The Way I Am: Adjustments

I’ll be honest. I slept in until 8:45. I got up at 5 today, got into my morning routine and found that the internet does not work for some complicated reason that is beyond my comprehension. See, my dad is the one that nine times out of ten, fixes it. I’ve certainly asked him before how he does it and while I get an idea, I’m not completely sure. But I stayed up for 35 minutes trying to fix it but with the internet not working, I oscillated with the thoughts of going back to bed vs. salvaging the rest of the early morning and begin to review my notes. NOTE: I have written down before that I need to plan what I want to accomplish the next day, the night before, but I forgot again. I need to put this sentence in plain sight so I see it. Well, needless to say, I know which choice I elected. I’m a little disappointed in myself. But at the same time, I know that there is no rush. Many people don’t get this down until their late 20’s or early 30’s I suspect. Secondly, I’ll just try and make some adjustments. I’m getting used to waking at 5 in the morning but I still feel a little tired and not as awake as I’d like to be. Number one pillar is to experiment, so let’s experiment.

My diet recently has been evolving into healthier choices after reviving my research into cancer thanks to Tim O’Shea. I usually stop eating two hours before bed and this portion would not be over the top buffet style. In fact, eat lightly at night is another pillar. Yesterday, I violated it. Perhaps I need to be stricter with this rule. I’m going to change it to 3 hours. Be done with all ingestion three hours prior to bed. Yesterday night, I ate some buffalo sauce chicken breasts from Costco about five hours before bed and some fruits an hour before bed. That was the first time I ate some thicker styled meats in a while but that was several hours before. I don’t think I’m going to go vegetarian- maybe in the distant future. I’ll try no food at all for the last three hours before bed and assess my early morning energy levels.

From research, I’ve read that “the fog of the brain”- yes like the fog of war- should not be an issue in the long run. It does take time to transition but you should be up and alert and ready to go. In the beginning, it will take a moderate amount of discipline but it should not take an inhuman amount of discipline. Currently, when that alarm goes off, there are days where I will experience that fog of the brain, and other days where my circadian rhythm tells me that it’s about time to get up. In terms of rating my alertness in the first hour of getting up to the rest of the day, it’s about a 7.5 - 8 versus a 9, on a scale of 1 – 10 where one is the sound of the alarm going off for a minute before I realize the alarm has already gone off; five is I’m up, sitting at my desk but enveloped in a haze where I can function but it’ll be quite unproductive (ex: staying up late and trying to do work at 3 in the morning); seven being, I can sit at my desk and function but my mind will remind me that another hour of sleep would be nice; eight being: “I’ll just play some Immediate Music or Two Steps From Hell and I’ll be as ready to go like a 9 as I am in the afternoon”; nine being, zero thoughts of sleep or being tired circulate in my mind and ready to use my time productively; and ten being, raring to go as if today is the day I set flight for an Adventure in a far away land- which is the type of energy level I have sparsely experienced.

That’s where I am right now and my end goal for alertness and energy in the early morning is something like this: “Your alarm goes off at 5am, and you immediately get out of bed without a second thought. As you orient yourself to the waking world, you can barely detect any lingering grogginess, even if you look for it. You stand up and stretch, feeling totally alert, fully conscious, and eager to start your day. The thought of going back to bed to get some extra sleep seems completely alien to you.

It feels great to be up early, and you know you’ll put those early morning hours to good use. You’ll be able to exercise, shower, get dressed, eat a healthy breakfast, read some inspiring material, and invest an hour in your home-based business — all before 8am. And you know that the habit of starting each day this way will serve you well for life.

Maintaining this habit is easy for you. You don’t have to force yourself out of bed, and it doesn’t seem to require much discipline at all. It feels normal and natural to be alert and active at this time.”

- Steve Pavlina