Sleep Less. Exercise Early. Have More Energy!

Morning Person - Not Me

I'm not a morning person. I just need to say that up front. Without an alarm, I'll sleep until 9 or 10 in the morning - easy. And I still do this occasionally. When I wake up after sleeping 8, 9 or 10 hours, I think to myself, "I'm going to feel great all day. I just got plenty of sleep."

But that doesn't happen.

Instead, I feel fine throughout the morning, but by mid-afternoon, I'm ready for a nap. So, again, thinking, "My body is tired, so I must need a nap," I'll lay down and sleep for an hour, maybe more. When I wake up, I again think I should feel well-rested. But instead, I usually feel groggy and in a fog. Sluggish. And I don't like it. I'll splash water on my face in hopes the cold water will wake me up. It helps, but I still don't feel great.

Why?

I ask myself that question repeatedly: After getting plenty of sleep and plenty of rest, why don't I feel rested? It seems counter-intuitive.

Consistency is Key

As I've mentioned before in this blog, I need to find a consistent time of day to work out - one that I can do on a regular basis, otherwise I just won't do it. The only time I've found, taking into consideration our hectic family schedule, is first thing in the morning. And by first thing, I mean it's practically the middle of the night when I start my workouts.

My workout routine usually takes 60 - 90 minutes to complete. Given when we have to leave to get my kids to school, I need to start my workout no later than 5:00 or 5:15 a.m., if I want to finish in time to eat breakfast and be ready to leave by 7:00 a.m. At first, when I first set my alarm clock to this time of day, it seemed it would be impossible. Unthinkable.

Wake Up Early - You Can Do This!

At first, I started getting up around 5:30, still thinking how  difficult that would be. And it was. It wasn't easy, by any stretch of the imagination. But my desire to work out on a consistent basis was my reminder that I needed to get up early. The first few times the alarm went off, it was almost impossible. Sometimes I'd ignore it completely and just sleep in to my "normal" time to wake up. And almost every time, regretted getting the extra sleep and not working out. Especially since I didn't feel great when I finally did get up.

But on the mornings that I didn't go back to sleep, I still struggled to get out of bed - at first. I'd have to talk myself into getting out of bed, sometimes hitting the snooze button a few times before actually getting up. But I'd do it. I'd get up, I'd work out and I'd feel great. Once the workout started, I'd feel wide awake. I was focused. I was in a great mood and and I was definitely NOT sluggish or tired or groggy. Those feelings just didn't exist when I'd work out in the morning.

After doing these early morning workouts for a period of time, I thought maybe I'd changed. Maybe I'd become a "morning person" and whether I worked out or not, I'd still feel well-rested and focused.  That wasn't the case. The key to feeling the way I was feeling: the early morning workouts.

Breaking the Routine - Not a Good Thing

I hit a period of time where I broke with my morning workout routine. Through some family situations, it wasn't possible for me to get up and work out in the mornings. I still worked out - usually in the evenings during the week or in the late morning or afternoon on the weekends - but not in the mornings. I got more sleep - back to 7, 8 or 9 hours a night and when I woke up, those feelings of grogginess, sluggishness - they all came back...with a vengeance. Not only did I feel less well-rested, my mood was pretty neutral, too. And I wasn't as focused. Even my self-confidence felt diminished on the days where I would get more sleep and not work out in the mornings.

I don't know the science behind it, other than the chemicals the brain produces and releases when you're working out, but it truly does affect me. To not exercise and sweat and breathe hard and get the heart pumping and blood moving in the mornings, leaves me feeling less myself and less the way I want to feel in the mornings. And the strange thing is, the great feeling I get during those early morning workouts lasts all day, too. My energy level, my focus, my self-confidence, the way I feel about the way I look - all are vastly and noticeably improved when I exercise first thing in the morning.

Counter-Intuitive...But It Works!

It still seems so counter-intuitive. The days that I exercise in the morning, I get between 6 and 7 hours of sleep - not enough, based on conventional wisdom. Yet, I feel better throughout the morning, afternoon and evening than I do on days that I sleep more, but don't exercise.

Since this is only my own personal experience, I don't know if this happens to anyone else. I suspect it does. And I suspect a lot of the people who don't consider themselves "morning people" would feel similar to the way I feel, if they gave it a shot and did it consistently for a period of time.

At first, it's always difficult. You're changing. You're changing your routine. You're doing something you've told yourself you can't do. Or you've convinced yourself that if you wake up when it's dark out, you'll be tired the rest of the day. If you do it and do it consistently, this is simply not true. You'll have more energy, vitality and focus throughout your day. What have you got to lose? Try it for a few weeks and see what happens. You have very little to lose and soooooo much to gain.

What I haven't done yet, to further this experiment, is to see how I feel when I get 8 - 10 hours of sleep and workout first thing in the morning. To do this, I have to get over the hurdle of going to bed at 8 or 9 at night, which might even be tougher than the thought of waking up at 5 a.m. and plus, I don't think I, personally, could go to bed that early on a consistent basis.

I also haven't seen what would happen if I got 6 hours of sleep and didn't workout in the morning. It would be interesting to do, get 6 hours of sleep and do something other than workout. My suspicion is that in the first scenario, I would feel terrific with the extra sleep coupled with exercise. I also suspect I  would feel even lousier and sleepier if I only got 6 hours of sleep and didn't exercise.

My theory is that exercise is the link - the key to making me (and you) feel better.

Tomorrow morning, when I'm laying in bed at 5 a.m. and the alarm goes off, I'll jump out of bed, ready to start my exercise routine because I know how great I'll feel for the entire rest of the day. You should, too.  I double-dog dare ya.