“Get up an hour earlier each day. I know how unpopular this advice will sound on the front end, but hear me out. Regardless of your goal: to become fitter, to lose weight or just to manage your daily stress levels, getting up an hour earlier can help with all that. What you do with the extra hour is largely down to you. You could do a workout, either at home or in the gym. You could load up your favourite podcast or audiobook and go for a morning stroll or you could just take some alone time for yourself and have an uninterrupted cup of coffee before the children wake up. The sky really is the limit.
“I should also clarify, I’m not saying to miss out on a good night’s sleep either, far from it. This might mean going to bed an hour earlier. If that’s what you have to do, then that’s what you do. True, you might miss out on the next episode of The Tinder Swindler or Squid Game, but do you really need to watch three episodes in a single night? Probably not. Also, if you’re an evening snacker, going to bed an hour early will probably reduce the probability that you’ll finish off the family-size pack of Mars or Dairy Milk bar in the cupboard (we’ve all done it); so if your goal is weight or fat loss, it’s a double win.
“If an hour sounds like too much, start by setting the alarm 15 minutes earlier than normal and just have that window as ‘me time’ – as the weeks go on, you can increase it by 15 minutes until you hit the hour mark. I promise, after a month, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it.”
