The Hidden Magic of 5:30am

I have never been an early riser. I’ve historically considered myself a “night owl” and felt creative inspiration in the wee hours of the night. In fact, I’ve tried countless times in the past to wake up earlier to no avail. I was particularly optimistic after reading Hal Elrod’s book “Miracle Morning,” but it didn’t stick. So I just chalked it up to having a different circadian rhythm.

The past month has been particularly busy for me. I’m deep in the process of launching my new company “Spartan Artists,” and I’m actively writing four different screenplays right now. Though I enjoy every aspect of what I’m doing, it’s a daunting workload.

I started to find myself hitting dinner time feeling unproductive. Then the only remedy was a late night work session, which I’ve been struggling to find the energy for. Not to mention, I’ve been noticing my best work isn’t happening at night anymore.

My days would look like this: (1) wake up around 8am (sometimes 9am) and commence my morning routine—reading, journaling, meditating, exercising; (2) check email and put out new fires; (3) get hungry and eat; (4) try to get some deeper work done; (5) get stressed that the day is ending; (6) make dinner feeling like I barely scratched the surface of what I needed to do; (7) feel guilty.

Then I happened upon a YouTube video by a digital marketing influencer I follow titled, “4 Sneaky Benefits To Waking Up At 5am.” Something inside me said, “watch.”

Rather than walking you through his video (which I linked to for ya), I will tell you the magic that I personally experienced in my first two days of waking up at 5:30am (no, I don’t feel guilty about adding that extra 30 minutes, lol).

1. I went to bed earlier. Normally I’m a midnight-ish “go to sleep” kinda guy. But knowing I was getting up at 5:30 meant I needed to hit the hay early. Given the average sleep cycle is 90 minutes and I’m a firm believer in getting enough sleep, that meant I needed to be head-on-pillow-in-darkness by 10pm. Working backwards, that meant screens off by 9pm. Unplugging early actually felt good. It also naturally limited how much TV I’d watch after dinner. In that last hour of wakefulness, I cleaned up the dishes, walked Lambert, and did a little reading before bed.

2. When my alarm went off at 5:30am (which, btw, I HIGHLY recommend investing in a FitBit or similar that can wake you up with gentle vibration—especially if you sleep with a significant other), I was surprised at how non-groggy I felt. Upon further research, it turns out our bodies maximize melatonin and deep sleep cycles between 10pm-2am. So it was a better sleep than I usually get.

3. My brain wasn’t quite ready for my morning routine yet, so I found it oddly meditative to put the dishes away from the night before. Chores at 5:30am?!? What’s wrong with me?? It felt great though. Then I made some coffee and grabbed my book.

4. A magical feeling came over me as I sat down to read. A feeling that is so incredibly rare in today’s world I never even thought it was possible… I FELT LIKE I HAD ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD. In our hyper-connected realities, this feeling was so surprising, and so rich with peace and calmness that I couldn’t wipe the grin from my face.

5. For two hours I allowed myself to indulge in my morning routine of reading, journaling, meditating, and exercising. At no point did I feel rushed at all.

6. At 7:30am, I began writing on one of my screenplays. Creativity was flowing. My mind was awake and excited. I wrote for two hours.

7. Now it was 9:30am, and I figured I should check in on the outside world. I cleaned up emails and texts and put together a list of tasks for the afternoon.

8. But before digging into those tasks, I spent two hours focusing on the most important things I needed to do for Spartan Artists.

9. So now it’s noon, and I’ve basically accomplished what would typically take me multiple days of anxious working to do! I was breaking for lunch and the day was already a wild success.

10. This gave me four hours (1pm-5pm) in the afternoon to do whatever I felt necessary. Errands, putting out fires, research, etc. It was all the other stuff outside of my priorities that needed tending. This stuff is typically what would fill my day.

11. Then once 5pm hit, I had zero issue turning the engine off. Guilt-free! I had five more hours of being awake to relax, cook, eat, have a glass of wine and cuddle with Hilary watching TV.

12. I slept like baby again that night.

Now granted, I don’t have kids to complicate this routine, but I was so blown away by how great I felt, that I’m now committing my weekdays to waking up at 5:30am. No one told me it could actually feel better than sleeping in. It’s like magic.