How a lockdown unlocked opportunities for self-growth

Using the COVID-19 lockdown to make a virtue of necessity: Instilling good habits via Otsal Wangchuk’s #WFHSunrise Challenge

As I bear witness to the soothing quietude of the empty streets, the pleasant caress of the early morning nip, the clean and rejuvenating air in my lungs, the mesmerizing twilight dotted with distant suns, and the gorgeous incandescent hues of amber setting the horizon afire as the sun ascends before me, breaking from the veil of the night sky, with its newborn rays piercing into my soul, accompanied by birds parading across the sky, floating in circles on a whiff of air, and singing in chorus from the treetops, I realized how ancient these magical moments felt — treasures lost to an indolent lifestyle and the daily grind, keeping me bereft of appreciating the extraordinary of the ordinary in everyday life.

I’d stopped rising early ever since I left secondary school, perhaps as a form of rebellion to get square with the 5 a.m. alarms. With the COVID-19 lockdown — more of a lockup with its enforced work from home (WFH) — furthering my indolence, I finally grew tired of lazing around, as ironic as it may sound, and was itching to get back to a disciplined lifestyle.

Call it divine, as luck would have it, inspiration was around the corner as I’d just gotten active on Instagram. As I caught up with old messages languishing for months, I came across an expired-since-long tag/mention in one of my vegan buddies’ Instagram stories. I started following her ever since — after having followed, much to my chagrin, the wrong namesake all this while.

Meet Otsal Wangchuk. With the rock star looks of Sinéad O’Connor, coupled with the intense innocence and an ever-present smile of a young Buddhist monk, Otsal is one happy kid brimming with life and energy. A heady mix of the wisdom of a sage and the free spirit of an artist, she is a former student of philosophy who currently works as a super-talented graphic designer for an EdTech firm. I’ve always enjoyed her company and, now, her Instagram posts and stories further add to it with a mix of her fun quirks, philosophy-riddled humor, and inspirational exhortations. One such Instagram story of hers was just what the doctor ordered for my malady — the #wfhsunrise challenge — where she elicited people to use the imposed WFH regimen to build good habits and become a better version of themselves, instead of feeling annoyed or giving into laziness. The challenge was to rise early to witness the dawn break, click the sunrise, and do an Instagram story by tagging others to carry it forward. Rising early certainly has its advantages — you pack in a lot more through the day, adding to your productivity. And this rigor to enable early mornings has a cascading effect on all the aspects of your life, instilling a disciplined approach to stick to any new regimen or set goal.

It’s very easy to blame external circumstances, e.g., the COVID-19 quarantine’s imposed lockdown, and play a victim at the mercy of what’s beyond our control. Instead of resigning to fatalism, one could make a virtue of necessity and create an empowering context around any adverse situation. Self-growth and expansion, as Otsal avers — being the productivity buff she is, ever at the quest to manage time optimally — perhaps serves as the best motivation to utilize the extra hours at our hands. From instilling new habits that improve our lifestyle and health to honing existing skills or adding new ones altogether, self-improvement, hands down, is a better prospect than furthering our indolence, which comes super easy when you’re working out of your pajamas from home.

“Let’s use this WFH time to build #GoodHabits and become a better version of ourselves.” — Otsal Wangchuk

This one line of hers sealed it for me. I loved it so much that I barged in into her #wfhsunrise challenge uninvited. I took it with aplomb, not having missed a single sunrise since I started a month ago. Just 30 days and, now, rising early has become second nature, as if my circadian rhythm has been remapped — to the extent that I often wake up even before the alarm goes off.

But instilling this newfound vigor has not been without a fair share of trials and tribulations. Initially, on the first and the third days, I crashed into bed after the sunrise ritual. And almost throughout the first week, the urge for a mid-day nap kept luring me to the bed, which I resisted at the cost of extreme grogginess. Here’s what came to my rescue to course-correct my trajectory from derailment.

[Disclaimer: The mentioned tips, generic or idiosyncratic, could be treated as subjective — in how they worked toward my favor. They may not necessarily work for everyone. Some of these tips were honed and refined in consultation with the sapient advice/critique of Otsal Wangchuk.]

Tip #1. Set two alarms

Setting an alarm to wake up at the desired time is, of course, the norm, but two? For this, let’s understand the point about “fallouts” with the analogy of, say, setting the goal to buy a car. To buy a car, you need to save enough to the tune of the car’s on-road value, or at least the value of the down payment for a car loan. Once you amass the required savings and park the car in your garage, that’s not the end of it. There are fallouts to getting a car, for instance, provisioning for the running and maintenance costs, the annual insurance payouts, or even getting a driving license and learning how to drive (or provisioning for a chauffeur’s emoluments). For an inclusive end-to-end plan, you cannot ignore the fallouts of budgeting the expenses of a car’s long-term ownership.

In the same vein, to wake up early at a desired time, the body needs to be adequately rested. Therefore, as a fallout of rising early, set the first alarm to sleep on time — as a signal to get ready to hit the bed at night. Make sure to weave in a buffer to wrap up the day, perhaps to brush your teeth, save work files, or plan for the next day. For example, if you want to hit the bed at 23:00, set the first alarm for 22:30, inclusive of a 30-minute buffer.

The two-alarm methodology, in essence, is just a well-defined start- and stop-time. The start-stop methodology works for just about any task — even leisurely distractions such as browsing your Instagram feed, lest you go on endlessly.

Tip #2. No mid-day naps

Discipline and laxity cannot alternate. A mid-day nap invariably sets off the sleepiness at night, disrupting the whole cycle. This point, therefore, serves as a vital corollary to the first tip, lest it render the first alarm redundant as you won’t feel sleepy enough to hit the bed on time.

If you follow this to a tee, you may feel like a drunken zombie, initially. But the tiredness will help you crash into bed the moment you hear the first alarm’s prepare-for-sleep signal, which will help you correct your nighttime sleep cycle.

Of course, power naps can be quite rejuvenating if they are regulated with a well-defined start- and stop-time, but you should provision them only after you’ve regulated your nighttime sleep, having mastered the habit of rising early. Until then, zero mid-day naps.

Tip #3. No caffeine or external implements

The idea is to build your muscle (discipline) without external implements — such as using neuro-stimulants, e.g., caffeine or nicotine, or even asking a parent to wake you up instead of the alarm. If caffeine helps you stay awake, it’s not you but the coffee that’s exercising the muscle on your behalf. Avoid external implements like the plague.

However, if you’re a regular coffee drinker, you may continue. But if you’re not, know that caffeine instills a false sense of alertness by binding to the adenosine receptors; once it fades off, the withdrawal effect can often lead to a headache, with the rush of adenosine driving an exalted sense of weariness. Moreover, caffeine causes vasoconstriction, which is not good for hypertensive people.

Tip #4. Go cold turkey

To instill new habits, people often suggest stepping in gradually with incremental baby steps. This may work when you’re acquiring a new skill, e.g., learning how to drive a car, or getting into the habit of reading regularly. However, when acquiring a new habit at the cost of an old habit that serves as its antonymous pair, going cold turkey is perhaps the best way to go. That is, the habit of rising early gets acquired at the cost of kicking the old habit of waking up late.

Incremental steps fail in such antonymous pairs. For instance, an incremental plan to rise early every alternate day, or tapering down the wake-up time gradually, seldom works in enabling one to rise early. It’s akin to the reducetarian approach to a no-meat diet where a Sunday indulgence is no big deal. The problem with this approach is that the off/cheat days where you go back to your old ways (waking up late, or eating meat) simply rekindle the old habits, whetting the appetite for more (sleeping more, or eating more meat, respectively) — a sure-shot strategy for failure. Instead, I’d rather you go cold turkey and learn to deal with the pain. And for dealing with the pain, enjoying it rather, nothing works better than a reward(s) mechanism, which is where this next tip comes into play.

(Incidentally, such is the beauty of Otsal’s #wfhsunrise challenge that it enforced this very go-cold-turkey approach — if you gave into a staggered waking-up schedule or any kind of laxity, you’d miss the sunrise. Clever!)

Tip #5. The habit formula: Cue-routine-reward

We are all creatures of habit. Pavlov’s classical conditioning is not unique to dogs alone. It’s not that difficult for humans to condition a desired routine into a habit that runs on autopilot. For this, nothing works better than the cue-routine-reward mechanism, which I stumbled upon almost a decade ago in an article by the NYT columnist and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Charles Duhigg, later segueing into his non-fiction magnum opus, The Power of Habit. You may read the article for more, or even get the book, but what’s most important is understanding the “reward” part — how it helps instill any new habit.

In rising early, the alarm serves as the cue, waking up serves as the routine, and the reward serves as the incentive that compels you to repeat the routine. Repeated enough times, the practice ensues into a new habit.

Once you start looking forward to the rewards, the urge for their gratification will help you go through the new routine effortlessly (the routine “chunking” phenomenon, which is covered in Duhigg’s article in detail). Notice how procrastination works on the same principle. Delaying a task in lieu of something that gives you instant gratification activates the reward signals in much the same way, instilling the habit of procrastination further. Instead, devise a reward, or a slew of rewards (the more the better), at the end of every daunting task — before you know it, you’ll be looking forward to attacking the task with aplomb.

In terms of reward(s), you’ve got to find your own mojo. A few examples:

• A simple tick in a checkbox on a calendar diary or journal — to help drive a sense of accomplishment.
• Exercise is another great incentive as it drives a feeling of wellness. Even otherwise, a brisk walk or a light jog helps shake off the sleep for sure.
• Reading fires up the brain cells. Instead of reading late into the night or binge-reading over the weekend, switch to reading in the mornings. But beware! For some people, reading often leads to sleep, which will be counterproductive to our task of staying awake.
• A bit of virtue signaling via a social media post or story. In fact, this was the most fun part of Otsal’s #wfhsunrise challenge — clicking the sunrise and posting it as an Instagram story while tagging others to follow suit. It aimed at helping inspire others, besides boosting our morale with a sense of accomplishment (another tick in a checkbox). But you need to exercise caution and tread on a fine line. People often get carried away, getting hooked to seeking validation from others — in the form of a post’s likes or a story’s views. If it gets to this, lay off social media and stay focused on the original goal, which is to rise early to plan and manage the day better.

Tip #6. If you find yourself alone, carry on regardless

This may be treated as a corollary to the last example of the preceding tip (#5). Tagging others on social media posts/stories helps inspire them to follow suit. And if they do, it boosts your morale just to see the cascading effect. Friends egg each other on to stick to the challenge — for camaraderie, if not one-upmanship. But lifestyle changes are difficult to instill as old habits die hard. So, even if your friends like the idea, few will follow it through to the end. Most of the ones I tagged simply ignored it, except for one who kept struggling with it. In such a scenario, it’s easy to get disheartened, but do not relent. Always remember, when the idea is self-growth and improvement, it’s about you, not them. So, just carry on regardless.

Tip #7. Don’t be harsh on yourself

Building new muscle (discipline) can be painful — it takes effort and time. Teething troubles are bound to happen. If you struggle, as I did in the first week, or if you falter and miss a few days, do not feel dejected. Do not quit. To err is human. The important thing is to get up and start all over again. Don’t be harsh on yourself, but neither be too lenient lest you go back to your old ways.

Tip #8. Mid-day reward to ward off weariness

In tip #5, we covered how a reward, or a slew of rewards, enables you to remain awake in the morning. But to ward off weariness during the day (for zero mid-day naps) for correcting your nighttime sleep cycle, you need another reward, or set of rewards, that excites or relaxes you enough to remain awake.

You could try a new algorithm for solving the Rubik’s cube; attempt a new recipe (especially if you’re working from home, which, thankfully, the COVID-19 lockdown enabled) — anything that keeps your brain cells fired up. Forms of conscious meditative relaxation, too, tend to work in calming the nerves to fool your brain into feeling relaxed. For all you know, meditation perhaps works as a placebo, but the power of suggestions and beliefs is such that, more often than not, placebos do tend to work.

Tip #9. No breaks, no Sundays

Rain, thunderstorm, or lightning — get up, dress up, and show up! If it’s cloudy and the sun doesn’t show up, you still do. Just remember, even if it’s hidden behind a veil of clouds, the sun never takes a break, even on a Sunday. Any amount of laxity, especially during the formative period of the new habit, will just pull you back into your old ways. So, barring tending to exigencies, do not compromise.

If the sun doesn’t show up, you still do.

Tip #10. Gratitude

When you start and end a day, look straight into your eyes in the mirror, sport a smile, and give yourself a thumbs-up for staying true to the new routine. It may seem silly, but the self-affirmation of a pat on the back goes a long way in encouraging repeat behavior.

Most important, do not forget to thank the ones who influenced you. For instance, for me, Otsal Wangchuk, unbeknownst to her, literally served as a life cum habit coach and I just can’t thank her enough for the inspiration and the mentorship. And, of course, the resplendent nature — gratitude for the early morning breeze that breathed life into my soul; for the choir of birds that sang and said hello; and for the glorious sun and its myriad hues.

Gratitude unto oneself and the others. Gratitude — just to be able to witness the magic of the sunrise, just to be alive.

So, take cues and go ahead and challenge yourself to start something new. Start with one area of your life and, gradually, cascade it on to the others. Along the way, make sure to inspire other people by passing it around for their benefit, like a viral — the discipline viral. (I wish it spread as fast as the Coronavirus. Sigh!)

As for me, concomitantly with the #wfhsunrise challenge, I also undertook a 30-day zero-oil diet challenge, successfully, and built an exercise regimen via maintaining a simple checklist in my journal to keep a tab on the set goals. I feel like a new person, completely, raring to go thaw my other aspirational to-dos from the cold storage — perhaps I’ll start with Pimsleur’s French as I’ve always wanted to read Kundera in the original. And as a surprise from this whole exercise, I’ve been smitten by a newfound love for time-lapse videos and star trails. I guess I’ll be chasing the sun and its distant kin for the rest of my life.

You’re never too old a dog to learn new tricks. Don’t let anyone — not even the one you see in the mirror — tell you otherwise.

Coming from a person who strongly conceded himself to be the opposite of a morning person, if I could change my lifestyle, anyone can. And that’s proof that you’re never too old a dog to learn new tricks. Don’t let anyone — not even the one you see in the mirror — tell you otherwise.

“There is a morning inside you waiting to burst into light.” — Rumi

Reference links:

• For more on what started this all, check out Otsal Wangchuk’s Instagram story highlight on her brilliant #wfhsunrise challenge.
• A related sonnet based on my experience: Under the open and barren skies