How to become a morning person

Have you ever wondered how those of us who rise early in the morning fully of energy do it? Like most things in life it’s simply a habit, and it’s one that can be developed if you can commit to doing a few things for about 21 days. For me this habit has been one that my parents forced from the time I was a kid. It started with Saturday morning cartoons when I was a kid and seemed to be a habit they wanted me to have growing up.

5 tips to help you become a morning person

Exercise: Consistent exercise is without a doubt one of the keys to being able to consistently wake up in the morning with a high level of energy. In fact, sometimes an exercise routine is what gives you a reason to get up early in the morning. I find there’s nothing like an early morning surf session to cleanse the mind and pump up your energy level for a productive day. Conveniently, it also happens to be the best time of day to surf. The benefits of exercise itself are obvious, so I won’t go into detail about that. But, consistent exercise is connected to everything else that makes it possible to be a morning person.

Diet: A healthy high energy diet is essential to being a morning person. If you overload yourself with fattening foods that are high in sugar, you will find that they give you a very temporary boost, and you’ll end up crashing and burning by mid day. I personally still drink coffee and don’t think you need to give up the coffee habit. But, you should put a limit on it. I think that a venti size coffee at starbucks is a bit too much. The equivalent of one grande cup is enough. If you have too much caffeine, your mind gets cluttered because of the fast rate at which you start to think,  and like most high sugar foods, it’ll make you crash and burn.  I’m a fan of fruit as a snack and even try to have at least one fruit with every meal.  Certain fruits like Acai are excellent because they give you a dramatic energy boost and are extremely high in antioxidants. I try to eat somewhat light meals, but snack throughout the day and I try not to eat anything at least a few hours before I go to bed.

Music: In an earlier post I mentioned the idea of using morning power music to get your day going.  Personally, I love this idea because there’s nothing like some good upbeat tunes to change your mood rapidly. We all have neuro-associations that we have created to certain songs. If you can identify the ones that pump you up, they make perfect morning power tunes.

Shower: I came to this realization this morning when I came up with the idea for this blog post. If you jump in the shower right when you wake up it’ll wake you up right away. I’m not sure what it is, but taking a shower refreshes you and gets you going.

Sleep: This is pretty much a no brainer. The sleep you get will directly impact how easy it is for you to be a morning person. The reason I put sleep last is because sleep seems to be directly impacted by exercise and diet. Without proper exercise and diet, proper sleep is actually challenging. In my opinion quality of sleep always trumps quantity of sleep. I average about 6 hours of sleep a night and wake up full of energy because of my exercise habits. 12 hours of tossing and turning is pretty worthless in comparison to 6 straight hours of sleep where you don’t wake up once. When I used to have insomnia, one simple tip a hypnotherapist gave me was to do deep relaxation breathing before going to sleep. I even used a sleep hypnosis tape, and to this day I have no idea what’s on the tape after the first 5 minutes because it allowed me to fall asleep so quickly.

3 Benefits of being a Morning Person

Clear/Quiet Mind: It’s likely that you’ve read the advice of many personal development gurus that the morning is the best time to do affirmations, visualization, or any of your mental conditioning. The reason for this is that your mind is completely clear of other thoughts early in the morning. As the coffee kicks in, your energy picks up, and the distractions of the day start, your thought process will increase in parallel and influencing your subconscious becomes more challenging.

Energy Level: Believe it or not for most things, you have the perfect level of energy early in the morning. Once the multitude of thoughts kicks in, your energy level is actually a bit unbalanced in my opinion. I do almost all of my writing early in the morning because my energy level is high enough to focus on one task at a time without getting distracted.

Efficiency: One thing I love about being an early riser is the efficiency level at which I’m able to accomplish things. Most people look at my life and my habits (surfing 6 hours a day, on wednesday through sunday), and wonder when I actually apply for jobs, and write blog posts. All of that is done early morning in just a few days a week.

While being a morning person isn’t for everybody, it has its perks. In the working world, even those who aren’t morning people are forced into it, and by incorporating even a few of the suggestions above, I think you’ll find that being a morning person isn’t nearly as horrifying as non-morning people make it out to be.

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Tagged as: energy, fitness, health