- This video is sponsored by Brilliant.
Each morning when I wake up,
I start my day by getting three simple things;
movement, water and sunlight.
And together these three tiny habits
quickly get me past that initial groggy stage
and help me feel fully awake.
But why are these three habits so effective in particular?
And how do you get yourself out of bed in the first place
so you can actually get them.
That's what we're gonna talk about in this video
but before we get into that, I wanna lay some groundwork.
First and foremost
you do not have to wake up early in the morning
to be a productive person.
There are certainly gonna be other people here on YouTube
we'll try to tell you differently
but the fact of the matter is different people operate
on different schedules.
For example, over on Brain Pickings,
there's this fantastic infographic
that I found a few years ago
which compares the different wake-up times
of some famous authors throughout history.
And while it's true that some of them do wake up
at obscenely early times, like Haruki Murakami,
who gets up at 4:00 AM, when he's writing a novel.
Others who are just as if not more successful
and famous and productive get up at later times,
for example C.S. Lewis and Ray Bradbury
both got up at around 9:00 AM in the morning
and they did just fine.
So while some YouTubers are gonna tell you
that you absolutely have to be getting up super early
to be successful
while they filmed themselves out for 4:00 AM run,
the truth of the matter is that it's possible
to live a perfectly productive life as a night owl.
However, I personally have found that when I carve out time
in the morning and actually go through a morning routine
I tend to be more productive.
Again, this is a personal thing,
but I've found through experimentation
and personal experience
that I tend to use the morning hours more productively
than I do my evening hours.
So if I wake up earlier than I naturally would
and I carve out time in the morning
I tend to waste less time and get more out of my day.
And you might be in the exact same boat.
You might find that your mornings are just more productive,
you have more energy, you have more drive
if you wake up early.
But if that's you,
you probably have also faced the same problem that I faced
which is that when you wake up in the morning
you feel like a truck hit you,
you feel lethargic, you feel groggy, you feel tired.
The only thing you wanna do is hit the snooze button.
So number one how can you avoid that snooze button
and number two,
how can you get past that tired feeling
as quickly as possible?
Let's focusing on that sequence of three habits
I talked about in the intro, water, sunlight and movement.
Through personal experimentation
as well as some scientific research
I have found that this sequence of habits
is possibly the most important thing
to getting your body woken up and feeling energetic.
Besides of course, getting enough sleep.
So let's start with movement.
How much movement,
what kind of movement do you need
to get your body feeling awake?
When I first started discovering
the power of movement to wake my body up
when I was in college
and I decided to sign up
for a 6:00 AM, ROTC military fitness class.
The school was offering this to both military kids,
but also to civilians
and I was in the latter category,
and to get to that class,
I actually had to wake up at about 5:30 in the morning
so I could get across campus and be there on time.
And I'm an early bird,
I do like getting up early in the morning
but 5:30 is a little bit early even for me.
So every time my alarm would go off
I would hate it and I would really wanna go back to sleep.
But I learned something interesting
because I had to get out of bed,
I had to be to class on time,
I never once hit the snooze button
and most importantly, I was immediately moving
after the alarm went off.
And because I was getting that initial movement
right after waking up, getting out of bed,
getting dressed, running out the door
that lethargic feeling that I had
immediately after waking up didn't last very long.
And I learned that as long
as I was getting enough sleep over the longterm
that energy lasted me pretty much the entire day.
But you don't have to go
to an ROTC fitness class
or do an hour and a half of exercise
to feel awake in the morning.
Because the main thing I observed is just getting myself
out of bed,
having that sort of Damocles hanging over my head
the deadline got me past that lethargic feeling
before I even left my dorm.
So getting some initial movement even just a little bit
in the morning can really go a long way
to helping you feel more awake
especially if you also add water and sunlight.
Let's talk about sunlight for a second.
Sunlight in particular affects your body's circadian rhythm
which is this internal clock
this process that governs
when you feel sleepy, when you fall asleep
and when you wake up.
When sunlight hits the photo receptors in your eyes,
they actually send signals to your brain
telling you that, "Hey, it's time to wake up."
And that's not all research has also found
that this morning sunlight exposure
also helps improve the overall quality
of your sleep going forward.
A 2017 study found that exposure in the morning
to what they called circadian-effective light
was associated with both improved sleep quality
and earlier sleep onset, AKA falling asleep faster.
Now this term circadian-effective light
is an interesting one because it doesn't just refer
to sunlight.
Rather it refers to some certain qualities of lights
including its intensity,
and how well it covers certain areas of the color spectrum.
There are certain areas
of the visual light spectrum that are associated
with triggering those photoreceptors
and governing our circadian rhythm.
And most of the lights
in our interior environments don't cover that area
of the color spectrum.
There is at least one company
working on light bulbs
that you can actually go out and buy right now
that do purport to cover this area of light spectrum
and there are some early research,
mostly in office environments
that have some promising results.
But before you rush out
and go buy a $500 desk lamp
that the purports to governor your circadian rhythm
realized that the most effective,
circadian-effective light is gonna be sunlight,
which makes sense
because these little light bulbs are just light bulbs
and the sun is a freaking star.
Now, when it comes to water
I haven't been able to find quite as much strong
scientific evidence as I have for sunlight
as to why it helps you wake up so well.
But through personal experimentation and experience
I have found that when I wake up and drink a glass of water
it gets me past that groggy stage really quickly
and it's a great way to help me feel even more awake.
So get in a bed immediately,
move to a different room of your house
so you get some movement
and ideally some sunlight and drink a glass of water.
This doesn't involve an ROTC fitness class,
it doesn't involve a long hike in the woods,
it's incredibly simple but it's effective nonetheless.
Of course, this assumes you can get yourself
out of bed in the first place
and avoid the temptations of the snooze button.
So how do you do that?
Well for that problem
let's think back to the ROTC fitness class.
I talked about how when the alarm went off
and I was taking that class
I never once hit the snooze button.
And the reason for that should be pretty obvious.
I had to get out of bed if I didn't,
I was gonna be late for class and I would get a worst grade.
So that class gave me a very strong reason
to get out of bed.
And you probably understand the power of this
if you've ever had to get up for an early morning flight,
you don't wanna get up at 4:00 AM
but the prospect of missing the flight
gets you out of bed all the same.
But here's the problem
carving out time for yourself in the morning
building a morning routine
by definition means there's no real strong deadline
or pressing engagement
and you have to get out of bed for.
So what do you do in these situations?
Well, the words of my friend,
Tiago Forte come to mind here
some point last year, he tweeted
you can't compete with somebody who's having fun.
And I think the context of that tweet
was for people who are building businesses
or building products.
But I think that sentiment applies
to many of the things in our life,
including the prospect of getting out of bed earlier
than you normally would.
Think about it a version of yourself
that hates getting up has nothing
to look forward to in the morning
is trying to entirely rely on self-discipline
can never compete with a version of you
that's excited to get up
as something fun to look forward to.
So there's the solution.
Add something, it could be anything,
no matter how small that you're excited for it
into your morning routine,
give yourself a reason to anticipate getting up
in the morning
and you're gonna find getting up
to be so much easier.
Self-discipline is still important to cultivate,
yes but on the other side of the coin
when we are doing something we enjoy
where the resistance does not overweigh
how much we enjoy the thing
we don't have to rely on self-discipline in the first place.
Personally that thing for me is riding my bike to work
and listening to an audio book.
Recently, I got a co-working space in downtown Denver
which is actually about 18 miles from my house.
So I got an e-bike and the process
of riding my bike to work on the bike trails
listening to an audio book, getting to learn,
but also getting to be outside and be active
is something that I actively look forward to
every single morning.
And whenever I get to do it, I'm super excited to get up
get dressed and get out of the door.
And to dwell on this example for a moment,
there's another great thing about this bike ride,
which is that it's an example of what I call
useful movement.
In other words, I have a purpose
for getting outside and getting nearly an hour of exercise.
And this is something I've been thinking about a lot lately
because the way in which we design our urban environments
especially suburban environments where I live right now
kind of forces people in many cases
to exercise in ways that are arbitrary.
They have to convince themselves to go to the gym.
They only real reason for moving
in an intense or lengthy wage day
is guilt or this feeling
that you have to stay physically active.
But when you design your life
in a way where you have a reason to go somewhere actively
like riding your bike to work
you don't have to spend as much motivation
to go be physically active
because there's a real reason do it.
This is kind of besides the point of waking up early
but I've been thinking about useful movement a lot lately,
and I think it really helps us to be more productive,
happier, and even more connected
to our environments and our neighbors.
So it's probably something that's gonna be a through-line
in some of my future videos.
But here's the overall point.
If you wanna be able to get a bit more easily
if you want it to be effortless,
if you want to have time for that morning routine
then adds something to the routine that you enjoy
that you anticipate.
For me it's that bike ride with the audio book.
For you it might be a breakfast that you particularly enjoy,
it might be a morning walk
it might be reading some fiction,
whatever it is add into the routine
and you're gonna find yourself having more time
for that routine.
And if you can combine that
with our little three-step process,
water, sunlight, and movement,
you're gonna find yourself getting up more easily,
feeling less groggy,
going through less of that tired,
lethargic period and having space in the morning
for whatever it is that you wanna do.
Now, if you're sitting there asking yourself
what should I put into my morning routine?
How can I make the most of my mornings?
I do have one suggestion
identify something that pushes you forward in some way.
A lot of us spend so much of our time
so busy with our obligations and our schedules
that we don't have a whole lot of time for learning
and pushing ourselves forward
and really moving the needle.
And carving out time for yourself in the morning
well, at least for me
this is a great way to make sure that I'm still progressing.
So when you're designing your morning routine
see if you can add something
that either makes you stronger
or helps you learn something new
or maybe improves your problem solving abilities.
And if you're looking for a resource
that can hit those two latter categories
problem solving and teaching you new things
you should check out Brilliant.
Brilliant is a resource that helps you master complex topics
in math, science, and computer science
but also helping you become a better problem solver
at the same time.
And that's because all of their courses
get you actively using what you're learning
almost right away.
They combined bite-sized problems
that are logically sequenced
with the actual learning material
so that you never go more than a few minutes
without getting engaged.
You're gonna find more than 60 courses in their library
including a full mass suite
going from the basics of number theory
to really complex stuff
along with courses covering scientific thinking
and even computer science courses
that dive into things like algorithms and data structures.
Brilliant is free to try
so if you wanna get started learning today
you can go over to brilliant.org/thomasfrank
or sign up using the link in the description down below.
And of course doing it also helps us support this channel.
So thank you if you do that.
Thanks for watching as well
hopefully you found something useful in this video,
hopefully it helps you get up earlier and feel less tired
if that's something you're trying to do.
I've got one more video on screen right here
that you can check out if you wanna keep watching.
Hit subscribe button right there
if you haven't subscribed yet.
And to end this video I've got a question for you,
which is do you have any additional tips
for helping yourself wake up
and feel as tired in the mornings,
smelling salts, death metal,
setting your entire room on fire?
I don't know.
Let me know down in the comments
and we can all help each other become smarter
and more capable people
and I will see you in the next video.