How to get up in the morning when it's cold and you're exhausted

[iteles]

Winter is here and heating has to be moderately low overnight or the air dries out and we all wake up with a headache.

I've been trying to make sure I switch off the lights by 22h30 every night (which I've so far done for 12 nights in a row) but am still battling the usual insomnia that keeps me awake past midnight. Result = I'm always exhausted when I wake up in the morning.

There are lots of things to be done for better sleep (as per this repo), but what can be done when you've already woken up and you're exhausted to help you cope? (Both practical tips and 'one must have a plan' type tips very welcome!)

[nelsonic]

@iteles there is quite a lot to "unpack" in this question, and you might not "like" the answer. 🙄

Winter? ❄️

Winter is an inevitable fact of life for those of us who choose to live far from the equator.
During these months the days are shorter, often overcast and considerably colder 🌨
it's like a trifecta of factors that make us want to curl up and hibernate like a bear in a cave. 🐻 💤
Unless you are a migratory bird or a wealthy person who can "fly south" for the winter and enjoy back-to-back warm seasons, Winter is a reality you will need to come to terms with.

What to Do About it?

Based on what I've read in numerous well-researched/written books on sleep, exercise & nutrition,
there are a number of things you can do to maximise your chance of feeling wide awake in the morning.

My best "cure" for the winter is my (all-year-round) Morning Routine:

• High Intensity Exercise shortly after getting up to warm up and get blood flowing.
  (I do 5 minutes of exercise first thing. I find this is "enough" to feel warmed up. sample routine)
• Drink Tea or Warm Water immediately after exercising. Warming from both the inside and hands is a great way to feel warm and also hydration is super important for waking up and feeling fresh.
  I drink a litre of warm lemon water first thing it has numerous benefits for kickstarting my day.
• Warm clothes e.g: "Fleece" are good for maintaining body heat. If you don't have a super warm fleece, get one. The @dwyl hoodies are "OK", but I usually find myself wearing my Patagonia fleece (which I bought second-hand on Ebay for £18 but still has plenty of "life" left in it!)
• Full-spectrum reading/work light (I'm basically obsessed with having a mega-bright "mini sun" light wherever I am in the morning.)
• Get as much natural (direct sunlight) light during the day as you can.
  • If it's not raining, make a habit to take a "break" from sitting at a desk indoors and get outside for a walk or read in the Sun. Even if it's overcast you still get 20-30% of the sun's beneficial UV-B rays which will "recharge" your mitochondria and help you fall asleep easier at night because your body will naturally produce more Melatonin if your eyes and skin are exposed.
    I usually take off my fleece/jumper (even if I feel cold) to get more UV on my skin.
    Feeling "cold" for a few minutes is good for circulation see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryotherapy
    When you put your jumper back on and/or head back indoors you will find that your core temperature will increase as your body compensates for feeling cold. If you are unable to regulate your body temperature, do 10-20 squats and you'll find yourself warming up fast!
• Have a pre-defined clear task for first thing in the day. Not "checking email" or any other work that someone else wants/needs you to do, your own work¹.

"Lights Out" at 22:30 🕥

This is an excellent start and it's worth maintaining this "streak" and making it a consistent routine.
Winter is the perfect time to get to bed even earlier than 22:30 because our natural circadian clock lends itself to going to sleep a few of hours after sunset which is much earlier in Winter.
I've found that my optimal go to bed time is 21:30 in the winter.
And on days where I have completed my work, done "enough" exercise and had moderate sun exposure I fall asleep quite promptly. (this was definitely not the case when living in London where the road noise, inescapable street lighting and "stress" was silly and I never got to bed before midnight...!)

Keep the good bedtime up, it will help you wake up in the morning.
But if you don't fall asleep reasonably promptly after getting to bed by 22:30
.then you may need to retrace the steps you made during the day.²

The Many Benefits of Waking Up "Early". ☀️🕔

A few of the biggest advantages of waking up and getting up "early" in the morning include:

• An instant sense of "accomplishment" that you are "ahead" on the day.
  Ahead of your always-tired (unfocussed) peers who stayed up late watching TV or "socialising".
  Ahead of the mediocre majority of people who hit the "snooze button" and only get up 5 minutes after they needed to leave the house to be at their "job" on time.
• Get 2 hours of "deep" (focus) work done before the "chatter" of the day starts.
  Most people don't get 2 hours of "deep" work done their whole day. Focused "deep" work is rare. Most people only do shallow work and never achieve anything meaningful, that's a _shame.
  • I learned a long time ago (when I was 17, just-in-time to cram for exams) that an hour of "quite time" in the early morning is worth 5 hours of day-time where noise and interruptions are rife.
• Momentum. Once you have started with focus work first thing in the morning, it's much easier to continue until "lunch". If you can do 06:00 - 12:00 of deep work each day you will accumulate (assuming 6 days a week) 36 hours/week. If you got 36h of deep work each week you would rapidly "catch up" and even surpass some of the most prolific creative people!
  This leaves the afternoon for any "admin" or "shallow" work that still needs to get done but isn't anywhere near as important to the long-term.

tl;dr - Practical Tips

#1: Make it a Game!

"In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun.
You find the fun and - SNAP - the job's a game!" ~ Mary Poppins

Figure out how to gamify your life.
If you treat your life as a game, with clear rules that you can "win". All you have to do is play & have fun!
If you ever feel that something is "unfair", remember that there are at least a billion people for whom the "game" is considerably less "fair.³

Note: I'm not saying that you should play you life like a "chess game" where other humans are your "pawns" ... rather think of our life as an "Open World Collaborative Platformer" where you want everyone on your team to "level up" with you so that you can keep wining at life!

#2: Track Your Wake Time

(ideally) Use a paper "sleep" notebook that never leaves your bedside to note the time you woke up in the morning. Simply writing the date and time is "enough" to start with. You can reflect on the data in a no/low-tech way. If you prefer to use an "app" for this, want to pair on building it?

I use the "screenshot" feature of my Apple Watch to "grab" my wake-up time as soon I wake up. e.g:

"close enough" to 05:00, thanks body clock. 🕔 ✅
Logging your "wake time" is your first accomplishment for the day.

#3: Get Up!

Get up when you wake up. Don't lay in bed staring at phone or "thinking" about getting up ...
If you have woken up naturally, your circadian clock has brought you to consciousness at an appropriate time. Get up now! Especially if you "don't feel like it". You will feel accomplished.
Do what you can for a long as you can. If you need a nap (e.g: after lunch) go for it!
Just make sure you log it in your "sleep journal" (see above).

#4: Never "Snooze".

Learn to live without an alarm clock. (as you know I haven't used an alarm clock for years and I still get up around 05:00 like "clockwork"). But if you feel that you "need" an alarm clock never under any circumstances hit the "snooze" button. It sends totally the "wrong message" your body.

If you still feel "tired", remind yourself of your mission and how it is more important than your tiredness, cold or any other short-term "discomfort". Until you are able to put a mission above your own immediate comfort, you aren't "ready" to make the most of your life.

Remember

The first 3 days of an "early riser" life/streak are by far the most difficult. It get's much easier!
Once you get into a routine waking/getting up "early" and being a "morning person" will come naturally.

---

¹ If you feel that you don't have a clear objective to work towards, speak to me, I can help!
I know exactly what I want to achieve in life and what I need to learn/do along the way.
Most people don't know what they want in life, so they let advertisers spoon-feed them their wants and "needs". But the reason people don't know what they want is not because it's "difficult" to distill life objectives, rather aimless people avoid thinking about it at all cost; constantly doing everything they can to not think about the one thing that is inevitably in life: death. 💀

²Retracing the day is a good way to end the day and ensure that you have captured everything from your mind into a reliable system rather than letting it "play" on your mind and keep you awake long after the 22:30 "light's out".

³According to the most recent data, 14.7% of the world population remains illiterate.
That means that you are "better off" than a (14.7% x 7.7 billion) 1.13 Billion People who are systematically disadvantaged in life because they cannot read! see: ourworldindata.org/literacy

[iteles]

Thanks for putting so much into this answer @nelsonic (although of course I'm not surprised, you're the 👑 of the thorough answer).

The only way I reckon this will work for me is by incorporating a few of those things: having a first task to do for the day (which I already always have) but most importantly just getting up when the alarm clock goes off and not snoozing - for now this will have to be sheer willpower (in short supply for me early in the morning), thought gamifying it (with a non-food 'reward') might help! 👍 🙌