When I was a soldier I didn’t sleep for 5 nights and 6 days in a row. That was one of the most traumatic and, at the same time, transforming experiences I ever had. I’m not going to talk about the specific context of this event, you can go read a small recap of what happened in this article. Today, I’m going to talk about sleep, and how sleep is influencing our lives.
I remember that during those nights without sleep, my consciousness started to shift away at certain intervals, without my control. I don’t think that those were hallucinations, but somehow, I started to see things that doesn’t really existed. Those episodes may have been triggered by the extreme pressure too, but I think the loss of sleep had also a considerable impact.
After those 5 nights, I slept only one night and felt back in shape immediately. All the turmoil that generated that situation ended in a few weeks, and I thought I was back to normal for good. But I wasn’t. Somehow, my sleeping routine has been irreversibly modified. I started to have 24-48 hours periods without sleep at almost no energy cost. Didn’t feel any fatigue whatsoever, the only downside of those episodes being that my body started to heat more than usual. I was literally warmer after those 24-48 hours without sleep.
Sleep Patterns And Travel
20 years later, I started to travel a lot. Introducing jetlag, if you know what I mean. I visited 4 continents and started to do business on 2. During those trips, my sleep patterns were completely messed up. Let me tell you why and how.
During my first trip to New Zealand, I arrived in Auckland at 10 AM, after 25 hours spent in 3 airplanes. The total trip time was around 30 hours. Knowing that I am pretty good at those 24-48 hours without sleep, I didn’t pay any specific attention to my body signals, just went on without worrying too much.
After 2 hours of visiting Auckland (I was with some friends) I felt an incredible powerful sensation of cold. There were 25 Celsius degrees outside, so it must have been something from the inside. Almost already asleep I asked my friend to take me somewhere where I can take a nap. After 3-4 hours of sleep, I felt energized and warm again.
I don’t know the explanation for the warmness I experienced after the 24-48 hours sleepless episodes, not for the sudden cold I experienced during my first jetlag incident. All I know is that sleep plays in incredible role in our lives, and we should not take it for granted.
For A Sleep Discipline
So, 20 years after my first major sleep disruption experience and 1 year after my first serious jetlag experience, I finally came up with some conclusions regarding sleep and its importance in our life.
First of all, sleep is not something that just happens. It’s a very important part of our life. Just because we’re not conscious during sleep it doesn’t mean we cannot control its quality and effectiveness.
Second, sleep is responsible with a lot of stuff that happens within our bodies, and every deviation from the normal course can have totally unpredictable effects. See the warmness and coldness I experienced without any specific reasons.
And third. sleep is a powerful and effective tool for enhancing our conscious life. Whenever your sleep patterns are neat, your energy levels are high. So, not only we can control sleep in itself, but by controlling sleep, we can control the awake part as well.
And this is how I came up with what I call a sleep discipline. A way to control sleep and enhance my daily routines. I did many sleep experiences during my life, most of them not yet described on my blog. For instance, when I was a student, I completely reversed my life cycle for 3 weeks, sleeping during the day and writing during the night so I can finish a novel I was writing at that time.
But from all these experiments, all this pushing and learning, only one thing came up really strong. Waking up early seemed to be the most effective sleep routine of all.
Benefits Of Waking Up Early
Why? Let me give you some of the benefits of this.
1. Social Advantage
We’re social animals and a lot of our life is unfolding in groups. These groups have routines and rules. For instance, work starts at 9 AM, this is a widely accepted social routine (I know some work doesn’t start at 9 AM but for the vast majority of the population, this is the case). So, waking up early will give you an enormous advantage in front of your colleagues. You will have a few hours for yourself just before the whole group will start to move.
2. Diurnal / Nocturnal Pattern
If you’re waking up early, when there’s still dark outside, something subtle will happen. You will always witness the nocturnal / diurnal melting. I’m not talking only about witnessing the sunrise, which is in itself a very powerful experience, but about witnessing this transformation of darkness into light. Even if you don’t realize it consciously, being a constant witness of this transformation will give you much more confidence.
3. Broaden Day Vision
Every time you wake up early, you put some distance between your “normal” day and yourself. It’s like taking two steps back and observing what’s to unfold before you before the actual unfolding process starts. This gives what I call a broaden day vision. Which in time will become just a broaden vision of stuff, period. If you wake up just before your day starts, you’ll feel a little bit trapped, if not more. It’s like you don’t “have” time.
4. Implementing New Habits
The first part of the day is the most suitable for implementing new habits. During that part of the day you’re much more aware and available, because your normal routine didn’t kick in. Yet. So, if you can “enlarge” this period, by waking up earlier than what what’s usually the norm, you will give yourself more time for new stuff. The effect will be, in time, overwhelming. Those tiny habits implemented during those solitary mornings will pay off big time.
5. More Choices
I don’t know about you, but I really like to have more choices in life. Doesn’t matter the exact situation, I just don’t like to be put in front of a situation with only one answer. I want to have many choices. Waking up just before your work day will start will drastically limit your choices. The only reasonable choice would be to shower, eat and go to work. Well, waking up early will give you so many new possibilities to start your day.
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Now, these are only the visible part of the iceberg, things that you can see and experience in the moment. But the most important, long lasting and powerful effect of waking up early is that you will grow an eye for the opportunities. You will learn how to wake up on something just before anybody else does. Being it a career opportunity, a new relationship opportunity or just something that nobody sees yet. You will be trained to spot that subtle movement which will lead to something extraordinary. Yes, you will. 😉
How To Become An Advanced Early Riser
I’m going to finish this article in a slightly different way than I usually do. I won’t draw any conclusion and I won’t try to find an inspiring and motivating punch line. Nope. This time I will be very practical. Since you’ve been already convinced of all the benefits of becoming an early riser, it’s time for you to start doing it. Like right now.
Becoming an early riser is just a goal. And if you master the art of properly setting goals, you will make this happen. If you do it the right way, it’s just a matter of time. You will become an early riser and you will start to enjoy all the benefits listed above.
For the next 2 minutes I invite you to have a look at the video below.
Until recently, the course was live on Udemy, where it was taken for more than 150 people. Recently, I moved it to another platform, mostly because this new platform gives me the opportunity to set up a better price. On Udemy, the course was selling for $69, now the list price is $49. I also made a few enhancements to the course.
And since you had the guts to make it until here, I want to give you a little something, as a token of appreciation. I will make a substantial discount to the course. Instead of $49, I will give it to you with $39. That’s right, you get the course at basically half the list price on Udemy.
All you have to do is to click the link below:
If the link doesn’t work, add this code to the Coupon Code entry box under the course title: “2016“.
Looking forward to see you there.
The listed benefits in this article assume you are a part of the socioeconomic rat race which I have no interest in pursuing after college.
considering super-brokeness (as in behind on rent and can only spend $20 a week on groceries) i cant buy this ultimate guide. so i was hoping for a few quick tips…. on weekends i love the wake up early before everyone else get stuff done etc approach. but weekdays i already have to get up at 5:10 and have to leave my house for work by 5:50…. i’m talking AM especially in winter when its still dark for several hours after i wake up….does it really make sense to get up hours earlier than that?
Hi! you r r8, I agree with you, it alwz givz us an upper hand on late risers
It wasn’t easy shifting myself to become an early riser because I was always a night owl. I used to make excuses about how it’s just as good to spend your hours awake as it is during the early morning. I was definitely wrong.
After getting out of school and starting in the real world, I’ve been forced to become an early riser. It was probably one of the greatest things that ever happened to me. I’m more productive, have more energy, and accomplish a ton more. Maybe others don’t necessarily need that change to feel it, but I know it’s what did it for me.
True. When you wake up before the rest, you rely less on what others say. You realize your in a league of your own. For the most successful people rise before the sun, never after.
> win 3 hours of life everyday
Now that’s a compelling promise.
Hey Dragos,
Please check the spam commets because I believe that my last comment was on this article was marked as spam (because it has 2 links in it)
Thanks!
I keep hearing this advice since I was a kid… and I tried… I reallly tried… honestly! But for the last 15 years or so, since I’ve been productive in one way or another, my best work happened between 5pm and 2am. I’ll keep trying though! 😉
It sounds almost like the “warm-ness” was a small fever. Not sure if that is possible when you lose sleep, but it makes sense.
I’m a morning person. I like waking up early and wearing my pajames until 2-3PM. Something about the morning atmosphere just makes me a harder worker. It feels like I’m getting a lot done before most people even wake up. So, for whatever reason, I prefer to prolong my mornings as far as possible. Another big part of it is I like drinking coffee (again, something about it symbolizes “hard work” to me).
Hey Dragos, thanks for such a great article on sleep and your experiences with it. It’s always fascinating to read other peoples experiments in pushing their mind and body to the limit.
You described a perfect example of ‘Circadian Rhythm’ disruption. When you go to sleep your body temperature drops by about 1 – 1.5 degrees celsius. If you don’t sleep, your body doesn’t have a chance to cool down, therefore disrupting your body-temperature balance. (I know I probably sound like a smart-arse, but I had to get that in there 🙂 )
Thank you so much for your wonderful review of my new guide as well, I really appreciate it. Your suggestions were great, and I always listen to constructive criticism, especially from someone who knows what they’re talking about.
You’re a star Dragos 8)
Hey Steven
I did know that our temperature goes down when we sleep, but never made the connection with the heating thing. Huh 🙂
I thank you for a great product and wish you all the luck with it. The guide in itself is an example of what you can create if you discipline yourself enough to control your sleep instead of being controlled by it.
Thanks, Steve 🙂
Ugh – i was digging the article untill/blog you tried to tag me for $25
There has to be a better way for you to create income? And if you are going to get commission for pushing someone else’s ebook why not disclose that instead of hiding behind a redirect?
Good luck to you
Bad timing, Rick, you found me in a very bad moment… 🙁
Please don’t be fooled by the zen-ish approach in many of my articles, I’m as human as you are, and whenever I see things that are pissing me off, I rant. Stupidity, especially, makes me rant big time. Ready?
So, did I tagged you for $25? How inconsiderate of me! A poor guy from Romania trying to put his greedy hand into your pocket because he’s unable to find other ways of income? Or perhaps I should do what everybody on the internet is doing nowadays: put banners that I can’t control, associate with products I never use and fool my audience every time by making people click on PPC links. Since everybody does that, this is the legit thing to do, right?
No, let’s not talk about reputation marketing here (I do have the feeling that using words over a certain IQ level will make you a little bit dizzy, but I’m ready to be misunderstood once again). Let’s not talk about associating with real people, people that are sharing the same values as we do. People that I know and respect. No. This can’t be true.
Oh, and when exactly didn’t I disclose the fact that I get a commission? Maybe you were so “happy” to disclose a dirty guy, hitting for the comment box, that you didn’t even finish the article? Oh, this looks like an Assess – Decide – Do imbalance for me. But I have some good news for you: I wrote a book about that, so next time you’ll be ready to make a fool of yourself by writing without thinking, you may have the knowledge to stop your fingers before it’s too late. The ebook is free and you can download it from here. It’s written by me, so I couldn’t become an affiliate for that one. The mere thought of doing it it’s fracturing my synapses as we speak. Oh, and if you think ebooks are overrated (you don’t really look like the kind of guy who read those useless paper bricks) you can try an iPhone app. Guess what, it was written by me too. Whatta coincidence 🙂 It’s even cheaper than an ebook, only $3.99, and it works on iPad too, get it from here.
But then again, you don’t look like a guy who can be easily fooled and you know that paying for some extra knowledge it’s just useless. Not to mention too expensive.
I have news for you, Rick. The most expensive thing in the world is not a book, it’s stupidity: you always get to pay enormous amounts of money when you use it.
Toldya I can rant… Oh, you’re not here anymore, aren’t you? 😉
Dragos,
I am here and sorry for my earlier comment – it was bad timing on my part as my email was full of scammers and I didn’t mean to take that out on you. I see you came out swinging and i am sorry I got you upset.
Attacking my IQ and calling me an “ass” seems a little harsh but I understand your perspective at the time 🙂
I do enjoy your posts and thanks for sharing them, again i apologize.
Rick
I’m sorry too if I sounded harsh and happy to see that at the other end is a real person with whom I can have a decent dialogue. Once again, all my points related to reputation marketing are still standing, while all the bad language is taken out. With apologies, again. 🙂
It’s great to read about this topic. I subscribe to a newsletter called Early to Rise, but I’ve noticed that I’ve been staying up later and getting up later. I’m going to keep paying attention to this subject.
Good luck to you, Steve. It’s never too late to get back on the road again 🙂
Oh man, I love what you say here! As a committed early riser, I have definitely experienced these benefits. But I’ve never before heard it put in these terms. I didn’t realize that witnessing the transformation of night into day was so powerful. But you’re right! That is one of my favorite things about the early morning time. I love seeing this and I do think that sense of peace follows me throughout the day. What a wonderful thing to be championing on your blog. Thank you!
Yeap, that darkness into light thing is incredibly powerful, isn’t it?