I got up this morning and, for the first time in weeks, didn’t crawl back into bed. There was a time, probably even less than a year ago, where the thought of snoozing didn’t cross my mind.
It was a win to get one step closer to that.
Here’s what worked:
– I set an alarm on my phone and put my phone on my desk so I’d need to stand up to turn it off.
– Note: I also used to use my phone to listen to a podcast (usually an old Rewatchables episode) to sleep. Last week I got a $30 MP3 player. It’s clunky but it has a sleep function. I threw 2 episodes on it and that’s it and now I can listen to something to bed without being tempted to scroll on my phone.
– I mixed up a pre-workout (BCAA + caffeine) and stuck it in the fridge.
This worked. Why? Here are some hunches:
– The alarm matters but the position doesn’t. I used to wake up on my own before 7AM but never re-adjusted since moving from NY to SF a month ago. So I do need an alarm (trying 6:30 AM right now). I say the position doesn’t matter because I’ve had it at the desk for a few days and will just walk over, turn it off, and walk back to bed no problem. (The problem is that I usually don’t end up falling back asleep and then am both tired and frustrated that I didn’t use the waking time to do something.)
– The $30 MP3 player has been great. I fall asleep when I finally stop stupidly patting myself on the back for thinking of buying it
– Is BCAA magic? Probably not. But the last time I significantly lost weight, I was using it before and after workouts. It might just help curb hunger and that’s a good enough benefit for me. For the caffeine, why not coffee? It’d probably wake me up but I wanted to try to build a new cue. Coffee usually means I’ll sit down and work. I want the artificial pre-workout flavor first thing in the morning to taste like the beginning of a workout.
Another useful step: I started using the apartment complex gym. (Mask on! Empty at the time with huge garage style doors open for ventilation.) I have the same weights for kettlebells at home, but it probably takes 1-2 minutes from my door to the gym door.
1-2 minutes to a complete environment shift. Hard to beat.
(Let’s see if I can keep it up!)