[_xhok]

I used to be the same way.

Wake up at 5am, meditate, exercise, and shower before starting your day. Stop eating processed carbs and sugar. Get off the computer at 9pm and sleep at 10pm. Clean your room. Schedule sprints of work for yourself, drag yourself over to your chair, and force yourself to start typing anything. Talk to your friends more often. Set 1-3 large goals at the beginning of the day and explain to yourself why they're important.

There are lots of reasons you might be feeling this way, and it's different for everyone. Maybe you're disorganized, or you feel your work is too easy, or your health is bad. You'll have to find out which one it is by trying a lot of different things.

If after doing all this you still feel the same way, please seriously consider the very real possibility of clinical depression, and seek professional help.

[Gideonnn]

This goal is too hard to achieve! It is like the 10x programmer, it is just too much to be a realistic goal. I mean, good for you if you can wake up every day at 5 am and meditate. But aside from the 0.0001% of people on the world that can do this, most people can't.

This is a way of life which seems like living in a monastery to me. Totally unrealistic.

[ryanwaggoner]

Neither getting up at 5am or daily meditation are all that rare or difficult. And if you take perfection out of the equation, as you should, then aiming to do them 80-90% of the time makes it even easier.

I’m a natural night owl, but I routinely (80-90% of the time) go to bed early and get up at 4am. It’s really not that hard.

[theonething]

> It's really not that hard.

Based on the current research on chronotypes [0], you seem to be the exception, not the norm.

'“If people are left to their naturally preferred times, they feel much better. They say that they are much more productive. The mental capacity they have is much broader,” says Oxford University biologist Katharina Wulff, who studies chronobiology and sleep.'[1]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronotype

[1] http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20171114-why-you-shouldnt-t...

[nicolashahn]

Throwing a bit of anecdotal evidence out: throughout high school I had to get up at 6:45 every weekday for four years, and constantly felt tired throughout the day, but it cleared up at night and I'd be energized at 1am. I had to take naps after school, but even if I didn't I'd still be unable to sleep at 11pm. Something about everyone else around me being asleep and not distracting me allowed me to focus on things better.

Now I have a job with very flexible hours so I go to sleep at 2am and wake up at 10am like clockwork. I feel and perform much better all around. I'm convinced that if I had had a sleep schedule that worked for me in my teens I'd have been able to achieve much more than I did.

[ryanwaggoner]

I think your claim (and probably mine) is too broad. It sounds like most people have a fair degree of flexibility, and I'm skeptical about our depth of knowledge in this area. For example, this:

When they wake early, for example, night owls are still producing melatonin. “Then you disrupt it and push the body to be in the daytime mode. That can have lots of negative physiological consequences,” Wulff says, like a different sensitivity to insulin and glucose – which can cause weight gain.

I couldn't find the study where that came from, but I wonder how long it lasted. Even now, if I revert back to staying up late, it can take a few days of getting up early before it feels amazing.

All of which is to say that I suspect that genetics plays a role in our natural preferences, but our bodies seem remarkably adaptable to different lifestyles.

Also, I think it was probably unfair of me to say "it's not that hard", because it took me years to get to the point where getting up at 4am wasn't that big of a deal. In retrospect, the key is almost embarrassingly obvious: go to bed early (9p). I don't take melatonin or anything, but I've always had a really easy time falling asleep, so others might find that helpful in getting over the initial transition of early bedtimes.

[kyle_0110]

I don't understand what's so unrealistic about gp post, it can easily be done as a 40 min morning routine.

Meditation can be as short as a couple minutes, budget 5 min. A good workout can be done in 20 min, and 15 min for a shower.

There is nothing magical about that. I dont wake up at 5am, I wake up at 6:45, but the routine is just as effective at 6:45am :)

I also agree mood is highly affected by diet, so save some time and get some good nutrition in by topping that morning routine off with some premade in mason jar overnight oats (rolled oats, milk, chia seeds, a fruit and a nut )

10 minutes to get dressed, and your ready for the day within an hour from wakeup.

[sotojuan]

When people say waking up at 5am/sleeping at 10 or earlier is hard, they don't mean the physical act of waking up or sleeping early is hard - that just takes some time/body adjustment.

In my experience people fail to do it because of social reasons - if you are young it is likely that your current social activities or groups might lead you to get home past 10pm.

[owebmaster]

> Stop eating processed carbs and sugar.

If I could pick one of all advices you gave this is the one which I think has more impact. Free yourself from food slavery.

[brianwawok]

I think cardio edges our carbs by a little bit.

If I am excising well, think marathon buildup.. extra carbs do not make me feel any different. Greasy and fried food gets me, but not carbs.

If I am not exercising, almost any reasonable of carbs makes me feel terrible.

Hard to just pick 1, but I do think exercise wins for me by a small margin over clean eating..

[owebmaster]

Sure, I don't mean it as radically avoid carbs, but by following this rule I'm much more conscious about the carbs I eat. Including mcdonalds fries.

[brianwawok]

I find it easier to just blanket ban foods. Works better for my personality type.

French fries are on my never ever touch list, along with soda and a few more items.

[jlelonm]

What's the definition of a processed carb? I'm scarily ignorant about this.

I feel like anything in the frozen foods / microwave it 2 mins and eat it isle probably falls into this category, but I'm not sure exactly why. Is it the enriched wheat flour? Do you know a good unbiased resource for learning about this?

[helen842000]

Carbohydrates is a term that groups sugars, starches & fibre together. There are simple carbohydrates (breads, cereals, desserts and other man-made carbs) and complex carbs (fruit, veg, whole grain foods)

Simple carbs are broken down and consumed very easily, complex carbs take longer to be absorbed and energy is released over a longer period.

A good rule is to eat things as close to their natural form as possible.

Most products have been processed in some way before eating - cleaning & packaging being the simplest.

However baking, frying, adding excess sugar/salt, preservatives, additives, etc happens in a large amount of products that we don't realise. It is astonishingly easy to consume these products to excess (muffins, donuts, bread, potato products).

Frozen food / microwave in 2 mins is not actually bad for you. You can get bags of microwave rice or veg that are perfectly healthy (check the ingredients).

A good place to start is getting familiar with where certain foods are in the Glycemic Index.

In terms of improving your own diet and improving energy, just make simple substitutions. Swap fries > sweet potato, or white bread > whole grain wraps, or chips > nuts & seeds.

[dna_polymerase]

The sleep and diet parts are really important. Exercise also helps a lot! Can't recommend this enough!

[icebraining]

Less than seven solid hours of sleep? Isn't that a bit on the low side?