I tried it for a week in London and by day five found myself eating a salted caramel Magnum for breakfast
'On day eight, I wake up at 5.04am without an alarm. The morning beckons. Do I bound out of bed to seize the day?' Illustration: iStockIt is 5.15am and I am walking down my street, feeling smug. The buildings are bathed in peachy dawn light. “Win the morning and you win the day,” suggests productivity guru Tim Ferriss. The prize is within my sights: an oat-milk latte, my reward for getting up ridiculously early.
Michael McGrath: ‘Nothing is ever as it seems. We’ve ended up with seven children, but we had loss along the way’ Why am I doing this? Because, in an attempt to become one of the elite superbeings who are members of the 5am club, I am trying a week of very early starts.
Although I am not what you would call a natural lark, my relationship with time was transformed during the pandemic, in common with many others. With nowhere to go in the evening, staying up late became pointless. Gradually, my wake-up time got earlier. As a photographer, rising at dawn to catch the best light makes a lot of sense too.
I make coffee and slump on the sofa. But then I remember this isn’t allowed. I must instead follow the book’s 20/20/20 formula. From 5am to 5.20am you do some form of vigorous exercise; 5.20am to 5.40am is for meditation and journaling; and from 5.40am to 6am, it is time for reading or learning. I feel terrible, despite having had eight hours’ sleep.
Onwards to the yoga mat. But downward-facing dog leaves me feeling dizzy, so I stop. I move on to journaling, but all I can think of to write is: “I want to go back to bed, please.” I do a quick round of Duolingo to tick the “learning” box, but that lurid-green owl isn’t an ideal dawn companion. Why is this so hard? I put the question to Russell Foster, head of the Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Institute at Oxford University. But he wants to know why I would want to sign up for the 5am club in the first place. To say he is scathing about the fetishisation of the early start would be an understatement.
He also points out that the most enthusiastic exponents of these regimes are people who can afford to outsource life admin. “These productivity gurus and entrepreneurs have money to pay people to do everything. Imposing this schedule on other people is punitive and it’s also boastful: ‘Oh, aren’t I a great person; why don’t you become more like me?’ Truth is, most of us can’t afford to.”
I decide to talk to some non-celebs who have made the 5am club work for them. Jenny Wilson, a colour therapist, gets up every morning at 4.55 and, while the rest of her family sleeps, has a quick shower before creeping into the spare room to start her day.
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