I bet most of us have the same intuition about mornings. The earlier you wake up, the better. Some people seem to be natural early risers, or so they say, but for me waking up at sunrise has always been a struggle.
Why do we think waking up early is a good thing? To explore this age-old question, I turned to two authors who have had an influence on me, Arthur Schopenhauer and Jocko Willink.
I’d like to experience more of these moments. Sunrise image by Dawid Zawiła from Unsplash.
First, let’s see what the famous German philosopher had to say about mornings:
Do not shorten the morning by getting up late, or waste it in unworthy occupations or in talk; look upon it as the quintessence of life, as to a certain extent sacred. Evening is like old age: we are languid, talkative, silly. Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death.
Schopenhauer is one of the few German 19th century philosophers I can read and understand. He also had a great sense of humour, though he was gloomy about the human nature and pessimistic of life in general.
The part of the quote where he compares each day to a little life is beautiful. Clearly Schopenhauer thinks that mornings are when creative and good things happen. Evenings are when we become tired, languid, and slowly wither away.
Jocko Willink, ex Navy SEAL commander and author of Extreme Ownership, has a clear-cut take on mornings:
So, I wake up early. I wake up at 4:45. I like to have that psychological win over the enemy. For me, when I wake up in the morning, and I don’t know why, I’m thinking about the enemy and what they’re doing. And I know I’m not active duty anymore, but it’s still in there that there’s a guy that’s in a cave somewhere and he’s rocking back and forth and he’s got a machine gun in one hand and a grenade in the other hand and he’s waiting for me, and we’re gonna meet. When I wake up in the morning, I’m thinking to myself what can I do to be ready for that moment which is coming. So, that propels me out of bed.
When describing his morning routine and why he wakes up so early, Willink talks about “the enemy” as the motivator, which is understandable considering his background. He could’ve also spoken about “everybody else”, because by waking up early you get a psychological win over everybody else.
The sensation of a victory comes from the fact that you’ve already done useful stuff, be it exercising, meditating, or clearing your inbox, before the rest of society even has had its first cup of coffee.
Personally, I fully agree with Schopenhauer, Willink, and all the other early birds, who preach the gospel of early mornings. I can clearly see why it’s a good thing and why I should get up every morning at 5am. The problem is that it’s never been natural for me to wake up at 5am. Not even at 7am for that matter.
Or is it a problem? Because it wasn’t a problem when I was a kid, and it stops being a problem when I’m taking a break from coffee. The handful of times I’ve managed to take a prolonged break from coffee have shown me that, indeed, early mornings can be easy even for me.
There’s nothing mystical about it. We all know that caffeine is a stimulant and a lot of people will have problems falling a sleep if they drink coffee too late in the afternoon. Caffeine will also have a negative impact on the overall quality of your sleep, and just like with alcohol, even small amounts can cause an effect.
During my coffee abstinence experiments, when caffeine has completely evaporated from my system, which typically takes about two weeks or so, my sleep quality has improved dramatically. I’ve been able to fall asleep much quicker and waking up early has felt easy and natural.
All of this brings me back to a topic I’ve written about many times before: How to get rid of coffee, a substance I love dearly, not just because of how it smells and tastes, but also because of the routine and anticipation that comes with it in the mornings.
Then again, perhaps it’s not necessary to get rid of coffee altogether. It just might be enough to reduce the amount of coffee I consume to one or two cups in the morning, which most certainly should be doable. In fact, I think I’ll run a two-week experiment right away doing exactly that, while consistently getting up from bed at 6am and documenting how I feel.