How To Wake Up Early: I Tried Melissa McCarthy's Morning Routine

Oscar-nominated actor Melissa McCarthy eases her way into the day by making coffee and watching reruns of old TV series like "Knight Rider" and "The Incredible Hulk." Here's what happened when I tried her routine for a week.

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Like a number of highly successful people, actress and producer Melissa McCarthy starts her day early: She’s up at 4:30 a.m. The Oscar-nominee likes to ease her way into the day by making coffee and watching reruns of old TV series like “Knight Rider” from the ’80s and “The Incredible Hulk” from the ’70s.

“I treat myself right,” McCarthy tells Taffy Brodesser-Akner of The New York Times.

Only after enjoying a little TV does McCarthy start interacting with the outside world. She picks up one newspaper, The Los Angeles Times, which is delivered to her front door, and then reads another, the New York Times, on her iPad.

She balances out the heavy news, and maintains perspective, by reading National Geographic. “Let’s talk about polar bears and the toucan because it’s so random and someone is taking these beautiful pictures,” she tells Brodesser-Akner. “Let’s also remember how amazing the whole planet is.”

I’ve already spent a week trying Twitter and Square CEO Jack Dorsey’s morning routine, which includes waking up at 5, so now I decide to try McCarthy’s. Half an hour can’t make much of a difference, right?

Here’s how it goes:

Monday

Turns out, 30 minutes can make a difference. Getting up in the 4s as opposed to the 5s is rough: I feel as if I’m being rudely awakened in the middle of the night.

I snooze until 4:40 and tiptoe into my kitchen, where I laid out a coffee station the night before. All I have to do is boil water and pour it on top of the pre-measured coffee grinds in my French Press.

I get back under the covers with my cup of coffee and fire up season one, episode one, of “The Incredible Hulk,” which first aired in 1977. It’s in this moment when I realize I know nothing about the premise of the show.

Diving into a new television series is exciting enough to wake me up a bit but, by the end of the 94 minutes, I can barely keep my eyes open. The show ends up cutting into most of my morning and I only have time to skim the NYT and flip through National Geographic before getting ready for work.

I grab a second cup of coffee on my way to the office and power through.

Tuesday

Today is a bit of a disaster: I sleep through all three alarms I had set — 4:30, 4:33 and 4:36 — and get up at 5:30 a.m. The only good thing about oversleeping is that the realization hits hard enough to really wake me up. I am highly alert and pop out of bed to make coffee before starting the first episode of “Knight Rider,” which McCarthy tells the Times Magazine is a show everyone should re-watch. I’ve never heard of it until this week.

Today’s episode is a more reasonable length, 45 minutes, but since I got such a late start, the morning is nearly behind me by the time I finish. I speed-read NYT headlines and flip through a different National Geographic.

The adrenaline I felt after realizing I’d missed my alarm doesn’t last. I drink two more cups of coffee, an espresso shot and a 5-hour energy, all before noon. An afternoon matcha tea gets me through the work day. I leave the office feeling unproductive and with a pounding headache.

Wednesday

After yesterday’s morning mishap, I’m determined to be up at 4:30 on the dot. I snooze until 4:36. Close enough.

I get under the covers with my homemade coffee and decide to switch things up during today’s viewing party. In addition to being one of the highest-paid actresses in Hollywood, McCarthy started a production company in 2013 with her husband, and she seems to draw inspiration from the old reruns she watches. The Hulk, for example, is “great,” she tells the Times Magazine. “The music. There’s. So. Much. Score.”

I want to watch something that may inspire my work or help me think more creatively. Since I’m learning how to edit and produce videos for our site, I head to YouTube and watch videos from a variety of popular channels. I try to pick up on things like music selection, camera angles and the general flow of a video.

Read about the rest of Kathleen's week here

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Melissa McCarthy wakes up at 4:30 a.m. to watch TV reruns—I tried for a week and it made me miserable | CNBC Make It.