Book Summary: The 5am Club
The 5am Club is a fictional tale of 3 people learning to make the most of their time and days by waking up at 5 am each day. While the story is fictional the lessons are not. There are many books out there all touting the benefits of a productive morning ritual and there is a reason they are so popular. This particular story offers a framework perfect for getting started with trying out earlier mornings and is definitely worth a look.
Related Book Summaries:
The Miracle Morning – Hal Elrod
My Morning Routine – Benjamin Spall
The Four Tendencies – Gretchen Rubin
Quotes from The 5AM Club:
Take excellent care of the front end of your day, and the rest of the day will pretty much take care of itself.
Let me simply say that the place where your greatest discomfort lies is also the spot where your greatest opportunity lives.
The 5AM Club Summary Notes:
- The most reliable way to generate the best results in your personal and professional life is to build a world beating morning routine.
- One of the biggest advantages of joining the 5 am club is the quiet solitude and enhanced brain state
- As the day goes on our mental capacity is drained by all of the things competing for attention, things like work, news, social media.
- 5am in the morning is an excellent time for achieving a state of flow. This can be a result of your brain not needing to stress, worry and analyze anything in the day yet.
- Most people are unwilling to get up at 5 and begin their days, by doing so you gain a competitive advantage.
- Self-discipline and perseverance always trump talent and giftedness.
- Freedom from distraction allows one to focus, simplify and concentrate. It allows you to work on your One Thing
- The power in habits is not from the habit itself but in the accumulation of small improvements that consistent practice gives.
- To show elite-level mastery of a subject or skill requires approximately 2.75 hours per day of practice each day for 10 years. Getting up earlier is an easy way to get these hours in.
- A great outline for your first hour is the 20/20/20 rule. 20 mins to move, 20 mins to reflect and 20 mins to grow.
- Sleep can be an important factor in determining life expectancy.
The 5AM Club Summary Deep Dive on Sleep
How long should you wait after eating to sleep?
Reducing or eliminating food intake after a certain time of night is a great idea. It is recommended that you wait at least 2 or 3 hours after eating to go to bed. The reason for this is mainly to do with the timing of your digestion and the fact you’ll be laying down for a protracted length of time while the digestion is happening. Food takes several hours to work its way from your stomach to your small intestine. Once in your small intestine, it is far less likely to cause you issues such as heartburn or reflux during the night while you’re trying to lie down and get some sleep.
Another factor to consider is that consuming food will cause the release of insulin which is considered a sign of wakefulness to the rest of the body. Not a good idea right before trying to drift off.
Beverages such as coffee, some teas, energy drinks and some fizzy drinks should also be avoided for a few hours before sleep as most contain caffeine which can prevent us from feeling sleepy. Consuming drinks before bed can also disrupt our sleep if it causes us to have to wake up in the middle of the night and use the bathroom, there’s even a clinical name for this: Nocturia.
Foods That Help Sleep
Some foods can be incredible sleep aids. Foods containing turkey and pork, for example, have high concentrations of a substance called Tryptophan. Tryptophan is converted by the body into the sleep hormones serotonin and melatonin.
Foods like warm milk, or certain teas, when used carefully can become sleep aids by being built into a proper nighttime ritual as well. A good evening routine can help us to unwind and relax. It also lets the body know that sleep is coming soon and over time your body starts to associate the ritual with getting sleepy and going to bed. This can be particularly useful if you want to train yourself to get up at a certain time, such as 5 am.
Exercise and Sleep
Sleep helps your body recover from stress, repair itself and build up any muscles worked during exercise. Just as sleep helps exercise, exercise also helps sleep. Exercise helps to improve the quality of your sleep and encourages your body to produce growth hormone as well. Growth hormone, while we’re young is responsible for us growing larger, as we age though it becomes important for its regenerative effects on the body.
A study done by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that around 30% of Americans are sleep deprived, or not getting the recommended 7 to 8 hours of sleep per night. In another study published in the journal of Sleep Medicine, they found that when individuals getting around 6.5 hours of sleep per night responded positively to exercise. They had the group complete moderate intensity exercise four to six times per week and on average reported an increase of 75 minutes sleep time per night after 6 weeks. One theory is that physical activity creates more of a chemical called Adenosine in our brains, this is the same chemical that caffeine blocks to make us less tired.
