Lifestyle
Why I wake up at 5am every day (and love it)
The 5am club isn’t just for CEOs and influencers – it might be the gentlest way to reclaim your time and peace of mind.
By Rachael Mogan McIntosh
A picture of Bondi Beach at 6am went viral recently. It wasn’t your classic Bondi sunrise postcard: waves crashing photogenically on an empty expanse of sand while a single surfer shades his eyes against the horizon.
No, in this image, that vivid sunrise overlooks a hectic scene of swimmers, Instagrammers, Mums in activewear with massive prams and dog-walkers wrangling various poodle-crosses; all of them competing for space on the wide walkway behind the beach with members of the Bondi Run Club.
Starting your day at dawn is hot right now. Michelle Obama does it. Kris Jenner (Mother of Kardashians) does it. CEO’s love it! And famously, actor Mark Wahlberg starts his day at 3.30am, which is a lazy sleep-in for him. He used to get up at 2.30 to fit in prayer, workouts and a stint in his cryo chamber.
Science backs the benefits of the early morning routine. Harvard researcher Andrew Handler found that morning owls were more proactive and made better decisions and a Toronto study found that early risers might even live healthier, happier lives.
A pleasant, straightforward routine
My own day begins with a 5.30am session on my novel. While the rest of my family snore, I creep out, make a giant cup of tea and set up at the dining room table. It’s not easy to drag myself out of the warm bed, but once there, I lock into my favourite part of the day.
During business hours, I am pulled in dozens of directions by other people’s needs, including those of Biggles the dog, who bounces at my feet begging for dinner approximately five minutes after he finishes his breakfast. But at dawn, even Biggles is dreaming his twitchy dreams, and I’m alone with my thoughts.
I started building the habit while writing my first book Pardon My French, following the Flaubert dictum: ‘Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.’ Working in the very early morning is a common routine for writers, perhaps because once interrupted it is hard for us to return to the thread of our thoughts, or perhaps because we are strange goblin creatures better suited to the witching hours.
Benjamin Franklin, framer of the American Constitution, said ‘I rise early every morning and sit in my chamber without any clothes whatever, half an hour or an hour, according to the season, either reading or writing’, and Auden liked the mornings too. ‘Only the Hitler’s of the world work at night,’ he said. ‘No honest artist does.’
But I think possibly Kafka, writing in 1912, phrased it best: ‘Time is short, my strength is limited, the office is a horror, the apartment is noisy, and if a pleasant, straightforward life is not possible then one must try to wriggle through by subtle manoeuvres.’
A good morning starts the day before
The key, for me, is an early bedtime the night before, ensuring a magical eight hours of sleep – a non-negotiable the older I get. This isn’t a chore. I’d go to bed with my book and my laptop and my glasses and some biscuits at 5pm if I could get away with it. That’s the kind of sophisticate I am. Berkeley researchers who studied the sleep habits of 833 people and published their findings agree that a good morning starts the day before. They boil it down to three elements: sleep, exercise and breakfast.
Andrew Huberman, neuroscientist and internet darling, advises drinking two glasses of water on waking and getting into the natural sunlight as soon as possible, in order to set the body's circadian rhythm for the following night’s sleep. Huberman delays his morning coffee for at least an hour, advises morning exercise, with particular focus on ‘forward ambulation’ to reduce anxiety, and follows this with a round of yoga, or another mediative practice like journalling.
Less monastery, more momentum
Huberman’s morning routine and the 6am Bondi Beach influencers share a certain monastic, hyper-disciplined leaning towards ‘productivity’. It’s a lifestyle that extends even to dating, these days, with one Bondi Beach event starting at 6.45am, and involving the evergreen romantic ploys of deep breathing exercises and sexy sound baths.
Flirting over an ice bucket isn’t my style, although I wish those young lovers, with their matching matcha lattes and their tiny bike shorts made of recycled plastic bottles, all the best.
My own morning is somewhat less aesthetic. I stumble out of bed and fumble to the kitchen in my woolly socks and bed hair, plugging in the heating pad for my hip bursitis, and nobody is putting that image on Tik Tok. But Gen Z and I do share our love of the 5am start; a ritual so ingrained for me now that a day missed leaves me feeling slightly unmoored.
My peaceful hour of morning writing is like beginning the day with a vitamin shot: Vitamin M, perhaps for momentum, that centres me in my solitude and sets the tone for the day ahead.
Feature image: iStock/ArtistGNDphotography
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