Should you make "getting up earlier" a priority in 2019?

I am writing my last blog post of 2018 at Manoir de Lébioles, a beautiful Manoir in Spa in Belgium; Spa, the city. I am here for two days for a short vacation and to prepare for 2019. That's why today's topic is also about whether to make "getting up earlier" a priority in 2019.

What inspired me

I'll tell you what inspired me to talk about this. I saw some people the other day who took on a challenge to get up early. They got up at 4:30 a.m. whether they had had enough sleep or not. That's what I want to talk about because the Internet is full of articles about successful people who get up at 4:30. Some of those articles say that getting up that early is not necessarily productive, and if you follow me on LinkedIn, you may have seen that my post referenced a tweet from J.K. Rowling, talking about that particular article about successful people getting up at 4:30 a.m. and her comment was "piss off." I really loved that, because if you wake me up at 4:30 I will probably have the exact same reaction.

What does science think about this?

If you've followed me all year you know that when I claim something, I like to back it up with scientific evidence. That's why I say that getting up early may not be the ideal solution for you. Every creature on this planet has a circadian rhythm. Every animal has a circadian rhythm or a biological clock and everything, both humans and animals, has to do with light and day and through sleep pressure. That's what our biological clock is, what makes us wake up and fall asleep.

We all have very individual rhythms. Some of us are naturally early risers and some of us are night owls. Humans are the only ones who intentionally abstain from sleep, the only ones who choose to go against their natural way of sleeping, either by sleeping less than necessary or by living at a rhythm of life that is not actually their natural rhythm. All other animal species do not do this unless there is an emergency. What does that say about us? Are we super smart or do we just think we are smart but meanwhile are incredibly stupid by not listening to what nature is telling us?

What nature tells us

I do want to say something more about that. When you follow your own natural rhythm, it has a lot of benefits cognitively as well; that is, you are in a certain flow for several hours during the day. We have a few hours to use our brains at maximum capacity and in these moments we are better at remembering information, we are more creative, more productive, more focused, sharper, faster, just like we are doping. If you manage to grab those few hours then you are more productive in that time than you are in the rest of the day. What I mean by that is that if you decide to get up early, you can train your body to some extent by sticking to a set pattern of going to bed and getting up, but your natural rhythm ensures that your brain will not be in that flow state no matter how late or early you get up. Your brain is like a cold engine that has not been adequately warmed up. It doesn't matter when you get up. If your natural time to get up is around 7:30 a.m. or 8 a.m. and then you get up at 4:30 a.m., your brain's cognitive potential is very unlikely to be there. If you get up at 7:00 a.m. or 8:30 a.m., the cognitive potential of your brain is usually at its peak about 1 hour or 1.5 hours later, so around 9:30/10 a.m.

This is also why Seattle, for example, recently changed their school hours. Teenagers have a delayed circadian rhythm. They naturally go to sleep later and get up later. This has nothing to do with laziness. When they are in class at 8 a.m. they may be there physically and consciously but their brains are not yet as efficient as they are later in the day. Believe me, I know all about it! In fact, I was a teacher for 10 years and 8 a.m. were my favorite classes because then I just had a classroom full of zombies. Nice and quiet; I did teach my classes but it also meant that they could not perform at their best, for example if they had a test.

You can't fool nature!

You may get up earlier but the real flow of your brain will still not change because of that. Maybe you're in a work environment where the belief is that attendance equals productivity; I really think that's complete nonsense! You can be present for eight hours but that doesn't mean you will be very productive. Probably you will only be productive for two to three hours of that and for the rest you won't do much. Of course you can try to change your work schedule and adapt a little more to your natural rhythm; but if you are an entrepreneur, self-employed or if you can schedule your own workday you should try to stay around your natural rhythm as much as possible. The way to establish your natural rhythm is to spend one to two weeks letting your body do what it does best.

Go to bed when you are tired and start waking up naturally. It takes you two to three days to catch up on sleep debt, especially if you are someone who is constantly a little sleep deprived. If you get up every day because you have to (because the alarm clock wakes you up), it will take a few days before you fall asleep again. But once you get there, you will see that your body has a very timed rhythm for going to sleep and waking up. With this knowledge, you can design your day around that rhythm and then you'll start making real strides! Then you go from working two to three hours to maybe four hours and you get tons of work done and you can still spend the rest of the day doing work that may not require your full cognitive focus. That's usually how I do it. For example, during those hours I do client preparation work because that requires a lot of focus, but working with my clients, seeing them, listening to them, being there for them and teaching them what I've prepared are things that don't necessarily have to happen in my flow state.

The same is true for you. If you know when you are performing optimally try to stick to that. Some of you may have a slightly slowed circadian rhythm, which means your optimal hours are probably somewhere around 2 or 3 in the afternoon. Falling asleep and waking up around 10 a.m. and getting to work around lunch. So that's not very social. It's a bit of a sleep disorder when we talk about a delayed circadian rhythm. If you can incorporate these hours so I would definitely do that. If you can't, you have to go with melatonin, caffeine and light. However, this will never be optimal.

My thoughts

Those are my thoughts on why you should or shouldn't make "getting up earlier" a priority on your list. If it's because you think you'll start working more productively and creatively, I have news for you: that's probably not going to happen. This year, too, there were many people who didn't get up early. We always see those lists of early risers but you also have people who are very successful who get up much later. It's just one of those things that I think society still judges and it's just not that well known.

Do your own research and google it. You will find different kinds of people. One person I can completely identify with is Winston Churchill. He woke up around 7:30 am, but he didn't get out of bed until 11 am. He read the newspapers, wrote some letters, even ate breakfast in bed and then got up to take his bath. I'm not exactly the same, especially now that I have to take my little one to school. But if it were up to myself I would do pretty much the same thing. I would doze for something like half an hour, without an alarm clock but just taking my time to wake up. I would also get rid of my e-mail in bed. It takes me a lot of time to get up in the morning, but I love it! My peak hours are between 10 am and 1 pm. In those I get all my work done and in the afternoon I do small chores other things in and around the house.

That was all from me in this last blog post of 2018!

I hope you will have a wonderful New Year's Eve and a wonderful 2019. If you slept poorly in 2018 please contact me so that 2019 will be a fantastic year. Let me know if you have topics you would like me to cover in the new year. I can hardly believe that 2018 is already over. 2018 has been a roller coaster but I am super excited for 2019!

Greetings from Manoir de Lébioles and enjoy the rest of your day!