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Hey, welcome back toThe Own Your Health Podcast, I'm Cyndi Lynne, and I can't wait to help you step into your health power. I'm especially excited about today's episode because we're going to dive into one of the biggest New Year's resolutions I hear from just about everyone, and it's kind of the granddaddy of New Year's resolutions because it's the basis for so many others. And I'll explain that in just a minute.
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But I want us to think about any of the resolutions, any of the new practices that we're thinking about starting for the new year. How many of them start with this sage advice? Ages old advice.
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Just get up earlier and blank. Fill in the blank. Now, you know there's a pitfall here already because when you start with just, oh, just get up earlier. Oh, just get up earlier and exercise.
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Just get up earlier and journal. Just get up earlier and meditate. You know, there's a little bit of a bias there. Somebody is telling you, giving you this advice, and they're giving you advice on something that's easy for them but may be really difficult for you.
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Now, creating that time for yourself in the morning before the rest of the world kind of closes in on your time and space and energy, can be a really good idea. And I know people who are super good at taking care of themselves in the evenings, but for a lot of us, we're kind of out of energy.
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So, yes, morning time to yourself can be super productive, super healthy, and help you feel very much in control of not only your health, but your day. So where does this advice go wrong?
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Well, it goes wrong in two major ways. One, I mean, cast aside the just. But one, get up earlier. So many people will say to themselves, okay, if I'm going to exercise, I need an hour, all right?
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And so they'll set their alarm clock for an hour earlier and the alarm goes off and they're miserable. And they may white knuckle it through day one or day two, even day three. And there's people who are miserable for even two weeks before they make any other adjustments, thinking that that magic 14 days or however many days they've been told it takes to make a habit, will kick in and then it will become easy.
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And really, for a lot of people, it never does with that approach. So how do we correct that? How do we make that a little bit easier, make it more palatable for those of you wanting to actually try this advice? First off, an hour is a much too big of chunk of time to start for getting up earlier.
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So start setting your clock for 15 minutes earlier and try that for a week, and then go to 30 minutes and try that, and then finally 45 in the hour. So it will take you potentially the most of January to get to that hour, but it's going to be much more palatable on your body.
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The second way that we can make this so much easier is by changing the behaviors the night before. I always prioritize sleep and encourage you to do the same. So getting up earlier to be more productive is going to backfire if we're shorting our sleep.
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And I've heard many gurus, many experts say you're better off with an hour of exercise than an hour of sleep. Well, if you're sleeping nine hours, probably. But if you're like most people who are pushing through on the 6, 7 at best, no, an hour of exercise is not going to serve you better than an extra hour of sleep.
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So start that prep the night before, go to bed a little bit earlier, and get up that little bit earlier in the increments. Now, the second area where this advice goes really bad is when we are trying to actually change two or more things rather than just one.
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And we think we're changing getting up earlier, but in reality, we're very often introducing a new behavior, a new habit that we want to create a new practice in our lives. So if you aren't exercising, getting up earlier is one big change, and exercising is the second big change.
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And trying to do those two things together is going to backfire. So what I recommend is that when you first start getting up that 15 minutes earlier, do something you enjoy. Is it sitting a little bit longer over your coffee?
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Is it petting the dog? Is it walking around the house and looking out the windows and watching the stillness? Is it sitting with your thoughts, not necessarily in a formal meditation, but just giving yourself that time to think, to be alert, but quiet with your own thoughts before the rest of the world intrudes on them.
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So starting a new habit, getting up earlier is going to be challenging enough without introducing a second new habit on top of it. So let's hold off on what we're going to do with that hour until we actually have it. Now for you, it might be half an hour, it might be 45 minutes, it might be two hours, if you're accustomed to sleeping in very late.
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And again, these are all relatives, but I'm relative. Early and late are relative, but I'm going to give you a few guidelines for from a circadian health perspective. So, so far we've got take baby steps increments 15 minutes at a time if you're going to get up earlier each day and adjust your bedtime as well.
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Second, do something you really enjoy and your new habit may be something you really want to do. But until it's a habit, until you know how to do it, there's a little bit of a challenge there. And so we, we as people have resistance to change.
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And that's why introducing one change at a time is much more effective over the long term. All right, so let's just briefly talk about early and late. Now, people get up at all different times and if you found something that works for you, excellent. Don't change the thing.
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But here are some guidelines. If you're typically sleeping until 6 and you want to carve out that hour so that you get up at 5 and you have that hour before the rest of the household gets up, or before things start happening, or before the dogs start running around and being crazy, that can be pretty effective.
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If, however, you already get up at 5 and want to carve out another hour, Getting up at 4 may not be. You're dipping way too far into the nighttime circadian rhythms, into a time when your body is a little bit cooler.
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You aren't literally aren't warmed up yet. You're still in a deep sleep and REM sleep pattern typically at that time. And that is not necessarily something that you want to mess with.
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I would encourage you to carve out other times in your day. If you'd like help with that, go ahead and reach out. That would be an excellent topic for the three session jumpstart. I have a link for it in the comments below. The other end of this is if you normally sleep until seven and you've started to get that feeling, that nagging feeling of I'm missing so much or I'm up and now so much of my day is gone, or I wish I had time to go outside in the morning or I wish I had time for fill in the blank and you find yourself not having time, then go ahead, work that back from 7, 15 minute increments again, adjusting the bedtimes and go like I said, as early as 5:00 it may not be necessary.
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6:00 may be plenty of time for you to have your time to yourself for your health in the morning. I also encourage you to not fill up this time with random tasks. For example, realizing the dishwashers ran last night, the dishes are clean I can quick unload that.
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That's not initially it may not ever be a really good use of that extra morning time for yourself because I believe if you're looking to get up a little bit earlier and find some time for yourself, the dishwasher isn't part of that plan.
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Now this is your time, your sleep. You can always do as you please. And like I said, if you find something that works for you, that's great. But so many people reach out saying I really want to start this practice, I really want to journal, but there's so much going on around me.
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How do I find the quiet time? Well, you create it and you can do it. Yes, by getting up earlier in small bites. Adjust your nighttime routine and do something you really enjoy so that you can take ownership of your time and your health a little bit every day.
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I look forward to our next topic next week on more baby steps and until then, let's go out and own it.
