Get up at dawn and take an ice bath. But is the advice of the early birds really the way to success?
It all started as a way to survive the lockdown during the covid-19 epidemic
Despite the aforementioned old truth about early birds, a new movement promoting the benefits of getting up early only started four years ago. Then Royal Navy physical education instructor Chris Reeves was behind the whole idea - and it was in this way that he decided to tackle the lockdown situation, i.e. the lack of contact with others as well as the missing schedule. But while the idea for the movement originated in Reeves' head, the name was inspired by mixed martial arts fighter Mark Scanlon, and his podcast, which themed the mantra of American entrepreneur and productivity guru Tim Ferriss. It is he who espouses the theory that if one manages to get a successful start in the morning, he will thrive throughout the rest of the day (in fact, he came to this conclusion based on countless interviews he conducted with successful people who - yes, you guessed right - get up really early...). And what started as a spur-of-the-moment idea to deal with lockdown soon became a hit.
While within the first week, Reeves himself was joined by sixty other people from his neighbourhood, and subsequently the popularity of morning activities began to spread throughout the UK, but today similar communities of early risers are springing up all over the world - some doing morning activities (e.g. swimming and hardening, running) on a daily basis, others meeting in the morning only on weekends. Currently, volunteers in many cities around the world are even organising weekend morning runs in parks. And what's so great about this organized morning movement?
Step out of your comfort zone and build resilience!
"I don't like the sea, and I don't like cold water. The reason I do all of this is because it puts me outside my comfort zone," is how Reeves explains why he's willing to not only get up at an ungodly hour, but also dive into the cold water early (with like-minded enthusiasts). In his opinion, this is how mental resilience can be developed, and specifically swimming in the ocean is not a requirement. Fortunately, morning physical activities can be quite varied, so even those who don't have access to water are not excluded from Win the Morning, Win the Day. In the end, however, the main idea behind the movement is not so much building physical resilience as mental resilience. "Win the Morning, Win the Day has brought people together at a time when many of them, for example, were in need of resilience. It has provided them with a space where the focus is on friendship, support and psychological well-being, rather than physical fitness or challenges," Reeves explains, adding that it is through this essentially "therapeutic" activity that many people have been able to tackle their inner demons.
Early risers as a universal recipe for success?
Getting up in the morning is associated with a number of (supposed) benefits that guarantee health, happiness, success for those who jump out of bed before dawn... All of this is backed up by the oft-repeated stories of people in a number of high-profile positions, so it would seem that once one starts getting up at what is often a completely inhuman time, success is actually only a matter of time. Except what if all those successful early birds get up early precisely because they are in leadership positions, and thus that position is not the result of getting up early, but is quite the opposite?
"Many outwardly successful people simply have to get up early in the morning to manage the amount of work that awaits them on any given day," explains leadership coach Fiona Buckland. In these cases, she says, the reason for the early rising is more likely to be stress and the need to have as much time as possible to fulfil responsibilities. So, although a punctual daily routine and being disciplined are generally perceived positively, the other side of the coin cannot be ignored. "Personal burnout, depression, mental illness, but also relationship breakdown, insomnia, the onset of heart disease and alcoholism are very common problems in similar cases," Buckland summarises. So starting a new day by waking up at an extreme hour - and perhaps jumping into freezing water afterwards - isn't necessarily as great as it first appears.
How to be truly efficient without ruining your health
Of course, getting up in the morning, and consequently the morning ritual of meeting others and going for a run or any other activity together, doesn't have to be completely done away with right away. There are some people who are "kicked" by this, but there are also those who could be ruined very quickly by such a practice. It really depends on the chronotype of the person in question, because larks (those who are active in the morning) and owls (those who do most of their activities in the evening and at night) do exist and it is necessary to conform to this physical setup. Trying to overcome nature is rather like running headlong into a wall.
So what is the real recipe for a successful day? Quality sleep. "When a person gets a good night's sleep, he or she will subsequently concentrate adequately, be productive and at the same time regenerate all the necessary functions from emotional to physical," is how Colin Espie, an expert in sleep medicine, sums it up. So if you find getting up at 5am inhuman, it's not necessarily your laziness that's to blame, but the chronotype. But to be sure of how things are going, feel free to join the Win the Morning, Win the Day movement. The worst that can happen is that you simply don't "win"...
