It’s a single-seat chairlift! Normally I would hate lifts like these, especially when skiing in winter. When I arrive at the lift taking me to our yoga spot in the mountains, my heart leaps with joy. The schedule that awaits me leaves no room for excuses: early-morning yoga overlooking the craggy peaks of the Wilder Kaiser Mountains, then a bit of work on the farm, and on day three a hike to the top of a mountain to watch the sun rise. For three days I will be getting up progressively earlier. I’m going to do a crash course in getting up early. So I pack my things and head for Kufsteinerland in Tirol, a mountainous region where farming tradition and life in the Alps have meant that people have been rising before the sun for centuries. Where there is a will, however, there is a way. My bed is too warm, too cosy – there is nothing out there in the world that is interesting enough to tempt me out of my own little cocoon. That’s all well and good, but there’s just one problem: I just can’t get up in the morning. Maybe my day doesn’t need more hours after all – I just need less sleep. Start-up entrepreneurs evangelise about the strength they draw from their morning routine, while there are rumours that the German chancellor Angela Merkel sleeps no more than four hours a day. Actor Mark Wahlberg, for example, gets up at 2.30am every day to pray, then heads to the gym for a workout. There are plenty of people who have been following this advice for years. In a nutshell: I need a day with 36 hours, not 24.Īpart from deconstructing the time-space continuum, which seems a little ambitious, one of the only other potential solutions I have managed to find comes from Hal Elrod, an American motivational coach who has written the international bestseller “Miracle Morning” in which he promises that every person would be happier, more relaxed and more successful if they just got out of bed one hour earlier. On top of that, I want to stay fit and also want a fulfilling relationship. I have a young child and a job which is important to me. I am in my mid-30s, smack bang in the middle of what sociologists refer to as the “rush hour of life”. For a long time that wasn’t really a problem, but now I need to change. One thing that has not changed since then – indeed, it has not changed throughout my whole life – is the fact that I hate getting up before six o’clock in the morning. Even at the tender age of eight I remember thinking that this saying was really funny – and really true. Wer lange schläft, bleibt auch gesund.“ It’s hard to translate it literally into other languages, but the main message is that getting up early is a virtue – but sleeping in late keeps you fit and healthy. When I was at school, one of the sayings I remember writing out again and again was: “Morgenstund hat Gold im Mund. Can she learn to appreciate the morning hours with the help of local farmers high in the mountains of Tirol? There is nothing that our author finds more difficult than getting up early.
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