“One who gets up early has more time to accomplish his tasks as compared to a late riser. He is blessed with good health, beauty and sharp intellect. ”-from the Sama Veda, ancient hindu scripture. 

I know you want it. I wanted to become an early riser myself. Here’s how I did it. First, it’s important to understand that your body adjusts to even the smallest of changes over time. Lifting bricks all day will eventually give you strong arms. Similarly, if you’re looking to joining the 5am club,  there’s only one way to do it: Crank your system into adjusting to your new schedule. Here’s what I did specifically to become an early riser:

1. Observe your sleep needs: Some people need less sleep, others need more. This usually has to do with their schedules.Log your sleep for a week. I came up with 7-8 hours/day to feel fresh for my personal needs, your mileage may vary.
2. Set up the pre-bed-time hour: This is the big trick: If you want to go to bed at 10pm, don’t be working and surfing blogs until 9.45pm. I cut off at 9pm, shut down the computer clean up my room, brush my teeth, get my bag ready for the next day, put y devices for charge, grab a good non-university book and get tucked in.Believe me, you need that hour for winding up your day.
3. Sleep when sleepy, force-wake-up at 5am: The first time’s always the hardest. Sleep when you’re sleepy, and force yourself get up at 5am by placing the alarm WAY FAR AWAY from the bed. I hid it in a drawer, made me search, woke me up. Be prepared for a stressful first morning.
4. Learn to Power Nap: Setting aside as little as 20 minutes in the afternoon to recharge your batteries will give you the much needed afternoon boost. Learn about my personal powernapping technique. Don’t make it longer, as that’ll prevent you from sleeping at night. Powernaps are a great way to recompensate any lost sleep and eliminates groggyness during the day.
5. Eat dinner as early as possible: One big sleep disturbant is indigestion. You’ll sleep better, and will require less sleep, as your body could focus all resources on recharging you, rather than breaking down food.

>Let’s summarize!

You now know about …

1. your hours or sleep required.

2. the pre-bedtime hour.

3. the force-wakeup.

4. power naps.

5. early dinners.

Let’s put this all to use. In just a week, you’ll be on track to being an early riser.

Day 1

You can begin with your routine tonight.

• Calculate your future bedtime. 5am - hours of sleep required (8 hours) = bedtime (9pm).
• At your future bedtime, stop what you were doing and slowly get ready for the next day, as described above.
• Get a good book and begin reading, until you fall asleep.

Your new bedtime is not important just yet. It’s just a reference point. Eventually, you’ll fall asleep at this time automatically. Have patience, young Padawan.

Day 2

Waking up on your first morning is the hard part. Using the force-wakeup, push yourself out of bed and get going. This is easily said, but the really crucial part of it is to have your alarm far away, then hit the bathroom and splash cold water on your face. These ten seconds can separate you from the crowd.

• Tonight, start reading your book half an hour earlier.
• Don’t power-nap during the day. This will make you really sleepy by the time you decide to hit the sack.

Day 3-5

Wash, rinse, repeat. Start including short power naps during your day, slowly increasing their length. Remember: You should tally up your sleep needs, but distribute them among your night sleep and power naps.

Day 6 & 7

The weekend is the real key. If you can quit sleeping in late on the weekend, you’ll be a master of waking early. Many of you will cry out loud that Saturday is the night you party until 4am. I think it’s important to have fun and party, but nevertheless the benefits of waking early are so frikkin’ awesome, that I don’t mind being the douche-bag coming home at 1am. The trick here is to balance it out. Budget your nights: Stay out long just once or twice a month, and set up a strict routine for getting back on track. The problem I usually end up having is that if I sleep in one day, I’ll end up sleeping for ever unless I force myself to wake up. There are gajillions of ways to push you out of bed. You just need to setup what it takes to get there.