Arylene Westlake-Jennings: 59 per cent of Aussies are early risers but I’m done being one of them

Little feet run down the hallway, met by a low, booming voice querying breakfast. The weather report is blaring from the TV so I bury my head in my pillow. I hear an annoyed groan from the bedroom next to mine. The ones making all that racket at 5.30am in the morning? None other than the husband and our daughter, who takes every opportunity to have brekkie with her dad before school. They are happily part of The 5am Club, with the idea that you wake up before the rest of the household to use that distraction-free time to focus on yourself. New research by Kellanova — the business behind Kellogg’s cereals — has found 59 per cent of Aussies are already doing just this, heading to the gym or a morning walk, prepping healthy lunches or checking emails to get their day in order, all in the name of personal wellbeing. It’s a long-time movement inspired by Robin Sharma’s book and spruiked by some of the most successful people, with Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Apple’s Tim Cook, Vogue US editor Anna Wintour and Michelle Obama among its followers. I baulk at the idea now, but I once was one of these smug — whoops, I mean highly disciplined — people. I’d wake up at said hour, tip-toe around the house as I dressed for work, share breakfast with the husband once he had woken up, spend the next hour reading the news until the kids arose, and then the buzz of the family’s morning routine would take over. But a few weeks of bad sleep undid all that, and I no longer leapt out of bed and bounded to the shower when the alarm went off. Instead of reading the news, I doom-scrolled Instagram reels for 45 minutes and felt like I needed to hook myself up intravenously to my flat white. So here I am today, ignoring those 5am Clubbers in the family. Am I missing Miss Productive? Undoubtedly. But am I also enjoying sprawling out in bed alone and reading the news under my doona until 7am? You betcha.