Well, I don't know about healthy, wealthy, and wise, but I do know I wouldn't trade waking up early for sleeping in if they paid me for it. I wake up at 6am every day, weekend or weekday, rain or shine because it feels incomparably good to do so. I wake up easily and painlessly, and feel my day is always off to a good start.
Waking up early clearly helps productivity, that's no question. Imagine if you work from home and wake up at 8 or 9 every morning, a fairly reasonable time, and then get down to business. By the time lunch rolls around, you would have had somewhere around 3-4 hours of work time, while the 5 or 6am riser has had between 6 and 7 hours! By the time 2pm rolls around, they have gotten 8 hours in, a full workday, and they still have the rest of their day for whatever they like, comparable to the 9am riser that gets the 8 hours over with somewhere after 5pm, with the day nearing it's end. Some of my best work happens early in the morning, too. I've had a long night sleep, so I'm not tired. I've just eaten breakfast, so I have abundant energy, and my thoughts are able to flow in the solitude and silence of the early morning hours. By the time many people wake up, I've already eaten, gotten ready, worked out, walked a few miles, caught up on writing, and possibly painted a picture, all the while, they're dragging themselves out of bed and blindly searching for the coffee machine.
You just can't beat the morning hours, either. On a nice, warm summer morning, I like to sit on my porch and read in the complete silence of the sunrise. There are no kids outside screaming at the playground, there is only the book, birds, and I, basking in the rising sun and watching the dew sparkle. It is one of the most peaceful things that can be experienced. It would be a shame to wake up later and miss such beauty.
Mornings are also a good time to reflect and meditate because they offer such peace and solitude. If you must drink coffee, what better time to sit and enjoy the flavors and aroma, while sorting through all the things you are grateful for? In the stillness that the early morning has to offer, you can get your day started off the right way, with reassurances and thanks, that will tremendously decrease your stress levels throughout all your waking hours.
So, how do you do it? Well, first and foremost is to remember why it is important to you. If you do it just to do it, you will not roll out of bed when the alarm goes off. How does it make you feel to have those extra hours? What can you get done that will positively affect your life? Maybe you never get time to yourself, and the early morning offers endless opportunities. Whatever it is, make sure you figure it out, because you will need it the moment that alarm goes off, which brings me to my next tip:
Do not, and I repeat, do not let yourself think about how warm and cozy that bed is. Your head will talk you out of getting up so fast that you wont even know it happened, and you'll wake up at nine thinking, "I didn't wake up early! Who turned off my alarm? I could have sworn I set it.."
Ideally, you should be getting up immediately and heading straight for the sink before you mind even registers it's not in bed anymore. If you do give yourself a moment to think, there should be only one thing you are thinking about- and that's all the reasons getting up is important to you- and then not giving your mind the moment to counter them. Just. get. up.
Now that the hard part is over, there are some steps that can be done immediately after rising to insure that you stay awake in stead of crawling right back in bed. What I did when I was having trouble with it in the beginning was to fill the sink up with cold water and splash it on my face. It will shock you awake, no doubt about it. After you're ready, be sure to open some windows and let the sunlight in to further show your body that it's time to be awake. If the sun isn't up yet, turn on all the lights in the house as a lesser, but helpful, substitute. Eat breakfast to get your body moving, and stretch to loosen up your muscles from sleep. What I really love to do in the morning to get my blood pumping is the yoga pose Downward Facing Dog. This gets the blood flow moving to your head and instantly wakes you up. If you're still dead tired, 30 jumping jacks will do the trick, and the bed will be the furthest things from you mind.
Do this everyday, including weekends, and withing a week or two, it should be ridiculously easy to wake up early. It doesn't take long to tell your body what the new rules are, and it will surely follow through and make it easier on you. There's only one thing left to do now, and that's reap the benefits of your new-found habit! The day is young, and the morning it full of unexplored potential, so milk it while you can!
