Why the 5am club doesn’t work…
We’re told all the time that we need to do more, get more hours out of the day, start earlier, meditate, exercise, journal, read every self help book under the sun.
The latest thing is that if you are looking to achieve well in life that you have to join the 5am club. The idea being that if you get up at 5am then you will get more done because the early bird catches the worm.
We’re told all the time that we need to do more, get more hours out of the day, start earlier, meditate, exercise, journal, read every self-help book under the sun.
The latest thing is that if you want to do well in life, you have to join the 5am club. The idea being that if you get up at 5am, you’ll get more done because the early bird catches the worm.
This is great in theory, but here’s the problem I have with it.
Most people don’t go to bed any earlier in order to get up earlier. So they end up with less sleep, and then they drag themselves through the day thinking they’re the problem.
You’re not the problem.
The plan is.
Let’s talk about what’s actually happening in your body.
Your body runs on a rhythm.
Cortisol (your wake-up hormone) starts to rise around 4am and continues to increase when you’re exposed to natural light. This is what helps you wake up and feel alert.
But here’s the part no one talks about.
That system only works properly when you’ve had enough sleep.
If you’re cutting your sleep short just to get up earlier, you’re not optimizing your hormones, you’re stressing your body.
And when your body is stressed:
Energy drops
Cravings go up
Focus goes out the window
Workouts feel harder
Fat loss becomes more difficult
So now you’re up at 5am, but you feel terrible.
How is that helpful?
The sleep piece everyone ignores
Most adults need around 7 to 9 hours of sleep.
So let’s do basic math, nothing fancy:
If you’re getting up at 5am, you realistically need to be asleep by 9:30 to 10pm.
Not in bed scrolling.
Not “trying” to sleep.
Actually asleep.
Which means you’d need to start winding down around 8:30 to 9pm.
Now let me ask you something.
Is that realistic for your life?
Because for me, it’s not.
I have teens. My house isn’t calm and quiet at 8:30pm. I’m not in bed by 9. And I’m not going to pretend that I am just to fit into a trend that was never designed for real life.
So the earliest I get up is around 6am.
And you know what?
That works for me.
Because I’ve had enough sleep.
And when I’ve had enough sleep, I am:
More productive
More patient
More clear-headed
Way more capable of handling my day
That matters more than the time on the clock.
We’ve confused discipline with self-sabotage
Somewhere along the way, we decided that pushing ourselves harder equals being better.
That if we’re not exhausted, we must not be doing enough.
That if we’re not up at 5am, we’re falling behind.
It’s nonsense.
Your body is not a machine you can just override.
It’s giving you signals all the time, and one of the biggest ones is fatigue.
Ignoring that and forcing yourself into a routine that doesn’t fit your life isn’t discipline.
It’s disconnect.
So what should you do instead?
It’s actually very simple.
Instead of asking:
“Should I wake up at 5am?”
Ask:
“What does my body actually need to function well?”
That might look like:
Going to bed earlier
Waking up later
Getting consistent sleep
Letting your mornings match your reality
Not someone else’s highlight reel
The bottom line
If you genuinely love getting up at 5am, go for it.
But if you’re forcing it…
If you’re exhausted…
If you feel like you’re failing because you can’t keep up…
Stop.
You don’t need to earn your worth by being tired.
You don’t need to prove anything by waking up earlier.
You need to support your body so it can actually work with you, not against you.
And sometimes that looks like sleeping in a little longer.
And being completely okay with that.
