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The science of the cortisol awakening
Around 30-45 minutes before your usual wake time, your brain begins releasing cortisol. Worth mentioning, this is not stress cortisol. It is preparatory cortisol, a natural biological alarm system that primes your alertness, metabolism, and immune function for the day.
Research (Nature) found that this response is 50-100% stronger in people who wake at consistent times. Consistency itself is the main mechanism.
Why do the most successful people in the world wake up early?
Before I got into this challenge, I did research into the morning routines of successful people ( I truly believe discipline plays a major role in your life, and a morning routine is a part of it).
What I found was not a coincidence. It was a clear pattern. The most productive, most creative, most intentional people shared ONE THING>
Successful people owned the early morning hours.
What is interesting is that these people are not waking up early because they are naturally morning people. Most of them were not.
They are waking up early because they made a decision that the first hours of the day were too valuable.
Image by author
My 4:30 AM routine, step-by-step (different)
Let me explain exactly what I did every single morning. The real one, including what the first couple of days felt like before any of it became natural in the end of 2nd week.
4:30 AM (Do not touch your phone)
The alarm goes off at 4:30AM.
The single most important rule I set for myself was this, do not pick up the phone, trick, buy a cheap alarm. (worth sharing, I dont take my phone in bed even before this routine)
The moment you touch your phone, you have handed your first conscious minutes of the day to social agenda, you brain hard wired to start exploring.
The first morning I did this, I lay there for about 1–2 minutes feeling completely weird/tired about what I was doing. By day 5, I was sitting up before the alarm done its first ring.
A study found that checking your phone within the first minutes of waking activates the brain’s threat detection system, elevating anxiety & cortisol before the day has even started. People in reactive morning mode reported 34% lower feelings of control over their day.
