Yes, I Wake Up at 4:00 AM Every Day.

No, I Do Not Expect nor Encourage You to Do the Same.

With the coronavirus bonanza finally starting to slow down, I have found myself getting back into my routine of waking up at 4:00 in the morning, hitting the gym, taking a shower, and then getting on with my day by about 6:00.

People have a lot of questions for you when they come to find out that you go to bed before 8:00 and wake up at 4:00 every single morning. Which, by the way, I do mean every day. Not just weekdays, or days when I have school/work.

That is why I want to lay out the exact reasons for why I do this, and why you should by no means feel the need to do the same thing. I follow personal development very closely, and I know that there are a lot of folks out there trying to tell you to wake up earlier.

That’s not how it works.

Use what you learn here to determine what is going to work the best for you.

1.) I Am a Lion.

The first and foremost routine for falling into the sleep schedule that I am in is because I have found my chronotype.

Your chronotype is essentially a personality trait that will tell you when you are the most productive, and what time of day you operate the best at.

Generally speaking, there are four different types of people:

• Lions: Those who function best in the early early hours of the morning, before most people are out of bed. Usually these guys are the go-getters.
• Bears: Those who function the best starting around 8:00 AM and going to bed around 11:00 PM or Midnight. This is the most common type.
• Wolves: The “night owls” that find themselves doing their most productive work late at night, and sleeping throughout the day. Creative people tend to fall into this category.
• Dolphins: A rare mix of people that find themselves more productive sleeping more frequently for shorter periods of time. For example, sleeping from 12:00 AM to 4:00 AM, and then again from 12:00 PM to 4:00 PM.

This is a quick and brief overview of how this whole system works. If you want to learn it more in depth, search for Dr. Breus interviews online, or grab a copy of his book, The Power of When.

This was one of the most powerful discoveries that I have ever made…

The reason I’m breaking all of this down is because it has really made a difference in my productivity levels, and also a huge difference about how I feel when I am working.

It’s hard to wrap your head around the concept that all of us are just wired to be more productive or effective doing different tasks at different times of the day. Regardless of our sleep schedule, or any outside factors like that.

If I were to wake up at 8:00 AM, work out, and go through my normal routing with everything simply shifted by four hours, I can almost guarantee that I would either be less productive, or I would feel a lot worse while doing the work.

So my advice to you would be to experiment with some of these chronotypes, and see if you find one that you just click with. See if you’re like me and just way more amplified at 5:00 in the morning for no good reason.

2.) The Gym is Empty at 4:30 AM.

This point is not really going to be useful for you, but I have to throw in that a big part of the reason that I choose to wake up so early is because I hate being in crowded gyms.

My gym is usually empty between about 3:00–5:00 in the morning, and I like to be there while it is empty.

This is a simple trade-off. I wake up earlier, and in return, I get an empty gym. Plain and simple.

If anything, the lesson in this is that you do have choices to make when it comes to personal development, and there is always a way to get things done.

There is also always a trade-off though.

3.) Nothing Gets Done After 7:00 PM.

The last reason that I enjoy being up early is because I feel like I utilize more hours of my day this way. In other words, I am far more productive from 4:00–8:00 AM, than I likely would be from 7:00–11:00 PM if I were on a more “normal” sleep schedule. Make sense?

Here is what I mean.

People will often try to get ahold of me around 7:30 PM and later, and I won’t answer my phone because, well, I’m sleeping.

I’ll answer them the following morning and tell them that I’m normally sleeping at that time. To which the response is always “Why do you go to bed so early?”

So here is my explanation.

I like to sleep at 7:00 or 8:00 PM because almost nothing is being accomplished by anyone at that time.

Yes, I know you might be reading this right now thinking that you’d still be working, or you’d be doing your homework, but generally people are spending 7:00 PM and later drinking and watching sports or late night TV. I just don’t need that in my life.

So since there isn’t really much (productive work) to do after that time, I figure that I might as well just sleep. Knowing full well that I will be productive when I wake up the following morning before the “work day” and then I will continue to be productive throughout the “work day”.

You Can Literally Add More Hours to Your Day WITHOUT Sacrificing Any Sleep.

When done correctly, you can adjust your sleep schedule in a way that will give you more hours to accomplish your goals and still allow you to sleep for eight, nine, or even ten hours every night!

The problem for a lot of people isn’t going to be that they do not have enough hours in a day. The problem is going to be that they do not use all of their hours in a day, and that usually is not the person’s fault.

There are elements of certain times of the day being optimized for productivity, while other times aren’t. The world operates around the “9–5” life, and then your body itself operates on its own clock and rhythm.

Finding the alignment between the two could open doors for you, so I hope that you would be inspired to at least do a little bit of experimenting.

Keep in mind, you might have already found your rhythm.