Why I Love to Wake Up Early
Tried One and Became a Habit
I started to be an early riser when I was at school. My school started at 7 am, so I woke up at 5 am. Honestly, during those times, the only benefit I felt for waking up early was that I wouldn’t be late for school.
I still woke up early even after I started to work. However, the benefit I felt was still the same. I didn’t want to be late for work. I’d prefer to arrive at work 15 minutes before the work hour starts. I need time to be calm and settle in before doing my tasks.
I keep waking up at 5 am or 5.30 am, as my body clock is used to waking up early, even when working from home became mandatory in 2020 due to the pandemic.
From here, I began to find other benefits of waking up early.
- Interact with the mind better
I am able to listen to my mind and interact with it in the morning silence of the neighborhood. Sometimes the birds have started to chirp. If it’s raining, it creates tranquility even more.
Since I haven’t used my body to do duties, my morning brain is still clear as a blank paper. My mind will talk and I will be able to listen to it. This moment is the best time for me to do my meditation by doing self-reflection. How can I improve myself? Which negative part of me I should change? This meditation helps me to find myself better.
My morning meditation gives me relaxation which is beneficial for me to prepare myself for my activities. Imagine if I wake up 15 minutes before work starts, my mind would still be in the ‘waking up’ state, which means, it is not ready to be used for doing tasks and I would tend to be lazier doing them, as I am not ready yet. My mind and my body are still not coming up together.
2. See my surrounding differently
Once the government allowed people to go out for essential things and do sports (e.g walking, running), I started to wake up at 5 am and then went for running at 5.45 am. I used to see my area was crowded. People were rushing to work or market (I was one of them, by the way). I had never had the time to pay attention to my surroundings. I left home straight to the bus stop and to the office.
When I started my early morning run, I was able to see my surroundings differently. My neighborhood was so quiet and still dark. Well, I came back home in the evening before, however, the dark sky in the morning hits me differently. There were some runners and people walking their dogs. No people were in a rush to go somewhere. They were in such a relaxing state. It had contaminated me. I felt relaxed as well.
Busses have been operated already. It was quite surprised me that, I saw some people were waiting for busses on their office attires at 5.45 am! Some were young people and some were old people. But, they were not rushing as the people I was used to seeing every day. They were just standing patiently. I didn’t see any face in worried to be late.
Since then, I have always enjoyed what I see in my neighborhood in the early morning. It gives me peace. It helps to clear my mind. I consider it as an outdoor meditation.
3. Feel the fresh air
Although I live in a clean country, it wouldn’t be that ‘ clean’ anymore with vehicle emissions. Therefore, I wake up early and go for my early morning run, so I feel the fresh air. There are not a lot of cars and motorbikes around, so I don’t need to run breathing the mixing of clean air and vehicles emission. It’s healthier. I could breathe easier.
When I run at the beach park, the air is even fresher. The smell of the morning sea air brings calmness to my brain. It feels great to me when I see fellow runners. It is nice to see that other people could enjoy the quietness of the early morning as well. I see familiar faces of strangers every time I run. Sometimes we say hi to each other while we are passing by.
As conclusion, ever since early morning run has been a habit to me. I will try to just go for a walk when I don’t run, to feel the quiet and clean morning sensation. As my work is stressful, I need a calm relaxing mind to start my day. As an experience, a clear mind helps me to do my tasks and deal with difficult people on the day. If I didn’t, I would be easily annoyed when things at work were rough.
