<\/p>\n
If you\u2019ve been around on social media long enough, you\u2019ve definitely seen those go-getters who swear by their morning routine: wake up at 5am, do yoga, drink some strange concoction they swear has magical powers (like kombucha or butter-coffee), perform 1000 crunches, whatever.<\/p>\n
However, with so much hype around early mornings and getting after it from the wee hours of the morning, it\u2019s easy to see why we need to discuss the issue!<\/p>\n
Aside from having your life together, are there any benefits to getting up early? Is your sleep schedule helping or hindering your progress? Today we\u2019re going to talk about how early mornings and late nights affect you and why you should<\/em> be getting up earlier.<\/p>\n The first point we need to raise, is that a late night or early morning are a bad idea if you\u2019re not sleeping the right amount. If you\u2019re getting less than 8 hours of sleep, you need to focus on fixing your schedule first \u2013 this is crucial to mental performance and exercise performance.<\/p>\n After all, you only need to be 5% more productive per hour to justify that extra hour in bed. Sleep is the time when your body focuses on recovery and balancing hormonal health, with sleep deprivation interrupting both of these processes and dropping your productivity big time.<\/p>\n When you\u2019re getting enough sleep, the next question is when to sleep \u2013 what are the benefits to being up early?<\/p>\n To start with, you\u2019re going to want to maximise your exposure to light during the day. This is important for a few reasons \u2013 to start with, it\u2019s a key regulator of your mental health and lets you keep your body clock on-time.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a special receptor in your eye called the retinal ganglion that tells your brain that its day time when its hit with blue light. This exposure improves your alertness and reaction times, waking you up for the day<\/a> \u2013 something you\u2019ll need if you\u2019ve got a busy day, and definitely a good reason to wake up before noon!<\/p>\n Secondly, the amount of light you\u2019re exposed to during the day is associated with regulating your mood<\/a>. Especially during winter, getting an extra hour or two of sunlight in during the morning is going to positively affect your mood and combat seasonal affective disorder. This is a common condition of sadness and poor-mood that comes on during winter.<\/p>\n Maintaining good sleep hygiene \u2013 sleeping enough, getting enough light, and waking up around the same time on a daily basis are great for a sense of orderliness and control in life. They also combat anxiety<\/a>, let you plan your day, and are commonly cited as key to the routines of successful people.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not just mood, however: your body actually changes in response to the amount of light that you experience during the day.<\/p>\n For example, while you might have heard about how blue light is bad for you at night, you might not have known that the total amount of light \u2013 and blue light specifically \u2013 you take in during the daytime improves the quality of sleep<\/a>. A day full of blue light (e.g. from the sky<\/em>) regulates melatonin \u2013 the hormone responsible for regulating sleep and, thus, recovery.<\/p>\n There are even early suggestions in the science that melatonin is anti-catabolic in certain circumstances<\/a>, and may be involved in the regulation of protein synthesis<\/a>. What we know for sure is that better daylight exposure means better sleep which means muscle-gains!<\/p>\n You also want to maximise your exposure to sunlight during winter to help with vitamin D deficiency. This is the most common vitamin deficiency and even more so during winter when you\u2019re unlikely to get those 8-12 hours of sunlight your body wants<\/a>.<\/p>\n You should be supplementing vitamin D<\/a>, but you should also be maximising your exposure to natural sunlight. This is another<\/em> way your body regulates testosterone, mood and mental health \u2013 getting a combination of natural sunlight and supplementation can get you to the 2,500iu per day you need for the best cognitive and exercise results<\/a>.<\/p>\n Clearly, there\u2019s a benefit to getting up early-ish. You don\u2019t want to be waking up too early for no reason, but you should be up just<\/em> before the sunrise for the best quality sleep, recovery, and mood.<\/p>\n This comes with the territory of talking about early and late wake-ups: when are you going to be at your best to train?<\/p>\n The answer, however, depends on the kind of training you do. We\u2019re big fans of training cardio in a morning as the endorphins released are a great way to energise and you don\u2019t have an excuse to not do it if you go straight away.<\/p>\nLate Nights, Early Mornings<\/h2>\n
Maxing Out Daylight<\/h2>\n
Psychological Benefits of Sunlight<\/h2>\n
Physiological Benefits of Sunlight<\/h2>\n
When Should You Train?<\/h2>\n