A survey by mattress-makers Amerisleep found that 67% of people get up between 4am-7am, with most of that group rising at 6am and harbouring the belief that you must be up by 7am to be considered an early bird.
Nearly two-thirds of early riser respondents said they were very productive with work (rising to 71% for the 4am group), while just 49% of later risers said the same.
Many leaders in their fields are famously early birds. Apple CEO Tim Cook routinely wakes at a time most only need contemplate if they have a flight to catch and it feels kind of pointless even going to bed (that time’s 3:45am, by the way).
Reverting to Type
Studies have shown that whether we choose to hit snooze may be at least partly genetic, controlled by our individual chronotype which refers to our circadian rhythm – or biological clock – that determines when we naturally feel most active. Chronotypes are often broken down into three categories: morning types; evening types; or neither (the most common), while other researchers split them more thoroughly into four animal-themed groups: the bear; the wolf; the lion; and the dolphin.
Bear chronotypes are most common, with sleep and wake cycles that follow the sun, peak productivity before lunchtime and a likely crash in energy sometime around 3pm. ‘Wolves’ are most likely to hit that snooze button, feeling more energetic the later they rise, with an extra energy boost come evening, while lion chronotypes rise early, get their stuff done before noon and go to bed at a reasonable hour. ‘Dolphins’ are all over the place, generally having trouble following sleep schedules, partly due to being highly sensitive to their environment and woken easily by sound or light.
Understanding your chronotype can be vital for not only planning you get enough sleep but tracking eating habits (such as when to avoid carbs and caffeine) and monitoring mental health. Aside from genetics, research has shown that chronotypes can vary according to gender, environment, and age – with sleeping patterns evolving with time (the older we get the more likely we are to rise earlier). Studies have also shown that we can (very gradually) train ourselves to outwit our inner bear, wolf, lion, or dolphin, and choose when we want to feel most alive.
The 5am Club
The 5am Club is a 20-years-in-the-making concept created by internationally renowned leadership and performance guru Robin Sharma. It revolves around the widely accepted philosophy that early starts breed success, as Sharma puts it, if you “take excellent care of the front end of your day, the rest of your day will take care of itself”. Sharma’s The 5am Club book, published in 2018, has sold in the gazillions, transferring his concept to an easy-to-digest motivational tome cleverly masquerading as a fictional story. Of course, not hitting snooze is only half the battle, organising those extra hours efficiently is vital too, beginning with dividing your first hour into three equal 20-minute blocks of exercise, reflection, and learning.
Rather than have the book delivered I opted for a click and collect and cycled 20km across Auckland figuring it to be far more fitting, given the subject. Halfway through the 20km ride back, the heavens opened with absolute fury and the rolled-up book in the back of my cycling jersey got soaked to near-illegibility. An omen? Without doubt.
I’m not averse to an early rise, though an early rise rarely means pre-6am. The problem is that I’m not averse to a late night either and often the two overlap. It’s a very hard habit to break, especially as I regularly feel more like writing at night. Also, 5am is a helluva a lot earlier than 6am. A helluva lot. I don’t care what the clocks or physics say, it’s definitely way more than an hour.
As it turned out, this wasn’t the best month for such an experiment anyway, further shining a light on how I need to up my organisational skills (just like Sharma says). Aside from the bracing cold of winter (and we sure had some cold snaps during June) making it even more of a struggle to roll out of the warmth, we moved house (stressful at the best of times, but in our penny-pinching wisdom my partner and I decided to up the ante and hire a van which wasn’t big enough to do it all ourselves – we’re still arguing about it), and for the week before the move I spent a good chunk of what should have been my sleeping hours tending to our sick dog (he’s okay now). A dog who, I discovered, is most definitely, fittingly, a wolf chronotype who does not appreciate being dragged around cold dark streets while the birds are still a snoozing. (Though he will happily gobble down an early breakfast before retiring back under the sheets.) Throw in the fact that my partner is a midwife who works hospital shifts and it meant several nights on the sofa bed in the spare room. There certainly followed plenty of zombified mornings and one or two afternoon powernaps.
My raging failure aside, a few facts remain resolute. Early risers not only report being more productive, but are higher-earners, happier, less likely to suffer mental health issues, and more likely to be more satisfied with the quality of their life. But at the foundation of all that is getting enough sleep.
So, I’ll put my 5am Club membership to bed for now but will certainly give it another go come summer. With a new baby due in December, I might not have much choice.
