What would happen if you got up at 4:30 every day?

Proper sleep is essential for a full and healthy life. It helps accelerate tissue regeneration, normalizes muscle tone and relieves the everyday stress that follows us everywhere. Many people can’t even imagine living with a different sleep schedule.

The author of the YouTube channel GoalGuys Brendan Jones decided to conduct an experiment with changing the rhythm of life and tested what happens to the body if you get up at 4:30 in the morning for a month. Let’s explore the intricacies of healthy sleep together with somnologist Daria Lebedeva.

somnologist

“To change your schedule abruptly, in one day – wrong. It can be done only in extreme cases and you need to understand what the consequences will be. If you change the time of rising or going to bed for a few hours, you will need at least two days for your biological clock to adjust to the new way”.

This isn’t the first time GoalGuys’ YouTube channel has released videos of such challenges. There you can see an experiment with improving reflexes in 30 days, how to train with the Ninja Warrior system or how to schedule every hour of your life for 30 days. This time it was decided to get up for a month at 4:30 am. It’s worth noting that the video has garnered over 1 million views.

The channel blogger wondered what would happen to his productivity and life in general if he changed his established sleep schedule for the next month. In pursuit of the extra time, he encountered some challenges.

No medical tests or examinations were conducted during the experiment. The blogger relied solely on his own feelings.

At the beginning of the video Brendan quotes a comment from former Navy SEAL, US military officer Jake Wilman – he expresses two thoughts.

• First, Wilman himself prefers to get up at 4:30 because few people wake up that early, which means they have time to do their own thing.
• Secondly, Wilman believes that many people do useless things at night, like watching videos or movies, which can be abandoned for the sake of greater productivity in the morning.

The video’s author also cites a study in which students who attended sports practices in the early morning got higher grades at university and felt happier than those who slept in until lunchtime.

The month began with Brendan making an effort to establish a definite regimen for himself. It was decided to start each day with an outdoor workout, using exclusively bodyweight exercises. Then a shower, work, and bedtime at 20:00.

Day 2

After the first two days of the experiment, it turned out that the blogger had forgotten about the wisdom tooth extraction. Despite the successful surgery, the event threw off the mood and unilaterally brought everything back to normal. Being under painkillers for the next three days, Brendan slept 12-14 hours a day.

Back to being healthy and happy, the blogger set his alarm back to 4:30 on the fifth day of the experiment.

Day 6

Attempts to go to bed early failed. After lying awake for an hour in the hope of falling asleep, the hero concluded that he was not ready for such a thing.

Then the experiment turned into a painful series of evening lying in bed with no prospects for a sound and healthy sleep and even more so for an early rise. When the alarm clock rang at 4:30, Brendan went straight to coffee and then straight to training. He also tried taking melatonin before bed and reading with the lights dimmed in the evenings. Life began to feel like a vacation at a boarding house, but unfortunately nothing was working. The body refused to fall asleep.

Day 10

After a week of the experiment, Brendan realized that he should have researched the issue further before starting, in particular learning more about circadian rhythms. Referring to the book “Why We Sleep” by Matthew Walker, the blogger explains that there are three circadian groups: morning “larks” – 40%, night “owls” – 30% and the middle group – 30%. A person’s productivity at certain times of the day, mood and many other things depend on which group they belong to.

Daria Lebedeva

somnologist

“It is worth understanding that the amount of sleep depends on age. If we are talking about an average adult, he or she needs to sleep from seven to nine hours. Of course, there are exceptions. For example, some people sleep for four hours and get enough sleep, while others have to rest for 11-12 hours in order not to feel drowsy during the day”.

Then it was decided to change the alarm clock to 6:30, as it was unbearable to continue sleeping less than six hours. Brendan also decided to resort to sleeping pills – this paid off and he finally managed to fall asleep earlier.

Day 15

The sleep schedule changed. The blogger started falling asleep before 21:30 every night and stuck to the rules:

• no caffeine after 8 p.m;
• mandatory wearing of sunglasses outside after 5:00 p.m. to reduce UV exposure to his eyes before bedtime.

The blogger noted that this gave him time for a full workout before work, as well as the opportunity to finish all his work at lunch and devote the rest of the day to himself.

Day 26

“Today is a day of rest from the gym. No exercise, just rest. I still want to continue this sleep pattern and rhythm I live in,” Brendan shared.

Daria Lebedeva

somnologist

“If you drastically change the time of going to bed and waking up, during the period of adjustment of the biological clock you will feel broken, there will be a false sense of hunger, sleepiness. In addition, there may be problems with the synthesis of hormones (melatonin, cortisol, somatotropic), which ultimately leads to severe consequences for the body.

Therefore, it is worth sticking to this rule: one hour – one day. In order to adapt and not to suffer from a disrupted regime, you need to go to bed an hour earlier every day and, accordingly, get up earlier”.

At first, the hero of the video did not manage to wake up regularly at 4:30, but at the end of the 40th day of the experiment, he admits that he did not expect such an effect. Brendan got into the taste and decided to try to get up earlier 30 days in a row and with a more responsible approach. This challenge helped him to better allocate his time and cope with everyday tasks.

The main conclusion to draw: it’s important to listen to yourself and how you feel. If you feel that you are running out of energy and incredibly want to sleep, do not deny yourself this. When the soul requires tests, you should approach them seriously and comprehensively. In such things, it is important to change gradually – you should not change the established regime abruptly in one day.