Work nights. Want to get up early to work out.

superhappypanda

So here's my predicament and what I'm trying to accomplish. I work nights and get home about 1 AM, I was hitting the gym after work but would prefer to work out in the morning so I don't get my schedule out of wack come the weekends. I want to work out early in the morning before anything else can interrupt it but I hate mornings more than Shelley Duvall riding a cow shooting spiders from a crossbow made out of sporks (this is a relevant metaphor for me, please roll with it).

I've tried using the alarm but wind up hitting snooze for like 3 hours until about 10 AM. Part of my issue is that I'm not looking at having to get out of bed at 7 AM as something that is an absolute necessity. The second I see it as optional, I head right back to slumberland. One of the reasons I started working out at 1 AM was because I couldn't get my butt up early enough to get to the gym before work.

Does anyone have any ideas that worked for them when they needed to change their schedule around so they were awesome at mornings?

Dhalphir

Why can you not work out at ten?

Forcing your body to perform on hardly any sleep is never going to work well for you.

NightDragon

I don't know how far your gym is from you, but maybe try not to interrupt your sleep for 3 straight hours? That's probably not helping you any. Maybe set your alarm for 8:30 or 9 am, and then try to get up.

Tav

If you have a smartphone, there are several alarm apps where you can't stop your alarm ringing until you perform x of maths questions or puzzles.

Or, you know, you could sleep properly. That's probably a better idea.

Entriech

If you're dead set on waking up in the morning, my advice would be to move your alarm clock away from your bed. If you have to scoot over or get up to turn your alarm off, it's likely you'll be conscious enough to stay up and keep on going.

That being said, if you aren't a morning person, nothing in the world will change that. You're liable to be tired and cranky waking up early, which is hardly the mood you want to be in before going to the gym. If working out at 1 am works for you, do that. As far as your schedule being disrupted on the weekends, I wouldn't worry about it. Missing 2 days at the gym per week isn't a thing. Unless you're a bodybuilder or athlete or something.

CoJoeTheLawyer

If I understand your schedule correctly, six hours of sleep max isn't going to do you any favors in the energy/motivation/results department. I would recommend pushing it back to 8:00 - 8:30 AM at least.

If you are going to try to stick with the 7:00 AM wake-up call, start by setting multiple alarms on your cell phone. That way, even if you disable the 7:00 AM, the 7:03 will get you, and if not, the 7:05, etc. A Entriech pointed out, move your alarm so you HAVE to get out of bed to deactivate it will help. I also set my supplements out with a glass of water so the first thing i do after turning off the alarm is take the supplements, which puts me in the mindset to go workout.

Djeet

Getting up at 7 to work out seems incompatible with getting home at 1. I know it takes me a few hours just to decompress before I can go to sleep, so unless you're ready to hit the hay at 1 you should probably set your wake up time to 6-7 hours after you go to sleep. You can try running on 3-4 hours sleep and also working out, but you'll probably hit a wall pretty soon (if not start falling asleep at work), unless you're one of those people who can function on that little sleep.

The secret to getting up early and working out is getting out of bed early and working out. Do it everyday if you have to; that's the only way I can do it. I can be up at 5-6 AM every morning including weekends so long as I get out of bed and start doing stuff. Sleep in one day and the inertia against getting out of bed early all immediately sets in again.

kaliyama

What time do you start work?

superhappypanda

Thanks for the advice. My shift is from 1:30 PM - 12:00 AM. I need to be at the bus stop by 12:30 PM to make it in on time.

What CoJoe mentions about the supplements is a pretty good idea. As long as I can not think about it and get into my gym clothes, I'll go work out. Once I've crossed that point, I'm good.

I can push my wake up time back to about 9 AM at the latest if I'm going to get to the gym and get home in time to be ready for work, although I run into the same problems, physically I just don't want to wake up unless I've gotten at least 8 hours of sleep right now. Usually I'll browse the web on my phone before I go to bed, but I'm going to cut that out for 2 weeks and see if it helps, when I hit the bedroom at 1 AM, it's time for sleep and I'll just lie there until I'm ready to sack out if necessary.

The alarms haven't been much help, I'm still half asleep and I'll turn them off and go back to bed, even at the far side of the room. I think I'll give that puzzle alarm a try though, doing some thinking might wake me up and get me going.

Hypatia

Do you have your windows open and access to sunlight? I've generally found that if it's sunny, I have a tendency to wake up when the alarm goes off and then will have a hard time going back to sleep. If it's dark or it's cloudy then I'll just roll back over.

superhappypanda

I usually keep the window at least cracked, but where my apartment is, it's really shady so no direct sunlight, but yes, in the past it wakes me up and is awesome. My next place will get direct sunlight, even if I have to install giant mirrors on my neighbors buildings.

AaronKI

I use two alarms. My clock radio across the room to wake me up, and a really annoying one on my phone that goes off 60 seconds later. Also across the room.


Now if I could just get the "go out and exercise" part figured out! I'm usually cold when I get out of bed, have no desire to exercise when it's 30 degrees out, and head straight for a hot shower instead.

khain

Put your gym clothes on the floor between your bed and the alarm the night before, however I think this while effort is doomed to failure as your trying to function on 6 hours of sleep.

spookymuffin

I'd just keep working out after work. Being tired for a day on the weekend is much better for you than being sleep deprived and grumpy at work all week. I'm on a 2pm-2am shift, so I get what you're saying about sleep schedules, but it's way easier to wake up early on one day than the rest of the week.

godmode

superhappypanda wrote: »

Thanks for the advice. My shift is from 1:30 PM - 12:00 AM. I need to be at the bus stop by 12:30 PM to make it in on time.

What CoJoe mentions about the supplements is a pretty good idea. As long as I can not think about it and get into my gym clothes, I'll go work out. Once I've crossed that point, I'm good.

I can push my wake up time back to about 9 AM at the latest if I'm going to get to the gym and get home in time to be ready for work, although I run into the same problems, physically I just don't want to wake up unless I've gotten at least 8 hours of sleep right now. Usually I'll browse the web on my phone before I go to bed, but I'm going to cut that out for 2 weeks and see if it helps, when I hit the bedroom at 1 AM, it's time for sleep and I'll just lie there until I'm ready to sack out if necessary.

The alarms haven't been much help, I'm still half asleep and I'll turn them off and go back to bed, even at the far side of the room. I think I'll give that puzzle alarm a try though, doing some thinking might wake me up and get me going.

Is there any reason you need to return home after the gym before work? Why not take all your things with you there. That way, you can sleep in a tiny bit more, do your workout, get ready for work in the locker room, and take off from there to save time.

Inquisitor77

I'm not a morning person either, and I have a difficult time going to bed and getting enough sleep. Two things have really helped me when it comes to getting up in the morning. The first is moving to a place that gets tons of sunlight - when I leave my curtains open, most days I wake up well before my alarm even goes off. The second is picking up one of these to help on those days where I need to get up before the sun. It's a bit expensive, but it actually works much better at gradually waking me up than a standard alarm clock or even those fancy alarm apps. I've tried the apps that slowly ramp up the volume and make you do math problems, and while they work, waking up still feels extremely disruptive. Based on personal experience, I can vouch for the idea that the human body is much better conditioned to get up with the sun. I never feel like I am being "forced" to wake up nowadays - it's more like my body says, "Welp, time to get up," and I just don't fall back asleep.