It is not going to be easy and it most definitely is not going to happen over night. The good news is becoming an early riser will change your life for the better.
People often have excuses for not getting up early. They say they are night people, they say they stay up late, they say their bodies just can’t function before 8am. The truth is, transitioning from a night owl to an early riser is doable. It is just a matter of changing your routine.
Whether you know it or not, you currently have a routine. Maybe your routine is getting up an hour before work, skipping breakfast, and fighting traffic. If your current routine leaves you stressed out and frazzled. Why not snap out of it?
Here are a couple of reasons you should get up early:
- Good Start: Mornings set the standard for the kind of day you will have. If you wake up cranky with a Murphy’s Law mindset, you will likely have trouble changing your mood as the day goes on. Alternatively, if you wake up early with plenty of time to greet the day, you will feel relaxed and prepared to conquer whatever comes your way.
- Exercise: Early mornings are an excellent time to exercise. Studies have shown that more than 90 per cent of people who exercise regularly do so in the morning. This makes sense because if you make exercise a priority and commit a time for it, you’ll likely stick to it. If you schedule your exercise in the evening, you are likely to blow it off if for other things like late nights at the office or dinner engagements. Getting your exercise in early secures time for family and friends at night.
- Breakfast: Many people skip the most important meal of the day not because they aren’t hungry, they skip breakfast because they don’t have time. Make time for breakfast so that your body is not running on empty for the first few hours of the day. Food will give you the strength to carry out your tasks and the mental alertness that will help you throughout the day.
- Discipline: Early rising forces discipline. It’s tough to get up early no matter how much you prepare. It is far easier to press the snooze button multiple times and squeeze in every minute of sleep you can. More than anything getting up early is a mental challenge. Even if you get an adequate amount of sleep, it is still difficult to train your body to rise early. However, once you do master this, other things will look easy. Getting up early sends the message to your brain that you are in charge.
Biblical truths: You may fight the other reasons, but you can’t deny the truth of the gospel. Mark 1:35 tells us that Jesus himself was an early riser: “And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.” Christ’s example shows spiritual diligence. There is something about the morning that our God wants us to experience. Romans 13:11-12 says, “And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.”
Famous early risers:
- Fred Rogers
- Condoleezza Rice
- Benjamin Franklin
- Immanuel Kant
- Martha Stewart
Check out the morning routines of various famous people.
Photo by (Flickr CC): Khánh Hmoong
