Picture: Paul Smith/Featureflash/SilverHub
*Gayle King doesn’t drink coffee. That may be the most surprising detail of a routine that gets her out of bed at 3:24 a.m. after a night of four or five hours of shut-eye.
King, 71, walked The Wall Street Journal through her weekday mornings. She called the hours “really brutal,” but she loves what she does.
“I’m still not used to it, but I’ve just accepted that it’s my reality,” she told the paper.
Her real fuel isn’t caffeine. King says a genuine thrill for her work, and for life itself, is what powers her through those dark hours.
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Sugar helps, too. On workdays, breakfast usually comes in a cup rather than on a plate, either a white hot chocolate from Starbucks or coconut water with pineapple.
“I have a terrible, terrible, terrible sweet tooth,” she said.
Before any of that, the snooze button takes three hits. A bubble bath follows, and only then does the day truly begin. King knows laying out her clothes ahead of time would make her mornings easier, but she still leaves the choice until she wakes up.
“I know I should do it the night before. I just never do,” King said. What she wears often depends on who she’s sitting down with that day. “If it’s a more serious interview, then I would wear a darker color.”
Exercise doesn’t fit into the predawn rush. She waits until weekends and vacations, when no alarm is chasing her, to really push herself.
Her short nights don’t go unrecorded. King’s Apple Watch logs every one, and her doctors have voiced concern about how little rest she gets. For her, a six-hour night counts as a celebration.
“If I sleep six hours, I’m doing the frickin’ hula,” she joked.
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