What is better? Sleeping in or waking up before the sun?
- Eric Thomas wakes up at 3AM
- Jocko Willink wakes at 4:30AM
- David Goggins doesn’t sleep, like at all…
- Matt Walker says sleep is a super power.
- Brian Johnson goes to bed at like 7PM every night.
It seems like everyone successful, in any way you define success, wakes up early and grinds in some way.
For years, I woke up between 3:30AM-4AM and went to the gym by 5AM. Like we are talking on and off for 10+ years. When my wife was pregnant, or we had a newborn, or we were in between houses (we have moved a lot in the last few years) or life was just too crazy and the only chance I would get to train was at 5AM, I made it happen.
And let me be frank – working out at 5AM SUCKS.
It is brutal, and terrible, and absolutely terrible in every way sucks ass. But damn, do you feel amazing after. And it gets easier. And then you’re a robot and do it every day. And then 3 years later you look back and see that you have logged over 600 workouts at 5AM (over that same last 3 years). Was that a humble brag? Na, it is just reality. Hard work works. And you get results.
Frankly, the hardest part of working out 5AM is not necessarily the waking up and working out. It is going to bed as early as possible. And with kids sports, a house to manage, 17 businesses to run and just sheer life, going to bed by 8:30 every night is, well, hard.
And then something funny happened. After years of staying away from the WHOOP band craze, I caved and got one in April of 2023. It rocked my world. Needless to say, I am not the MVP for highest HRV on the planet. In fact, I can’t figure out why my HRV is STILL so freaking low. I have some thoughts, but that’s an article for another day. Anyway, what I learned from wearing the WHOOP band is that my sleep suffered greatly when I committed to working out at 5AM. My average HRV last summer (of 2023) when I was consistently waking up at 4AM was 33-34. However, when I slept until 6AM-7AM and and get 7-8+ hours of sleep, my HRV was consistently higher and usually into the 40’s.
I can hear Andrew Huberman applauding my discovery that sleep helps raise my HRV. But I also hear Jocko speaking to my other brain saying “wake up, and get after it.” It is very confusing. Honestly, I don’t know if there is a right answer. Matt Walker would say sleep > everything… David Goggins would say stay hard and sometime you have to sacrifice sleep. I do believe that most of the smart people mentioned in the blog agree that sleep is important, but like most answers to complex questions and topics, it seems that answer is “it depends.” And to throw more mud against the wall, I have had days where I got like 4 hours of sleep, but 2.5 hours of restorative sleep (deep sleep and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep) and was 100% recovered and had an HRV of close to 50. Which when my HRV is that high, that means my WHOOP band is essentially saying I should consider an attempt at world domination that particular day.
Maybe if the article hits it big and I get invited onto the Huberman Lab Podcast, Andrew and I can figure this out together… Until then, my conclusion is that for me, 7-8 hours of sleep gives the best chance at being the best husband, dad, boss, leader I can be each day. Some people need 3-4 hours and are totally cool. I can manage for a day or so on 4-5 hours, but long term, I need sleep. Perhaps that is because I am close to 40 now and not 25. Perhaps it is mind over matter and I have “accepted” I need 7-8 hours of sleep. Perhaps I use word perhaps too much…
Ok, enough. I am going to sleep.