Day 1032 & The Lynchpin for Becoming a Morning Person

Day 1032 Record Keeping
Day 1004 Fixed Meditation (20 min)
Day 878 Writing (DID NOT DO)
Day 418 Rowing (125 kb swings, form, 5x25)
Day 159 Mobility/Stretching (back smash and stretch)
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Eating
Day 256 Pantry Check (DiD NOT DO)
Day 254 Food Recording (DID NOT DO)
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Early to Rise
Day 187 Water
Day 187 Sleep Recording  (1:50|2:20|10:20|11)
Day 158 Bedtime Curfew (DID NOT DO)
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Good sleep, ok wakeup. Yesterday went to College Station to pay my respects to my departed friend Dan. Today was a lot of family stuff. I’m still glad I am able to complete at least the majority of my habits. 

The Lynchpin for Becoming a Morning Person
The past few days I’ve been setting an alarm 8 hours after I go to sleep. I’ve been getting up right before the alarm goes off. Several people, upon hearing of my project, have immediately mentioned their problems with becoming a morning person, and I think this might be a breakthrough moment. It’s not a particularly shocking move - it’s quite small. But I think building off those small habits - quantifying your sleep, slowly focusing on a curfew, and only THEN setting an alarm….that might well change things.

My idea for my next habit is simply setting my alarm 8 hours after I go to sleep. That would be an unchanging habit that once again focuses on the night before rather than the day of. The only thing in that family of small habits to “push” would be my curfew and the time between going to bed and going to sleep and waking up and getting out of bed.

Day 40, Buddhism, & Waking Up

Day 40 Record Keeping SRHI = 51
Day 8 Fixed Meditation SRHI = 25
Day 7 Dynamic Meditation SRHI = 59
Great night sleep, very hard wakeup

Per my past post on the mind-stream, I’ve heavily researching Buddhism to see if there are any specific tips I can glean about equanimity training, what I’m calling Dynamic Meditation. There are many frustrations - many books describe the basics, few describe advanced techniques. A number of books are highly technical and involve a lot of Sanskrit or Pali terminology. I’ve been skimming a lot of books at a high rate - 20 books last night - zoning in on techniques, and I have a LOT more to go through. There have been a few gems, and I’ll share them once I’m done.

Over the last several days I’ve been noticing that there is a huge trend - I have very bad wakeups in the morning. There are some posts I’ve read talking about this, and ways to fix it. But it got me thinking - wouldn’t that be a great habit? Becoming a morning person?

It’s something I’ve always wanted to be. I hate waking up late and feeling like I’m behind the ball. I wakeup thinking that I have to catch up, and that’s not a great feeling. It bears some thought, but this might be a habit I want to cultivate for later.