 Today I'm going to share with you some tips that I currently use as a doctor that I use as a medical student to wake up really early in the morning at hours like 4.30 or 5.30 but still not feel tired for work or at school. That's good. Hey everyone and welcome to the channel. My name is Laksh. I'm a doctor who on this channel as well as this podcast make tips to make your life as a student a little bit easier. So if you're new to the channel, consider hitting that subscribe button. If you enjoy the content, then make sure you show your support by hitting that like button as well. But today I want to talk about waking up early and how to do it without feeling tired for school or for work and you may have a sour taste in your mouth when it comes to topics about waking up early because maybe you've tried it and weren't able to do it successfully or consistently. But in this video I'm going to show you a few ways you can use to overcome it. So it was a quick backstory when I was a medical student in my second year. I had started an Emory journey as a blog post and I was putting different challenges I would do for like 20 days at a time. One of the first ones that I did was I asked myself to wake up at 4.30 for 20 straight days and try to see if I could build it as a habit. Before this I was waking up anywhere from like 6.30 to 7 so still early but like by no means 4.30 early. When I initially started there was a huge bit of motivation because I was getting work done, I felt great, I could report back on my blog post and the 4 people that were reading that it was successful. But towards the middle of the 20 days it was hard. You know it was hard to wake up, it was hard to find that motivation and then you definitely have that natural sensation of tiredness and fatigue towards the middle of the day because you've gotten up a few hours early. But as I was going through the challenge I tested out different techniques that I was learning online and eventually I was able to get to a point where I was motivated to get up at 4.30, I was getting stuff done. By the middle of the day where I typically would hit a low amount of energy I was still energized to do even more work if I chose to. And keep in mind that was my second year of medical school, I'm still waking up at those kinds of hours currently and I'm able to do different projects like work on the YouTube channel, work on my blog as well as various other things that I enjoy doing. So today I want to give you a few tips that I personally use in my own life as a physician to help me become more productive to get up early without having that tired sensation later. So the first thing that I found to be really effective at waking up early but also energized is to wake up your most optimal times. Our body naturally cycles between a variety of sleep stages, some being very light and some being very deep. But the problem of having a specific wake up time every single day is that you can't always direct what phase of sleep you'll be waking up into and so if you wake up in something that's very light it's going to feel very natural to get up. But on the flip side, if you wake up at a much deeper phase of your sleep cycle, you're much more likely to want to go back to sleep or at least feel groggy if you do choose to get up. And so a few great ways to help yourself wake up at a very optimal hours are trying some sleep cycle timer apps that you can find up on iOS or Android. I'll link a few down below because I've kind of flipped back and forth myself, but they're great kind of tools that you can use using the accelerometer that come with your phone to just kind of put it on your bedside table or on your bed face down and essentially can sense your motion as your sleep to try to figure out what kind of phase of your sleep cycle you are. And you can increase your chances of waking up at a lighter phase of your sleep by using the app and dictating essentially what range you would like to wake up on. So maybe it's 430 to 5 or 530 to 6 and the app will do its thing and it'll try to wake you up at a time that's most optimal for you. And as a bonus tip, just waking up doesn't mean you're going to necessarily get out of bed. And so one of the things that I like to do is something that I call the five second rule that I've learned through a variety of self-improvement posts, but basically the idea is, is you essentially count down from 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and that one, you basically kind of make yourself jump out of the bed. It's a little bit silly when you first start, but your likelihood of getting out of bed just increases versus trying to press the snooze button and saying that in five minutes I'll get up. We all know how that goes. Tip number two is to try to have a motivating task as soon as you wake up. I remember when, even when I reflect back to my morning routine as a medical student, I'll link down below a vlog where I did have this situation. I would have a lot of things going on. I would have to do a reflection journal, a meditation, gratitude, and also find time to work out and simply start to become a little bit overwhelming. And so now I simply try to have one thing that I do each morning, whether that be working on a video project for the MD journey or doing some research projects for residency. Now obviously it's very important that you find something that's motivating and not just something that's on your to-do list. So if you're not motivated to review your lectures in the morning, but you are to get a workout and both of them happen to be your to-do list, then try to fit your workout in as soon as you get up. Now tip number three is to have good nighttime hygiene. It doesn't matter if you're using the apps to help yourself wake up in an optimal time or if you're really motivated to get up, it's much more likely you'll feel tired if you don't get adequate amount of sleep. So you find what that is for you. For me, it's about like six and a half hours for other people and maybe eight to nine hours. But make sure you're not short changing yourself on average over the week on your sleep just to wake up a little bit early. And in addition, make sure you're using the bedrooms for things that are appropriate and not for things like looking on your phone or wasting time on social media as you're getting close to bed. Instead of things like just actually going to sleep or reading a book and staying away from any type of screens can really make it much more likely they're going to go straight to sleep. For me, I find that it's very easy to go to sleep, but I also find that my environment is conducive to it. We don't have a TV in our bedroom. I try not to spend a lot of time on my phone before bed. It's just very easy to not. Step number four is really effective and that's to watch what you're eating and taking in before you go to bed as well as when you wake up. We have a tendency, especially in a Western diet, to eat very carb-heavy meals around dinner time and also a tendency to do the same during practice time. But if your body doesn't actually need that energy was you're going to sleep, I try to keep my dinners as car-free as possible, but that's kind of hard. I love carbs. So it's important to kind of reflect back on what you're eating for dinner as you're about to go into a six to eight hour hiatus. It's very likely that you don't need a huge carb-heavy meal for dinner. And the same thing goes for breakfast, especially if you're about to wake up and you're not going to do the sir at yourself. You don't have a morning workout and you still have a good amount of glycogen storage left. I personally will just go ahead and have, you know, an iced coffee this morning and then wait till later on in the day around 11 and 12 to have my first true meal for my body actually can use a little bit of energy. And the flip side of this is eating a huge meal for breakfast and then having all of your body's energy go towards that dressing it or you could be using it for very productive times. And just because I wake up early doesn't mean I don't take advantage. That tip number five which is to have a midday nap if you're able to. I made a video which I'll link down below of something called the caffeine power nap which is an effective scientific backed, you know, 20 minute nap that you can do especially if you're somebody who loves drinking coffee and their tea. So I'll link that down below. But whenever possible if you do come back home as a student to study and you find that the hours in the afternoon are probably not productive for you in the first place, for me they weren't. I would instead replace them with a 20 minute kind of refreshing nap or up to an hour. I still do it in residency when my schedule allows for me to come home and work from home. But otherwise I just have to kind of be a little bit more mindful of how much sleep I get every day. So those guys are the various different ways that I use to wake up early and make sure I'm energized but also keep my energy consistent and high throughout the day. If you guys did enjoy this video and let me know by hitting that like button to just share it with me that you enjoy this piece of content, drop any questions that you guys have down below about anything regarding the student studying like wake up early, be happy to make a vlog if you guys are interested and if you haven't somehow made it to the end of the video, consider hitting that subscribe button or putting up two videos just like this one each and every week. But thank you guys so much for watching. I'll link down below a few playlists and blog posts that you guys can check out. But I appreciate you guys joining me on this channel on my journey. Hopefully I've been able to help you out a lot. I'll see you guys in the next one. Peace.