Featured Image Credit: TikTok
Topics: TikTok, Social Media, Sleep, Health
Jen Thomas
Move over Dolly Parton, as the 9 to 5 is old news with this viral trend.
The 5 to 9 before 9 to 5 TikTok trend is perfect for nosey people, or for night owls who wonder how on earth early birds function. Is it really healthy to get up at the crack of dawn?
The trend has followed on from the 5 to 9 evening trend, which had people documenting their evenings after finishing work.
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Now, this new version has people sharing what they get up to in the small hours before work starts, and sacrificing sleep for productivity.
No, it's not just people hitting snooze until 8.55am and then rolling out of bed. It turns out that plenty of people have insanely busy lives in the four hours before clocking in.
More than 40 million people have watched the videos about the trend with the #5to9 hashtag.
Fans of the method praise their increased productivity after getting up early in the morning, however doctors have issued a warning.
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Dr Gina Cleo said in an interview: "Potential harms can include sacrificing sleep for ‘productivity’, trying to fit in too much in a day, feeling inefficient when your body needs a sleep-in or rest, being too focused on your routine and consequently neglecting listening to your body’s needs,"
She continued: "The 5 to 9 lifestyle is absolutely not for everyone," she added. "If you are naturally a night-owl, then attempting to do anything at 5am or even 7am is likely to feel completely unachievable."
So don't feel too bad if you're the sort who stays up past midnight and would smash the alarm into smithereens if it went off at 5am.
Some of the most popular videos feature people doing yoga, going for a run, batch cooking their meals for the week or preparing a healthy breakfast.
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Sometimes it's something as simple as making their bed, preparing breakfast and then settling in to watch a few episodes of something on Netflix.
It seems quite a few viewers are wondering how the feat is possible, with one asking: "Girl, how do you wake up at 5am and then work eight hours? I could never."
Nicki Minaj joined in, commenting on one: "Omg could you organise me like this? When I have to be somewhere at 9am I wake up at 8.30am."
The trend has caused a wave of "realistic" videos to be shared under the tag, with one creator showing themselves making coffee and joking: "You're getting a 8.45 to 9 for me, maybe an 8.30, if I'm feeling like it."