An Invitation to Experimentation
Let’s give it a try, and see what happens
“The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up.”
I’ve always been a “night owl.” No matter how many herbal teas I drink, or inspirational YouTube videos I watch, going to sleep early and waking up early has never been a habit I can stick to.
After writing recently about resolutions, I decided to walk the talk, and start thinking about this desire to be a morning person as something I’m already resolute about. With that in mind, how do I take the next step?
I tried asking myself why I wanted to be waking up earlier each day. For me, it’s about building my life so that every day, I am using my time well. Typically those late evenings are filled with leisure, but if I do have an early morning, I use the beginning of the day well, so I want to get up and take advantage of that. Usually this would mean setting an alarm clock for an early time, and forcing myself to get up and go.
I spoke to Darius Norell, host of What’s Your Work, and he suggested that I try something radical: don’t use an alarm clock at all.
If the aim is to use time well, waking up naturally is a good check-in with how you’re spending your time. If it takes a lot of effort to get out of bed, what does that say about how you’re spending your day? If you have to force yourself to do something, how fulfilling is that thing? Is it something you truly want to devote your time to? If the answer is yes, the likelihood is that your body will naturally wake you up for it, without any external nudging.
There is also research that suggests you will feel better for waking up at the natural point in your circadian rhythm than with an alarm clock - even if the alarm clock sleep is longer. So in theory, if you interrupt an 8 hour sleep, you will feel worse than naturally waking up after 6 hours.
For the past week, I have abandoned my alarm clock. I set an intention each night for the next day, something I am motivated to spend my time on. In the morning, I wake up in plenty of time, I feel very refreshed, and I spend the rest of my day well, aiming towards the thing that’s motivating me. So far, the habit is sticking.
I’d like to invite you to try this experiment yourself. If, like me, you want to start your day in a new way, try letting go of the alarm clock and wake up naturally for one week. See what happens when you get some quiet time for yourself each day.
If you are already a morning person, or you don’t use an alarm clock, think of a habit you are trying to cultivate and ask yourself questions: why do I want to get in this habit? What am I working towards? How is this going to work for me?
If you have any questions about this experiment, or you’d like to share what comes up for you, you are welcome to email me at harry@thebrilliance.co.uk and we can continue the conversation. You can also listen to us talk about this experiment on the show! Check out episode 6.
All the best with your exploration, we’ll be back with another post soon.
Interested in the no alarm clock experiment? We did it ourselves on the podcast. Listen to our no alarm clock episodes here.
