How to wake up early and stick to it

To wake up early, go to bed earlier, move your alarm back in small steps, and get out of bed the moment it rings. Keep the same wake-up time every day, weekends too, until it feels normal.

Below are the tips that make that work: what to do the night before, a simple plan for your alarm, how to beat the snooze button, how to wake up early to exercise, and what to do after a late night.

How do you start waking up earlier?

Move your alarm earlier a little at a time, not all at once. Jumping from 7:30 to 5:30 in one night is hard to keep up. Small steps are much easier to hold.

Pick the time you want to get up. Then move your alarm 15 minutes earlier every three or four days. Move your bedtime by the same amount, so the time you spend in bed stays the same as it is now.

Here is an example for a man who goes to bed at 11:30 and gets up at 7:30, and wants to get up at 6:30:

If a step feels rough, stay on it a few more days before you move again. The goal is a time you can keep every day, not a time that looks good on paper.

Then keep it on weekends. A big sleep-in on Saturday and Sunday makes Monday feel like starting over. A wake-up time you hold seven days a week is one of the simplest habits for men to build, and it makes the others easier to fit in.

What should you do the night before?

Set up your morning so that getting out of bed is the only choice left to make. Waking up early starts the night before.

• Set an alarm for bedtime. A "start winding down" alarm at night is as useful as the one in the morning.
• Charge your phone across the room. You stop scrolling in bed, and you have to stand up to turn the alarm off.
• Lay out what you need. Clothes, shoes and a glass of water next to the alarm.
• Write down tomorrow's first task. It is out of your head and on paper, and you know what you are getting up for.
• Make the room dark and quiet. Thick curtains or an eye mask, and earplugs if the street is loud.

How do you fall asleep earlier?

Get into bed tired, not wired. That means using your body during the day and slowing things down in the last hour before bed.

During the day, move. Train, walk, take the stairs or play a sport. A day spent sitting still can leave you lying awake with energy you never used.

In the last hour:

• Dim the lights and put screens away. Read a paper book instead.
• Do the same few things in the same order each night, like a shower, teeth and ten pages of a book. A steady order makes it easier to switch off.
• If late coffee keeps you up, move your last cup earlier in the day.
• End the day with what went right. Name one thing you finished, one thing you looked after and one thing you chose not to push.

That last one matters more than it sounds. You go to bed with a win, not a list of everything you got wrong.

How do you get out of bed when the alarm goes off?

Stand up the moment it rings, before your mind starts to argue. The longer you lie there, the better the excuses get.

• Put the alarm across the room. You have to get up to stop it, and then you are already up.
• Skip the snooze button. Set the alarm for the time you will really get up, not half an hour before it.
• Feet on the floor, lights on. Turn on the main light or open the curtains straight away.
• Drink the water you left out. It gives you something to do in the first minute that is not your phone.
• Know what you are getting up for. A reason you care about does more for you at 6 a.m. than willpower.

The first two minutes are the hardest part of the whole thing. Once you are standing with a glass of water in your hand, the worst is over.

How do you wake up early to exercise?

Get the workout ready before you go to sleep, so all you have to do in the morning is get dressed and start.

• Lay out your training clothes next to the bed, shoes included.
• Decide the workout the night before. Write it down: which moves, how many rounds. No planning at 6 a.m.
• Keep the first sessions short. Twenty minutes is plenty. Our home workout for men with no equipment needs no gym and no drive.
• Have someone waiting. A training partner, a class or a run club makes it much harder to stay in bed.
• Warm up slowly. You can feel stiff right after you wake up. March on the spot, roll your shoulders and ease in.

Stop any move that causes sharp pain. If you have an injury or a health condition, talk to a doctor before you start a new workout.

How do you wake up early if you went to bed late?

Get up at your usual time anyway, then go to bed a bit earlier that night. If you sleep in, you will not be tired at your normal bedtime, and the late night can repeat.

On the morning after a late night:

• Get up at your normal time and open the curtains.
• Keep the day light. Do the basics and your most important task, and drop the rest.
• Move your body, even if it is just a walk.
• Go to bed early that night instead of sleeping in the next day.

If you go to bed late most nights, early mornings will stay hard no matter what you try. Fix the bedtime first. Move it earlier in the same small steps you used for the alarm.

What if waking up early is not working?

Make the step smaller. If 15 minutes earlier still feels like a fight, move 5 minutes, or go back to the last time that worked and stay there for a week.

Then look at your nights before you blame your mornings. Are you going to bed at the same time? Are you moving during the day? Is your phone still in bed with you? Are your weekends undoing the week?

Go easy on yourself on bad days. One late start does not wipe out the work. Get up at your usual time the next day and carry on. If you feel tired all the time, even with a steady bedtime, talk to a doctor.

Is waking up early worth it?

It is worth it if you use the time for something you care about. An extra hour spent scrolling in bed is not a win.

The early morning is often the only quiet part of the day. No messages, no meetings, nobody asking you for anything. That makes it a good time to train, think, write or work on something of your own.

But early is not better on its own. If you work late shifts, a later wake-up time you keep every day beats an early one you keep twice a week. Pick the time that fits your life, then hold it.

Once you are up, the next question is what to do with that time. Our best morning routine for men is a simple plan for the first hour. For more simple habits that make life run better, see our life guides.