How to Become a Morning Person

A few weeks ago Rob started watching Casey Neistat’s vlog and shared a few episodes with me. If you haven’t heard of Casey Neistat, you’re missing out. He’s an incredible film maker out of New York with a really unique style. His vlog is a newer project, but both Rob and I have found ourselves really inspired after watching it. While I’ve only watched a few of them, it is encouraging to see how he lives his life so intentionally and it got me thinking about how I could make some small changes in my own life that would have a big impact on my daily life.

I landed on one thing in particular — getting up early. I’ve always been in awe of those morning people who wake up early and get their day started before most of us are even dressed for the day. I find myself playing the ‘what if’ game a lot. What if I got up an hour earlier this morning? What would I accomplish? Would it change my work schedule/productivity for the better? Will I have bags under my eyes? How would it change my attitude? And lastly, could I actually do it?!

I’ve never been a morning person. In fact, waking up at 7:30am is a struggle for me. But I decided that I’d give it a real shot and see if I could turn myself into a morning person and see if I liked how it affected my daily life, so for the past week (not including weekends) I challenged myself to not hit snooze and rise at 6:20am.

After a week, I’ve decided that it is possible to turn yourself into a morning person and the craziest thing? I really really like it. There’s something about waking up while it’s quiet, walking Oliver while the streets are mostly empty and getting home before Rob is even awake. I treasure these calm moments in the morning and as the day went on, I felt less stressed because I was ahead of schedule every morning. That being said, it’s not the easiest thing to do when you’re used to sleeping until 7:45. So if you want to try it out, here are my tips for how to become a morning person.

1. Will Power
Hitting snooze comes easy for me. Waking up while the sun’s not up, not so much. When that painful 6:20 alarm went off, I would lay there for a minute and let my brain wake up before pulling my body up with it. Coffee or green tea is helpful too!

2. Get Dressed & Make Your Bed
Getting dressed and pulling up the sheets are how I know my day has officially started. Your less likely to crawl back in bed if you’be already made it and you’re fully dressed.

3. Get Moving
Getting the blood flowing first thing in the morning is bound to wake you up. I don’t like doing intense workouts in the morning because it makes my head hurt, but taking Oliver for a long walk is just what I need to really wake myself up.
4. Plan of Action
Waking up early with no plan is kind of pointless. My brain is always a little foggy in the morning and I need direction. I scheduled my mornings out with a structured to-do list to keep myself on the right track – big surprise, I was insanely more productive last week.

5. Gratitude
I’ve noticed that in the past few weeks (or maybe months) I’ve complained a lot about how much I work and I’m sorry. That’s really annoying and gets old, but reminding myself how lucky I am to have a job that I love and get to do on my own schedule is pretty awesome. Taking a second to be thankful for that helped motivated me to get up again the next morning. I’ve considered scribbling down things I’m thankful for in a journal as a reminder!
6. An Earlier Bedtime
My old bedtime was 11:30 and lately is been 10:30. Getting to bed earlier and getting enough sleep each night makes it that much easier to get up the next morning. Plus, I love sleeping! If you find that you have trouble falling asleep at an earlier time, I recommend DAVIDsTEA Mother’s Little Helper, it has valerian root in it that helps you fall asleep naturally.