Fancy rising before cock-crow, or would you prefer to snore on?

DID you know the time between 5am-6am is known as the ‘victory hour’? At least, that’s according to leadership and ‘elite performance expert,’ Robin Sharma who introduced The 5am Club concept and wrote a book about it some years ago.

The idea is you wake up an hour before your partner and kids and use that distraction-free time to focus on personal well-being through exercise, meditation and reading or journaling or learning. Sounds like a tall order?

Other experts on sleep would say rising so early interferes with the circadian rhythm. Our body clock is part of why we feel more tired or energised at certain times of the day.

Recently, I woke at precisely 5am and instead of pulling the duvet over my head, in denial of another day at the desk, I sprung out of bed, full of beans and plans. 

I did my usual 20-minutes of exercise (a habit formed following an injury to my back a few years ago).

Then I showered, had fruit, coffee and toast (definitely not anything super healthy such as porridge and berries) and ventured out to the garden to pick up some of the apples that had fallen from my extremely bountiful tree overnight. (There is such a surplus of cooking apples on the grass that I’ve been giving them to friends and neighbours and basically, anyone who comes into the house.)

Feeling virtuous, I then peeled and stewed some of the apples, putting the saucepan of the stewed fruit aside to cool, before putting portions of it into the freezer. I am almost making myself sick as I write this.

Did I really do this when normally, I’d be slowly coming out of a confusing dream at that time of the morning? I even put on a clothes wash and had the laundry hung out before 8am. All this from one who thinks 7am is a good early start to the day. (I used to loiter in bed until much later but as I age, I need less sleep.)

Coincidentally, later that day, Newstalk Radio had an item about The 5am Club. It’s not a club I want to join because that day I was up before cock-crow turned out to be one of exhaustion. But that’s because I hadn’t gone to bed the night before until my usual time of 11.30pm-ish.

To be a successful early riser, you need to hit the bed the night by about 9pm. But that’s the time of night when many of us like to relax in front of the telly or read. Or dare I say it, go to the pub for one or three drinks.

Those nights are over for me but I realise the bit of social interaction in the local watering hole is important for many people, particularly if working from home and not seeing anyone all day. (Covid has a lot to answer for now that work is often done from the kitchen table, in isolation.)

There’s a lot of auld blather about how little sleep really successful people need. There’s a kind of mythology around it, implying that to be a master of the universe, you need to be checking the stock exchange (or writing yet another bestseller) in the very early hours.

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher famously got by on about four hours of sleep per night. But she ended up with dementia and died. I seem to recall that she allowed herself a snifter of whisky every night. I suppose it beats a sleeping pill habit once you restrict the alcohol habit to a small measure.

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, gets six hours of sleep a night, going to bed at 1am and rising at 7am. Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, gives himself seven hours of slumber, going to bed at 9.30pm and getting up at the ungodly hour of 4.30am. Bill Gates also sleeps for seven hours but doesn’t go to bed until 12am, waking at 7am. Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group, only gets five or six hours sleep. He hits the pillow at midnight and gets up at 5/6am.

But really, rising at 5am is pretty brutal unless you do the boring thing and hit the leaba early. Otherwise, burning the candle at both ends won’t do you any good.

I won’t be repeating my fluke 5am start. While I liked the stillness of the world at that hour and refrained from checking social media until later, I found that day too long.

For some, there aren’t enough hours in the day to get through their to-do list. But I’m taking note of the fact that too much sleep deprivation can lead to cardiovascular disease and respiratory disease.

Snore on – it’s good for you!