Waking up at 5 a.m. is considered good because it provides quiet, uninterrupted time for focused work, exercise, and planning, boosting productivity and reducing stress before the day's demands begin. This early start aligns with your body's natural rhythms, offering a chance for healthy habits like meditation or journaling, and leads to better focus and energy by tackling important tasks with peak mental reserves before fatigue sets in.
Four benefits of waking up at 5 a.m.
Early morning provides uninterrupted blocks for deep work: strategy, writing, planning without meetings, emails, or interruptions. CEOs often trade quantity of work hours for quality of high-focus time; mornings maximize cognitive bandwidth.
The book is written as a fable, but the core message is Sharma's advice to wake up at 5 A.M. and follow his 20/20/20 rule. That is: spend the first hour of your day doing 20 minutes of exercise, 20 minutes of reflection, and 20 minutes of learning.
There is plenty of research indicating that getting up early can make you happier, and even eat more healthily. However, Foster points out a major pitfall. “In order to get enough sleep, many people would need to go to bed at 9pm.
Our results suggest that the negative genetic correlation between morningness and IQ may be a case of mediated rather than biological pleiotropy: genetic effects resulting in higher IQs do not cause lower morningness because these traits share their biological underpinnings, but because heritable high intelligence ...
The time period of 3 AM to 5 AM is known as Brahma Muhurta. In ancient Indian texts, waking up between three and five in the morning is regarded as a very fortunate and transformational hour.
The 3-2-1 bedtime method is a simple sleep hygiene strategy: stop eating 3 hours before bed, stop working 2 hours before bed, and stop using screens (phones, tablets, TVs) 1 hour before sleep, helping your body transition to rest by reducing stimulants and digestive load for better sleep quality. A more detailed version adds 10 hours (no caffeine) and 0 (no snoozing) for a 10-3-2-1-0 rule.
Successful people wake up early and create a productive morning routine to set the tone for their day. They avoid hitting the snooze button and focus on making their bed for an easy win. Drinking a glass of water and eating a nutritious breakfast both energize them and improve focus.
Elon Musk's schedule
Musk usually wakes up around 9 a.m. after getting up to 6 hours of sleep. Immediately after, he checks his phone — a habit he regrets, but can't shake. Then, Musk takes a shower and drinks coffee. He tries to avoid phone calls and minimize the time spent checking emails.
Most billionaires wake up early, typically around 5:30 AM, to maximize their day. They prioritize intentional morning routines that set the tone for high productivity. For instance, Elon Musk schedules his day in five-minute blocks, while Jeff Bezos focuses on making just three good decisions daily.
Research indicates that individuals who wake up before 7 a.m. tend to experience greater happiness and better health. Studies have found that early risers report higher levels of positive emotions, life satisfaction, and lower instances of depression and anxiety.
Consistency helps regulate your internal body clock, making it easier to fall asleep and wake up naturally. Early morning: Waking up early in the morning, around 6:00 a.m. to 7:00 a.m., aligns with the natural rise of the sun and can promote a sense of well-being.
Cortisol's Natural Rhythm: Our bodies follow a natural circadian rhythm for cortisol, with levels beginning to rise in the early morning (around 3am) to promote alertness upon waking.
Depriving yourself of sleep is a bad idea. But if you get up at 5 am and can't go to bed early, you WILL be sleep-deprived. That's the main problem with the 5 AM Club.
The koala is famous for sleeping around 20-22 hours a day, which is about 90% of the day, due to their low-energy diet of eucalyptus leaves that requires extensive digestion. Other extremely sleepy animals include the sloth (up to 20 hours) and the brown bat (around 20 hours), with some snakes like the ball python also sleeping up to 23 hours daily.
Our circadian rhythm functions by light and dark cycles and therefore an ideal sleep time is 10pm – 6am give or take ½ an hour either way so a full 8 hours of sleep is achieved each night. Even if you are retired or not working, this is an essential component of good sleeping habits.
Wake up Early: High-performing CEOs often start their day before others by getting up between 5 and 6:30 AM. Doing so early will give them more time to focus on their tasks. No Screens for the First 30 Minutes: If you avoid screens at the start of the day, it's easier to focus and keep your mind less cluttered.
Brahma Muharta This is said to be the best time to learn, wake, study, as the flow of knowledge, creativity and clarity of mind is at its highest. We need to synchronise ourselves with the clock of nature… 👇👇 The time it refers to is 3.30am - 3.40am. ⏰ See the following posts to find out more.
The benefits of waking up early and why 5am works best
Waking up at 5am lets you experience these moments of calm every morning, which can set you up for a more positive day. There's potential for boosting your mental health and increasing productivity which may lead to a deeper connection with the world.
50% of self-made millionaires and 90% of executives get up before 6am, or 3 hours before their workday begins, in order to engage in activities like exercise, dog walking, meditation, reading the news, checking email, eating a healthy breakfast and getting their kids ready for school.
Some mental skills are sharpest at different ages, with many not peaking until age 40 or later. Short-term memory is strongest at age 25, stays steady until 35, and then starts to decline. Emotional understanding peaks during middle age, while vocabulary and crystallized intelligence peak in the 60s and 70s.
Studies have shown that people with higher IQs are likely to deviate from familiar evolutionary traits, such as circadian rhythms. Night owls who opt to wake up in the later hours of the day and stay awake until the wee small hours of the morning may be exhibiting a form of evolution.