,
Italy,
I've lost track of the where and the why.
(delightful music)
(yawns)
- [Lou] Final 5 a.m.
- It's beautiful, isn't it?
- [Lou] Yeah.
- So nice and cool here.
You found like the perfect spot.
(sighs)
I am gonna miss the sunrise though.
- [Dana] So throughout this whole video
we were working on the eBook
and it is finally here.
All that hard work paid off.
And I really hope that you enjoy it.
If you do want to purchase, there's a link below.
And thank you so much for being here for the ride,
and we'll see you soon!