Getting up at 5 am and exercising

Introduction date - 5th of January 2008

Basic ideas

    Wake up at 5 am every morning and exercise shortly after for at least 30 minutes. Go to sleep at evening as soon as I feel tired. Pay attention to how do I feel during the day. Record hours spent sleeping and maximum number of push ups I can do.


    Find out what the side effects are. Adapt the habit if positive.

Update list

Days 1-3

Days 4-7

Days 8-16



    This experience is connected to both health and discipline. What I want to check is whether it improves my health and productivity during the day. The process will require some discipline to work, which is good I've been reading a little about getting up early. It appears that early risers have healthier and more successful lives. So says Steve Pavlina for instance. I stumbled upon an article about scientific observations, which proved that being an early bird or a night owl fully depends on our genes.
    If it's really up to DNA, getting up early every day won't do me any good - I'm definitely a late-staying type. I often feel groggy during first lessons at school and don't need to press myself too hard if I want to stay up late. So far, I've been waking up about an hour before first lesson, which is a different time every day (random at weekends). I hope to feel much better in the morning once I get used to getting up at the same hour every day and exercise right after that. Perhaps I'll even need less sleep than before. I'll record the time I spent asleep and compare it with my average of 8-9 hours.
    To avoid sleep deprivation, in the evening, I'll go to sleep as soon as I feel tired. Specifically, as soon as my body starts producing hormones to knock me out. I'll avoid eating sugar and performing activities that make my pulse go up. In fact, I should avoid eating anything at all in the evening because the digestion disturbs sleep.
    Exercising is an important part of this experience. It solves the "just one more minute" problem. once I turn off the alarm clock, I feel a strong desire to go back to sleep.Few simple aerobic exercises will increase my blood pressure enough to stay up. More exercises will ensure I don't feel sleepy anytime soon. After I'm done with exercise I'll eat something and more on to usual daily activities. I will record the maximum amount of push ups I can do. I like to observe improvements when I exercise. This gives me motivation to keep going. I won't even bother checking if any local gym is open so early. Basically it's because it's cold outside and I'm a mean sociopath. I have my 5kg dumbbells and a small room, which is enough to perform some strength building and stretching exercises. Maybe I'll move on to martial arts basics later. I don't see how gym would improve my exercising much.
    This experience will help me to build-up discipline.Now that I start running a website, I got to do something about my laziness. An important thing about getting more disciplined is to start low and improve gradually. If I beat myself up too hard at start, I'll just burn out and return to my lazy habits. Introducing two more strict rules to follow (sleep when tired, wake up at 5 am) is nice for start. Not too much, not too little.