Wouldn’t it be great if you had an extra hour every day?
What would you do with that extra time?
A few years back I used to get up at 5.30am every morning (even weekends) to read business books for 90 minutes before I started to get ready for work.
I got through 1.5 books a week that way. Here are the summaries of my favourite 81 business books.
But then I had my first kid. And then another. And then another.
And the best I could do was get up at 7am. And even then I was bleary eyed and grumpy.
I’ve only been able to get back into that pattern for brief periods of time. (That sweet spot when all the kids are not sick and none of them walk into our room in the middle of the night).
But I think I might have just cracked the recipe.
Even with 1 sick kid who wakes us up a few times every night this week, my eyes have popped open at 5.00am or 5.30am and I’m feeling good! I’ve been able to start reading business books again with consistency.
It’s been 6 mornings in a row now.
Want to know how I’ve been able to add an extra hour to every morning?
The secret is M&M’s.
Yes, those delicious candy coated chocolate treats.
But I don’t mean adding them to my mouth. Removing them.
For about 3 months, every night I’d turn on a movie or a TV show and munch through half a bag.
Every night.
And then, one of those movies that I watched was called “That Sugar Film”.
I have a pretty good awareness of the high level of sugar in foods and I eat pretty healthy so I thought I deserved half a packet of M&M’s every night.
(In fact, I ate M&M’s all the way through the first half of the movie).
I didn’t think there was any harm.
But the movie made me wonder if I was actually addicted to M&M’s.
The way to test that is to break the habit, so the next night I didn’t eat any M&M’s.
It was hard! It was all I could think about!
And the next morning I woke happy at 5.30am and started reading a business book.
The next day and night the cravings were intense, but I refused to give in to them.
And the next morning, I woke at 5.30am and read some more.
That’s when I started to wonder if abstaining from M&M’s in the evenings was related to me waking up so early and easily.
Now it’s been 6 mornings in a row and I’m convinced.
I think that either the food colouring, or the sugar in the shell or chocolate was sending me on a sugar high and sugar low while I slept!
As my body worked hard to pump insulin around my system all night, I woke up feeling tired still and not knowing why.
No sugar at night, and now my sleep is restoring and rejuvenating my body and mind.
And on 3 of those nights our sick middle child has woken us 2 – 4 times a night, and still I wake at 5.30am feeling good.
Hooray!
So if you’re as addicted to sugar as I am/was, try this experiment: Do without it for 7 days and try to be aware of how you feel.
Check-in with yourself on judging your energy levels in the morning, during the day, and at night.
And if breaking your habit works for you like it worked for me, what are you going to do with the extra hour you’ve now got every day?