I’m unsure how long I’ve been staring at my feet in the shower. A cloak of water trickles down my shins, then between the crevasses of my toes. The thought of moving my limbs right now fills me with dread. They’ve been through enough today. I’ve done a load of washing, run 10km, replied to last night’s emails and prepped for tonight’s risotto. And it’s not even 7am.
For the past six weeks, I’ve been setting my alarm at 5am in an attempt to reboot my energy. While I’ve long prided myself on being a morning person, and find the idea of a lie in at the weekend wasteful, it’s rare for me to intentionally wake before dawn. But, after 16 months of working from home, the spring in my step has increasingly resembled more of a shuffle. So pierced by Zoom meetings and Slack notifications are the hours that stretch out before me, that I’m left feeling too fatigued to exercise or meet friends come sundown. I have endless time on my own, but seemingly none left for myself.
To find a solution, I did what any millennial does in times of uncertainty and took to social media, where I found the answer might lie with not lying in bed. The #morningroutine hashtag has amassed more than 3.6 billion views on TikTok, while vlogger Lauren Snyder’s 6am Morning Routine video – seeing her journalling, exercising, doing her skincare regime and making breakfast – has accrued more than 3.3 million YouTube views.
Of course, waking up at first light isn’t exactly a new phenomenon. For millennia, farmers, labourers and religious communities woke with the rising sun, long before the alarm clock was invented. But recently those early hours have become a magical window – the key to productivity and self-realisation. Leadership expert Robin Sharma, the bestselling author of The 5am Club – 336 pages extolling the virtues of rising early – is spearheading the movement. For ultimate wellbeing and success, readers are instructed to start their day at 5am with exercise, reflection and personal growth, each lasting 20 minutes. ‘The way you begin your day has an outsized effect on the quality of your day,’ he explains.
‘If you look at many of the greatest creative leaders and sages of the world, most of them had one thing in common: they were daybreakers,’ he says, listing early birds such as Nelson Mandela, Michelle Obama and Apple CEO Tim Cook.
But as the pre-dawners quietly got on with their 5am ice baths (Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey), green powders with brain octane oil (Orlando Bloom) and 95-minute workouts followed by cryochamber recovery (hello, Mark Walhberg), everyone else got more sleep. More and more of us are using the extra hours in our days to take meetings, network and even socialise with like-minded peers, leaving the well-rested lagging behind. Sharma is not surprised: ‘We’re looking for the game-changing hack that frees us from our slavery to technology. The morning routine is the answer.’
The idea of speaking to colleagues pre-caffeine will have most of us pulling the duvet over our heads. But in Miami, before-work networking is as common as jogging along Ocean Drive. With low taxes, hot climate and pro-business mayor Francis Suarez, the coastal metropolis is etching out a name for itself as the new Silicon Valley. Consequently, the city has ushered in a new wave of early rising techies, venture capitalists and former Wall Street financiers itching to share ideas at breakfast lectures and on networking bike rides around the town of Key Biscayne before clocking into the office. After all, time is money.
It’s a culture that inspired Brandon Evans, co-founder of technology community Miami Made, to launch the Thrive Together Tuesday event. Once a month, ‘founders’ meet at 7.30am to share their knowledge and find support from like-minded moguls. The eye-watering start time was ‘very intentional’, Brandon says. ‘Being a founder is hard and often-isolating work. To start your day with 100 people who want to see you succeed is a game-changer.’
But it’s not all work and no play for early risers. The morning is getting a makeover, with some viewing it as the new ‘happy hour’ (without the gin).
‘My friends and I regularly have 6am calls,’ TishTash communications agency founder Natasha Hatherall-Shawe tells me from Dubai. The entrepreneur initially began setting her alarm at 5am for work (‘by 9am, I want my inbox empty so I can focus on clients’) but has tailored her morning routine to accommodate time with friends. ‘We end our calls and feel energised for the day,’ she explains.
Anna McLeod, athlete, team and partnership manager at cycling brand Rapha, is another fan of starting work early. She meets her mentor for a weekly 7am ‘bun run’ cycle in the countryside, with a pit stop for coffee and pastries. ‘I’ve had meetings on the bike before and I find conversation is more casual and relaxed than in a meeting room,’ she says.
But could morning meet-ups really become the alternative to post-work drinks? Yes, according to George Rawlings, who co-founded the dating app Thursday in April. With more than 110,000 users signed up in London and New York prior to launch, the platform is looking into a feature that enables users to show their available time slots, which George believes will benefit early risers wanting to date before work. ‘I think people will be more inclined to give half an hour of their time for a morning coffee and make dating more low-key,’ he says.
Cultivating relationships early in the morning is something Aurelien Schibli and Brenton Parkes have seen first-hand. In 2018, the former flatmates launched the 5.30 Club in Sydney for individuals to meet in a cafe on weekdays at 5.30am. It’s expanded across Australia with attendees socialising, working and even dating. ‘We’ve attracted people that value connection on a sober level,’ says co-founder Vani Morrison. ‘Anyone can get up early and have a morning routine, but there’s a difference in having a community to hold you accountable.’ And you don’t even have to wait until the sun sets to party. UK-based Morning Gloryville has had worldwide success with its pre-dawn, alcohol-free raves, starting well before 7am.
But while waking at an earlier hour may benefit some, sleep expert Dr Els van der Helm isn’t so sure it makes you more successful; it may even be counterproductive. One major drawback is the myth that waking early means you’re getting ahead. ‘In believing this, you’re basically misaligning your sleep with the rhythm of your biological clock,’ she says.
According to Dr van der Helm, humans are created with chronotypes that determine our ideal sleep times. With morning types making up just 14% of the population, she warns that in waking early, most people will force themselves into a schedule that doesn’t naturally fit them, especially if they’re going to bed early to rise early. ‘Eventually you’ll adjust, but you’re never going to be completely optimal.’
Does that mean you’re free to stay in bed? Don’t bet on it. In an age of comparison culture, earlier-than-you routines are on the rise. Hatherall-Shawe has already seen it happen. ‘We’ve got an entrepreneurial community in Dubai – people are competitive,’ she says, noting how she often finds herself comparing how she uses her ‘power hours’ with her early bird colleagues. And, as Sharma says, ‘We’re fundamentally tribal animals.’ We’re not just fascinated, he says, but inclined to copy the chief of the tribe’s practices.
There’s nothing inherently better about packing the early hours with activity, but there’s no doubt that the purity and simplicity of dawn fits with this generation’s focus on wholesome self-improvement. And, in an ever-time-starved world, what rising early does give daybreakers over night owls is a feeling of achievement before the day has really begun.
Pre-dawn networking and breakfast bike rides might not replace the hedonism of a night with friends. But, post-pandemic, when working from a spare room is the norm and office hours have lost all meaning, perhaps it’s time we wake up to the potential of mornings. Just don’t hit ‘snooze’.
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Katie O'Malley is the Site Director on ELLE UK. On a daily basis you’ll find Katie managing all digital workflow, editing site, video and newsletter content, liaising with commercial and sales teams on new partnerships and deals (eg Nike, Tiffany & Co., Cartier etc), implementing new digital strategies and compiling in-depth data traffic, SEO and ecomm reports. In addition to appearing on the radio and on TV, as well as interviewing everyone from Oprah Winfrey to Rishi Sunak PM, Katie enjoys writing about lifestyle, culture, wellness, fitness, fashion, and more.
