The One Where I Woke Up at 4:30am For a Week
As someone who refuses to enroll in a class that starts before 10:30am, my “morning” consists solely of the two hours of my day before I eat lunch. But recently, I’ve been feeling bored and maybe a little self-destructive–who knows–so I decided that for one week, I would commit to waking up at 4:30 every morning. What did I want to get out of this? I’m not sure, but I knew it would be a very different experience than how I normally go about my days, and at a time when I have pretty much nothing of interest going on, I thought it would be a good idea. Here’s how it went:
Monday: 6/10
Not to ruin the rest of this ranking, but this was by far the best day of the week. I woke up naturally at 4:25 with a slight headache, which normally would have bothered me, but I was so happy that I didn’t have to hear the sound of my alarm go off five minutes later. I really went for it this morning– I turned on that TikTok piano version of Kanye’s Runaway (for the drama) and lit a candle to top it off.
After brushing my teeth and doing my full skincare routine, I channelled my Pinterest lifestyle feed and did some exaggerated stretches to more songs from the “TikTok Classical” playlist on Spotify. I figured this was the kind of thing people who woke up early did, and I’m not going to lie, I felt like I was doing it right. From about 8-9am I hit a wall, but having breakfast seemed to revive me.
After that, I was unusually productive, finished all my work before my first class, and even made it to the gym. Most of all, though, I was unbearably annoying for this entire day (if you couldn’t tell), texting people how life-changing it was to wake up early. So the half-point off is for being the worst type of person today.
Tuesday: 6/10
Today was much more in keeping with what I expected from the experience– that is to say, brutal. When I woke up to the sound of my alarm I was very aware of how dark it was outside, and of the fact that I am generally much more likely to go to bed at 4:30am than to ever wake up at that time. I had gone to bed around midnight the night before, and my sleep tracker told me I was only 20% recovered or something. I honestly don’t remember what I did this morning but I know I ended up taking an hour-long nap at 10am.
One thing that was very strange to me was how long the day was. Normally, by noon, I would have only been awake for about two hours, but this week, by noon, my day had already been almost eight hours long (!!!). So even in my very depleted state, I was able to get a lot more done in eight hours than I would have in just two.
Wednesday: 8/10
This was a pretty good day. I got to see the sunrise and I think I learned the meaning of mindfulness, but I’m not sure. During this odd crisis of self-betterment, I also very impulsively purchased a subscription to the New York Times (not an electronic subscription, but getting the physical newspaper delivered everyday) and decided my next challenge would be to read the entire thing everyday for a week, even though I have never read the paper in any real way before. I am currently dealing with the aftermath of the situation, but that’s a story for a different time.
Anyways, today, like most of the other days, I wasn’t really tired at night, but I tried to force myself to go to bed before 11:30. I actually think going to bed early is harder for me than waking up early because I always find some way to fill the time before midnight.
Thursday: 7/10
Today was ok. I was extremely tired in the morning, so I drank two cups of coffee before taking a nap from 9:00-9:25am. When I woke up I was definitely more energized, but I had out-of-control palpitations for the next few hours and started looking up the likelihood of caffeine-induced heart attacks.
Also, I learned that taking L-Theanine with caffeine helps to reduce these symptoms, but I didn’t have any of that lying around. -4 points for the trauma, but +1 for learning something new.
Friday: 6/10
I didn’t have any class today and my one meeting was cancelled, so I thought this would be a really great day. But it also made waking up a lot more difficult, because it’s hard to justify waking up at 4:30am on a Friday when you essentially have the day off. But I did it, and I think I kind of resented it, so in protest I decided to do absolutely nothing for the rest of the day. Also to my own detriment, I then had dinner with my friend relatively late at night and knew when I got home at 11:30 the next morning was going to be tough.
Saturday: 4/10
I’m not sure this should even count as a day. I woke up, somehow emptied & ran the dishwasher, stretched, and then spent the rest of the day napping on and off on my couch. I got no work done, but I ordered a pizza and watched Harry Potter at night which made it all worth it.
Sunday: 7/10
I woke up to an email reminding me that I was the only one who hadn’t completed my part of the group project yet (due today), which was very fair, and if anyone in my group is reading this then I apologize for the last-minute panic. I didn’t mean to take you all down with me. That really set the tone for the day, most of which was spent catching up on things I should have been getting done in the past couple days– like this article.
So, that was my week. I did some definitely highly inaccurate calculations, and I was awake for a total of ~38.5 extra hours this week. That’s kind of crazy, especially given the fact that I still ended up behind on work. Still, while I don’t think I’ll be continuing my 4:30 mornings, I might just start waking up at 7… maybe.
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