With a season of shorter days approaching, wakefulness and how to overcome the darkness with less yawning is on our minds.

Rhode Islanders with unorthodox sleep schedules might help us with how they get and keep their day going when they are trying to function, while the body is registering that it’s still dark outside.

Joe Cortese offers a chilling suggestion, one that he follows at least five days a week. Joe is the weekend anchor for the morning show and morning reporter for WPRI 12. Since graduating from Keene State College in 2017 he has worked as a camera operator, baseball coach, and many other roles where perhaps a middle of the night wake-up was less necessary. After landing a reporting job for a station in Bangor, Maine about four years ago he found his love in TV. He arrived at WPRI in 2022 and now shows up to anchor about 3:30 a.m.

For many of us that 3 a.m. window is the witching hour, when only haunted beings and nocturnal animals have any business being out and about. Not for Joe or Dakota.

Dakota, Joe’s 7-year-old German Shepherd Collie mix, might rather not be placed into this category of nocturnal animals. She rises with him out of concern, sleepily from her cozy bed, and follows him out to the yard for a cold plunge in an icy pod. She sets up guard while Joe plunges, looking on in concern and sometimes whining. Joe thinks it’s because she is concerned for his safety with his often dramatic-sounding breathing, it might be because she wants to stay in her cozy bed.

Dakota asks, “why, oh why,” and well, so did we.

“Because,” Joe says, “after that plunge you’re wide awake.”

“When I wake up at 2 a.m. I don’t look at my phone, I don’t eat or drink, I go directly outside into the cold plunge pool for about 1 to 3 minutes. This forces me to pay attention to only this and set my intentions for the day. I don’t see phone notifications, don’t see what happened on social media the night before, and this allows the first thing I experience in a day to be under my own control and hopefully have a positivity about it.”

At the end of each plunge Joe dunks his head underwater. When he comes up, it’s like a breath of fresh (er, freezing cold) air at 2 a.m.

As for the rest of Joe’s schedule, it looks a little like this:

2 a.m. wakeup.

Plunge, with Dakota by his side full of concern.

Breakfast.

Shower (at least 30 minutes after plunge).

Grabs a shirt, with his suits at the station already.

Puts Dakota back to bed where she belongs as a diurnal animal.

3:30 a.m. at the station and making sure you’re informed with the news!

9 a.m. is lunchtime in Joe’s world.

Noon heads home for his “nightly” ritual.

Then exercise, walking Dakota, living life.

Dinner around 4 p.m. and in bed around 5 p.m.! Joe credits blackout shades, banishing screens at bedtime, and a noisemaker, in addition to his precise scheduling, with allowing him to thrive on this type of schedule.

Why plunge when you could just Run on Dunkin’?

Both cold plunges and coffee have their own unique benefits and can serve different purposes, especially when it comes to starting your day or boosting energy and alertness.

Joe feels less cold during the winter months because he develops a tolerance for the cold, and it’s also been shown to help with muscle recovery and reduce inflammation.

Joe takes his plunge in an inflatable trough held up by eight rods. On hot summer days. He chills his dip to about 45 degrees or lower with three or four liters of water that have been frozen. With the outdoor temperatures dipping it doesn’t take as much ice or time to cool his tub.  

Joe does drink coffee — sometimes — but never first thing in the morning. Caffeine in coffee is a stimulant that provides an almost immediate boost in energy and alertness but can make some people feel jittery. When dealing with a unique schedule like Joe’s, coffee can also deliver a crash from morning in the mid-morning. That’s not the case with a cold plunge first thing, says Joe.

And if you’re not ready to take a full body plunge, Joe recommends plunging your face into a deep bowl of ice water followed by a cup of coffee to start the day.

Is he ready when we turn our clocks an hour back to standard time on Nov. 10?

Tune in and find out.