Credits: Social Media
I tried the 2-by-3 alarm rule for a week and it’s massively changed my morning routine
Over the past week, I have been waking up using the 2-by-3 alarm rule and its completely changed my morning routine.
For as long as I can remember, I have never been a morning person and have always despised getting out of bed, particularly on a cold winters morning when Im nice and cozy under the covers. This has led to a chronic use of multiple alarms to wake myself up, arguably leaving me feeling more groggy than if I had simply gotten up after one alarm. But after discovering the 2-by-3 rule, that habit has started to change. �
What is the 2-by-3 rule?
The 2-by-3 rule is a technique written about by Jason Aten at Inc.com who claims that it can help you become a morning person in less than a week.
It simply involves setting two alarms in the morning, three minutes apart, with the second set for the time you actually need to get up, so youre not snoozing through multiple alarms.
Instead, the first alarm helps to break your deep sleep and when the second alarm goes off, which is the signal that you actually need to get out of bed, you wont have had time to doze back off again, unlike with a longer snooze.
This works, according to Aten, as you are conditioning your brain to get up at a specific time, instead of just whenever you will yourself awake.
My experience of the 2-by-3 rule
As my job allows me to work from home, I have the luxury of a very short commute of walking from my bedroom, across the landing to my home office in the spare room to start work at 8am.
Despite previously having alarms set at 6:30, 6:45, 7:00 and then every five minutes after, I would repeatedly turn them off and ignore them until around 15 or 20 minutes before work when I would get up, hastily make breakfast and then eat it while sitting at my desk.
The problem with this approach is that you trick your mind into thinking that each alarm doesnt matter and that you can get away with another five minutes pretending to be a toasty human burrito.
For the past week, however, Ive been using the 2-by-3 method to wake myself up, with alarms set at 6:57 and 7:00 and its prompted quite a dramatic change in my routine.
As I no longer have multiple alarms to fall back on, I feel a greater sense of urgency and motivation to actually get up when my alarms go off.
This means that rather than having 15 minutes to try and wake myself up before starting work, I now have a full hour, which allows for a more relaxing start to my day as Im able to eat breakfast while watching something on TV for a little while and I now have time for a chore or two such as unloading the dishwasher before I start work which saves me and my girlfriend a job to do later in the day.
Not only does this mean I no longer have to eat breakfast at my desk, but it also means that Ive had time to wake up naturally a bit more before starting work than if I was still wiping the sleep out of my eyes and yawning away as I logged in.
Of course, its not been quite so easy to drag myself out of bed on certain days as it has been on others, such as if Ive had a slightly later night beforehand, but on the whole, I feel like adding the 2-by-3 rule to my morning schedule has helped to kick the unhelpful habit of waking up with multiple alarms each morning.
How each day has gone
I began using the 2-by-3 rule on Monday, March 4 and while I didnt leap out of bed immediately after the second alarm went off, I forced myself to sit up and keep my eyes open before gradually slithering out from under the covers after another five minutes of psyching myself up to leave the warmth of my bed.
Tuesday morning felt like a more sluggish start as I had played in my weekly six-a-side soccer league the night before and was clearly still recovering. But somehow, I actually managed to get up earlier than I needed to as I was woken up early by my girlfriend getting ready to head out to work herself.
Wednesday morning was easily the toughest day to get up during the week. Id finished work a bit late the night before so foolishly stayed up later to get in a little extra me time playing video games. This had the knock-on effect of making me doze off for a few minutes after the two alarms had gone off.
After an earlier night on Wednesday, getting up on Thursday morning was much easier. In fact, my body naturally woke me up two minutes before the first alarm was scheduled to go off as if it was getting used to this new consistent routine.
And finally, Friday was a similar story to Monday. It was tough to get out of bed on what felt like a colder morning in my house but I managed to wake up without too much issue.
Before I wrap up this article, I would like to note that I use a smartwatch to track things like the number of steps I take during the day (not enough) as well as the amount and quality of my sleep.
While the 2-by-3 rule has helped me to get up slightly earlier throughout the week, Ive still been going to bed at around the same time I used to, meaning Ive technically not had as much sleep as I was getting previously, according to my watch – although whether you can call an hour of snoozing through multiple alarms sleeping is up for debate.
But I am looking to counter this by changing my bedtime habits so I can start going to bed earlier too – but one thing at a time, right?
