How to establish a consistent sleeping routine

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Given that you have the inherent desire to change and the understanding that your current self is inadequate in its knowledge, motivation and discipline, (among many other things), how do you then begin to change your circumstances?

The first thing you need to do is establish a consistent sleeping routine.

This is incredibly difficult. So. incredibly. difficult.

However, if you can manage to do this, you are guaranteed success.

Why?

Because sleep is so. damn. good.

Sleep is the opiate of the masses.

Sleep is the bane of our existence.

If you can deny yourself that “oh-so-good” sleep-in and peel that blanket off you and struggle out of bed in the morning for 14 days in a row (it does not matter if it is weekend or a weekday), you will change your life.

How can a consistent sleeping routine change your life?

Here a few reasons.

1) Denying yourself a sleep-in means that you have successfully conquered your desire to stay in bed. This increases your discipline.

2) Increases in discipline mean that your affinity for tasks which you once considered to be undesirable will increase. The very nature of dreaded tasks is that the outcome of those tasks is usually beneficial.

For example, if you do the dishes now, you will not have to do it later, which then frees up your time so you can focus on yourself or whatever you would rather focus on.

4) Maintaining a streak of completing undesirable tasks then results in those once ‘undesirable’ tasks to become less so, which then results in you deriving pleasure from completing/tackling your responsibilities.

5) Deriving satisfaction from tackling/completing your duties then results in you maintaining a consistently good mood throughout the day and better yet, waking up in the morning with a sense of enthusiasm which will then increase when you know you have a hectic day ahead of you.

6) Your mind establishes a positive feedback loop which then shifts the course of your life and improves your initial trajectory for the better.

So, now that you can see how a consistent sleeping schedule will change your life, how do you establish one?

My method is simple.

Instead of going to bed at the time you usually go to bed, climb into bed a little earlier.

Instead of Midnight, how about 11:30 PM or 11:45 PM.

If you are already in bed, PUT YOUR BLOODY PHONE DOWN.

Turn on ‘Airplane Mode’, set your alarm(s), then close your eyes.

If you have trouble sleeping, play the sounds of the ocean or rain on Spotify, this helps me drift away every single night.

Set two alarms.

A ‘snooze’ alarm and your actual alarm.

Set your real alarm 20 minutes before your usual wake up time.

So, for those of you who wake up 8 AM, set your alarm for 7:40 AM.

This means that your first ‘snooze’ alarm will be set for 7:20 AM.

This way, you have a decent amount of time to snooze, but you will not fall into too deep a sleep.

If you have trouble waking up to the sounds of your alarm, try setting your favourite song as your alarm tone.

This is a fantastic way to wake up because if it is a song you like; you will wake up smiling.

Try this for five days, Monday-Friday.

Do whatever your body wants you to do on the weekend.

You will find that you will wake up slightly more naturally on the first weekend.

If you find waking up too tricky through the first week, you may decrease the interval between your ‘snooze’ alarm and your actual alarm.

You can also set more alarms if you are anything like I used to be.

The goal here is too incrementally improve upon your sleeping patterns every week.

It will not be easy, but no one said life is.

Establish a consistent sleeping routine to change your life.