I ended up catching Cold instead!

For couple of weeks I wore myself out to have a taste of intense feracity and it was miserable! I busted my guts falling to the foxy idea of 4.00 am head start to boost my mood, focus and outlook. Everybody had said so!

But it didn’t work for me. It’s doesn’t for most people either. I knew that…still I counted on a bit of luck and a lot of meaningful success. I had imagined Tim Cook, Reid Hoffman or Lady Michelle Obama patting me back for attempting to start crafting an ideal life! The thought was simply overawing! Yet it sounded daunting to me. What was I looking at; the secret chilly way to success or chills in return?

I guess there’s some truth to it when people say that 4.00 am scramble would let you seize open hours for some thoughtful work and self improvement; else why would Tim Cook (CEO-Apple) start his mornings so early or Sallie Krawcheck (CEO-Ellevest) would come alive at 4.00am. An early start allows you to tackle tasks and have a leg up on emails before distractions hit, they say– and I agree; it’s arguably the most prolific time of the day!

So, all ramped up I decided to join the 4.00 am club to see if I could truly catch an early worm.

I had plan for two weeks but I barely lasted one!

It sucked…literally!

While I’d no longer be aiming to follow Cook or Krawcheck’s morning drill anymore, it did buy me some valuable insights. It was great trial. I got closer to picking up an ideal morning groove for me.

To save you some savagery, here’s what my morning routine looked like in a dry run:

4 a.m.: Alarm sounds. It’s a 50-50 chance that I’d hear it right away and won’t hit the snooze button.

4:20 a.m.: I am out of bed. I managed to get out of bed at 4 a.m. on the dot only once. Most mornings, I didn’t even hear it until 4:20. The one positive gain of consistently oversleeping for another 20!…I’d shoot out of bed feeling left behind with a sense of urgency in the same way you feel when you think your alarm didn’t sound and the day has gotten away.

4:30 a.m.: I make my bed in 2 mins flat. I found it immensely helpful to immediately start and finish something, no matter how small. What more, it required me to stand up and do something active with my hands. It would take me another couple of minutes to tidy up thereafter.

Then, I’d have my morning tea, I’d skim through the headlines, work out, shower and by then it will be 6.00 am. This is when I would typically wake up and get down to being ready to hit the day.

But as I said my “4 a.m. week” was in fact miserable. It felt as if I had slept for 2 mins and woken up right in the middle of the night. I would feel ”Off” right from the get-go. It was so early that my body couldn’t even register the alarm! Frazzled and hung-over for most part of the day, I would be ready to hit the wall around by 3.00 in the afternoon.

I couldn’t figure out at all how to fix this and cope with fatigue; instead I ended up front- loading my mornings- making sure that I finish most of my work in early part of the day and leave little or nothing downstream.

I thought that by doing so, I’d have more freedom for myself. But I’d be too exhausted by night fall and couldn’t do much more than watch Netflix and hit the pillow early. I found myself cancelling most late night plans which were not possible if I were to hit the sack by 10.00 p.m. I felt drained and found myself counting down the days to the weekend, not because I was unhappy with my arrangement and desperate for time off, but because I ached to sleep in. My eating schedule was next thrown off. Ravenous in the morning I’d finish lunch before noon which made it ticklish to time dinner.

Hoping that some magic of day-larking would rub off on me, I had traded in my usual 6 a.m. rise time for 4 a.m. Pity…I got stuck up with a sly schedule that was no fun.

 Is 4.00 am the magical time —or just pure misery?

Would you still face these issues if you sleep for eight hours and wake up in wee hours? The answer is ‘Yes’. No matter how much sleep you catch- if you’re not wired to come alive at the wolf hour, you might be messing with your normal beat- and that’s sheer torture. It hurts and works to break you down eventually. Even if you think that missing out on just a few minutes would spoil nothing; think again. Losing out on even 15 minutes of sleep could seriously plough your day. Hold back or speed up your bio clock for a while and you can expect to have the same consequences as not getting enough sleep.

Since my body clock wasn’t set for predawn exploits, my first attempt was a fail. I just couldn’t outsmart my chronotype. After trying and failing for a week I realized that resetting body clock inside me, wasn’t easy. I switched back not sad or sorry! It wasn’t my thing.

Upset? …certainly not.

Even with my usual 6 a.m. wake up, the to-do list would still turn on me as soon as I’d open my eyes, and for the rest of the day I’d be playing catch up.  For me to wake up so early at 4.00 was in fact a struggle to rise and shine.

It turned out that 4.00 am was truly the magical time; only I couldn’t make anything positive out of it for myself; except that a crash feeling of letting me down would weight heavy into the rest of the say.

Maybe I was being kinder to myself, less reactive and in a forgiving mood!

 I couldn’t write a novel but I got more creative!

The only time I remember waking up this early was to catch a flight. I was too dopey then to notice or care about anything around me. And that’s that. With nothing pressing to do, nowhere to be and no sense of urgency, I couldn’t ask for a simpler way to escape the madness of everyday rut. The bonus time of 2.00 hours had actually brought me some brighter perspectives.

Yet, everyday right out of the gate at 9.00 am, it feels like I’m missing out on something. Surprisingly, it had actually felt good to wake up early. I miss being a cockcrow person. I could have got a lot done before everyone else!

Looking back I still remember the best part of being the first on the day break…I had tried rolling out at 4.00 am every day for a week! My distractions will be way down and my creativity way up. A calm start would better equip me to handle whatever storms lay ahead. Cheekily I had sort of thought once to hammer out a genius novel- just like that. But the mornings didn’t magically turn me into a novelist. Instead getting my to-do list done early did mean more creative match-strikes for me throughout the day.

Today, I’m more likely to binge watch, binge eat, and even binge buy! I drop off with a book and its lights out by 10 p.m. Sleep stays as my best secret weapon. My days are no less bright and my life sticks around just as amazingly!

Geez…did I miss out something on 4.00 am stir?