How to Lose Weight Series: Habit 3

“The difference between rising at five and seven o’clock in the morning, for forty years, supposing a man to go to bed at the same hour at night, is nearly equivalent to the addition of ten years to a man’s life.” ~Philip Doddridge

Growing up I was quite a morning person, who woke up early at 5:00am to study. It sounds so boring right? Back then, this habit definitely aided in me getting good grades at school. However, when I began my work life, I wasn’t too particular about being a morning waker, the thought process was since there was nothing to study, what’s the need to wake up early?

Slowly and steadily, the waking up late phenomenon contributed to the eventuality of me having to rush, a sense of overwhelming anxiety, beginnings of irritability in my personality that I wasn’t acquainted to before, butterflies in the stomach. A kind of negativity, a sense of loss of control and I could never figure out as to how can getting up early help me any better.

Yes, I had read plenty of articles myself about the benefits of rising early, more time to plan, execute better, be more productive etc, but I never could understand how that process can actually help. For ex: I asked one of my friends who wakes up early, what does she do? She told me she would take time out to just have tea for about 15–20 mins and that gave her a lot of joy. Of course, she did excel in what she chose to do. However, I could not understand the connection. I would think spending 20 mins drinking tea, is it not a waste of precious early morning time, but the point is the calm, helped her.

To cut the long story short, I re-started my self experiment by getting up early. Yes sure enough, I observed myself being just plain upbeat, more in charge, less anxious and brimming with ideas. There is plenty of scientific evidence to support this fact.However, the more important question that is typically posed is - how do I go from being a person who wakes up late to being up when the cock crows in the morning.

How do I get myself to wake up?

Rule # 1: You don’t go from waking up at 8:00am to 5:00am. Wake up 15 mins early each day for the whole of one week. So if you are a person who wakes up at 8:00am, try to keep the alarm for 7:30am.

Rule # 2: Don’t get disheartened if the alarm rings from 7:30am onwards and you find yourself awake only by 7:50am. Hey, just tell yourself your better off than yesterday when you woke up at 8:00am. Your basically tricking your mind to focus on what has been achieved vis a vis what has not been.

Rule #3: Sleep half an hour earlier as well. So if you go to bed as late as 11:30pm, try and go to bed by 11:00pm.

Rule # 4: If after 2 days of trying to do this on your own, you still find yourself waking up at 8:00am, its simple, tell your mom to call and wake you up. Mothers have been blessed with the innate ability to give that extra push that will make things happen, in the good old fashioned way.

Yes, you won’t require no further rules then to help you internalize this habit.

It will take you anywhere from 6–8 weeks to find yourself waking up at 5:00am in the morning.

Quick Recap

By Week 6, you would be:

• Getting up in the morning and having the healthy tonic, you are close to making this a habit.

• Re-calling and thanking God for all the blessings that you have received, by either saying this out loud or recording this in your personal diary as a daily routine. Also, genuinely thanking all the good noble people, who make each day of your life worthwhile, be it family, friends or colleagues.

• You would have introduced to yourself the art of waking up early by an hour than your typical schedule.

This is great going and you have successfully completed over one month of your journey on the road to weight loss and wellness. Good job!!! Awesome!! Keep up the energy. You are transforming. This is no small feat, so relish the day.

You should be going out and share the news to your friends. I would totally treat myself to some great goodies. Enjoy!!!