Snooze-Proof Your Morning

Hal Elrod’s five-step strategy for beating the snooze button is simple: decide before bed, move the alarm, brush your teeth, drink water, and get dressed. This episode breaks down why the snooze habit is less about willpower and more about designing your first five minutes so you do not have room to negotiate with your tired brain. 

Transcript

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Welcome back to Night Shift with Justin S. King, how to transform your life one night at a time. Tonight I'm going to be sharing with you how L. Rod's framework or the snooze-proof wake-up strategy. This is a five-step pro strategy that he designed when he was creating Miracle Morning. And this is how to stop pressing snooze. And all of these are specifically part of your evening routine, how you set up your morning the night before. The first thing I covered last night is you set your intention before bed. You can decide before you go to sleep that you're waking up with energy. And your first morning thought is often shaped by your last thought at night. If you want to hear how's affirmation about waking up with energy, you can watch or listen to yesterday's podcast episode. The second step is you move your alarm clock across the room. This is forces your body out of bed. The point is not discipline, it is removing the option to negotiate. When he was writing this book, he had his alarm clock in the bathroom, which would then lead him to step three, which is brush your teeth when you wake up. It's a simple, automatic, and low-thinking action. And if you're using a mint toothpaste, that can start to wake you up and feel refreshed in the morning. Step four is the night before he leaves a glass of water by his bedside. If you've jumped back three episodes, I mentioned an experiment you can try with bedside water as well. But his is specifically for hydration because you're usually mildly dehydrated while you sleep, and that water will give you and your body a basic wake-up signal. He also mentions supercharging that water by adding lemon juice and a pinch of Himalayan sea salt. This is something you're going to set up before you go to bed. And fifth is you get dressed in your workout clothes. Part of his miracle morning is includes exercise. And so if you get dressed in your workout clothes after you drink the water, you're going to switch into the mode that you're up and ready. A special hint here is lay out your workout clothes the night before. So hitting the snooze button is a decision design problem. And how how the system works, because it removes tiny points of failure like having the alarm near your bed, not committing the night before to get out of bed, it addresses hydration and gives you immediate, repeatable, non-contemplative actions to do as soon as you wake up. So if you are having trouble waking up, or you are not waking up as enthusiastically as you'd like to, go ahead and try Hal's snooze proof wake up strategy and see how it goes. That's it for tonight's episode of Night Shift. My name is Justin S. King, and I help entrepreneurs find peace tonight, tomorrow, and for the rest of their lives through sleep optimization, emotion regulation, and discovering their purpose. Good night.