How To Wake Yourself Up Easier?
Do not snooze the alarm
First things first – do not press the snooze button on your phone! That is the opposite of how to wake yourself up! Sleep medicine proved that the most people snooze their alarms for at least half an hour before they wake up and that’s just wrong. This is one of the worst ways to wake up. It will affect your mood and energy levels throughout the day.
Either get up right away and use those extra 30 minutes you’d spend falling in and out of sleep and have your morning coffee or a workout.
Snoozing the alarm does nothing for your rest or recovery but rather prolongs the sleep inertia. That's the morning feeling of being asleep right after you wake up and before you transit to the state of full awakening and alertness. Considering that your body has a circadian rhythm and knows when it should sleep/wake up, the only thing it does is it stresses you over and over again with loud, annoying alarm sounds until you notice what time it is and finally decide to get out of bed. So, snoozing the alarm is the big NO for sleep health!
Let the morning sunshine bathe you
In the words of The 5th Dimension – let the sunshine in! There is no better way for you to wake yourself up naturally than by letting the natural sunlight shine in your bedroom. Light will naturally wake you up. But it’s best if you can use the actual sunlight, instead of lighting up the light bulbs in your bedroom.
Also, if you leave your curtains open since the sun will rise gradually, you’ll be gently woken up. You’ll be already somewhat adjusted to the light. So it shouldn't be bothersome or hard for you to open your eyes upon waking. You will be gently woken up by the sunlight. Furthermore, starting your day in a sun-lit room is known to boost your mood and energy for the day, so, that’s a plus!
Play a morning playlist
Music plays a large role in our lives. For some of us, it can even play a major role when it comes to falling asleep and waking yourself up in the morning. You could set up your computer or a mobile phone to start playing your favourite morning tunes as soon as you wake up, so you feel good right from the start.
Furthermore, you don’t even have to automate that task. Get up from the bed, put on your favourite morning playlist and do whatever it is that you do in the morning. Making your bed, brushing your hair and having your morning coffee is certain to feel a lot better with some catchy tunes in the background.
Now, whether you want to go for some smooth jazz or bossa nova to ease yourself into the day or you just want to jump-start your mind and body with some rock or metal – that’s entirely up to you!
Go right for a walk
Going for a walk as soon as you wake up can help wake you up immediately. Also, it gives you an energy boost for the day. Many recommend going for a workout as soon as you’re done with your morning activities. But if that’s too strenuous for you, you can just go for a light walk around the block.
If you live in a house and you have a yard, you can even walk in your yard. Early morning walks aren’t for exercise and it doesn’t really matter how far you walk. Instead, it’s about getting your body moving, so that you fully wake yourself up as soon as possible. With time, a walk can turn into a jog and before you know it – you could even be running at 4 am. You never know…
Stretch
As long as we’re on the topic of early morning activities, another easy one you can do to help yourself wake up in the morning is to stretch. Stretching will activate your muscles. It will loosen up your joints and besides being good for your physical health, it will also cause your body to wake up…
You can do the simplest of stretches like trying to touch your toes or you could even do some mild yoga. Do whatever makes you feel good. Don't look at this as an exercise. Instead, look at it as the 5-minute morning ritual that's going to get your blood rushing and keep you out of the bed.
Take a cold shower
Now, we understand that you’re not Wim Hoff. There’s no way you’re going to start your day with an ice bath, but a cold shower could do you good. There are plenty of benefits when it comes to cold showers. However, we won’t go too far into many of them.
All you need to know is that a cold shower is absolutely guaranteed to wake you up. Just 5 seconds under cold water will make you forget about your bed and the fact that only a few seconds ago you wanted to press the snooze button and continue to hug your pillow.
This might be tough in the beginning. But we’re certain that within a month, you’ll begin to enjoy them. You’ll to enjoy them so much that you’ll be eager to jump out of the bed and hop in the shower. Okay, that probably won’t happen, but they’ll certainly wake you up – trust us!.
Take a short nap during the day
Just like you’d recharge your phone for a few minutes so that you could use it a little bit longer, you may need to recharge your body once in a while. If you are a fan of daytime sleepiness, taking a short nap in the afternoon can give you just enough energy boost so that you don't need to sleep as much during the night. You won't get disrupt your sleep cycles that much. However, to prevent developing a sleep disorder, avoid taking these day naps on a regular basis so your circadian rhythm does not get used to the daily naps and changes the sleep habits.
Keep in mind that you shouldn’t sacrifice night sleep just because you’ll nap during the day. The nap is there only to give a little boost, so you can easily get up in the morning. Also, short afternoon naps will teach you how to wake up when you don’t want to, so, that’s another bonus!
Give yourself a 5-minute break from work
Stress and a healthy sleep regimen simply don't go hand-in-hand and we all know that work is usually the reason why we're stressed. On that note, don't forget to take semi-frequent breaks from work. This should be more than enough to keep you stress-free, while also making you feel less tired, which will ultimately result in you having to sleep less.
So, once every hour, hour and a half – take a five-minute break and go for a short walk. Go for a quick stroll or just do whatever makes you feel good, recharge your mental battery for a bit and go back to work. This should do wonders for your sleep, even if you have medical conditions that ruin your sleep.
Eat healthy and avoid junk food
You are what you eat is an understatement and healthy habits must start with the intake of quality food. What you put in your body will greatly reflect on all of the aspects of your life – including your sleep cycle quality, ability to sleep and wake up.
If you stuff yourself with unhealthy junk food before you go to sleep, your body won’t be able to properly rest during the night and you won't achieve a good night's sleep. Positive lifestyle changes are often neglected but positive lifestyle changes increase energy, ensure your body clock works and stays synced with circadian rhythms! Diet and sleep are connected more than you think.
Instead, it’ll spend most of the time digesting the nasty food you ate, leaving you with less time to actually rest and recover. As could probably guess, this will lead to a much more gruesome waking up experience and that is something we want to avoid. Don’t eat for at least 2 hours before sleep and most definitely don’t eat junk food before you go to bed!
Brainstorm ideas or start a conversation in your head
A great and easy trick to wake yourself up easily and get rid of common sleep problems is to activate your brain right away. Instead of trying to ignore your thoughts and trying to go back to sleep – do the opposite. As soon as you wake up, try and start thinking about various things you’re going to dothat day or any other day in fact.
You don’t even have to think about the things that make sense. Lead made-up conversations if you must – just start thinking and making things up. This should flare up your brain quite quickly and before you know it – you’ll be wide awake and ready to take on the day!
Turn your lights on
Just like it was the case with the morning sunshine, turning the lights on as soon as you wake up will help you stay that way. Staying in the dark room will not start your brain nor blood pumping, but rather make you feel sleepy. Feeling groggy won't start your day or reduce stress, so make sure your room is lit as soon as possible. You can either get out of the bed and turn them on yourself or you could set up an automated program that turns the lights on at the set time with some smart home assistant.
Either way, being in a well-lit room will most certainly help you wake yourself up.
Switch tasks
Routine can be boring and if you don’t spice things up from time to time it can become quite hard for you to leave the bed and get up in the morning knowing you’re about to have the same exact day once again. That is why adding things to your schedule and switching up your daily tasks can be a great way for you to wake yourself up.
Breaking the habit can be quite useful when it comes to developing a habit, at least in this case. Switching up your bed routine or changing some things up at work and we’re guaranteed you’ll be eager to wake up in the morning.
Drink enough water
Staying hydrated is simply good for your body, there's just no other way around it. Better yet, when you've gone 8 or more hours without it – a glass of water is more than welcome. Being dehydrated is what causes fatigue and tiredness and unless you rehydrate your body as soon as you wake up – you may end up feeling bad throughout the whole day.
Furthermore, if you don’t drink enough water during the day, you’ll be dehydrated even before you go to bed, which would make it even harder for you to wake up feeling rested. Otherwise – you will be feeling refreshed in the morning and ready for the work!
Exercise enough
Exercise is one of the best things you can do with your body as the lack of physical activity can lead to the lack of sleep – a phenomenon often called insomnia. It’s a great way for you to stay healthy and in good shape and if you do it early in the morning – it’s a great way for you to wake up. At the same time, exercising ensures your sleep schedule stays on the right track.
For instance, you could put together all of the things we’ve mentioned so far – stretch, go for a walk and exercise. This should give you more than enough energy to last through the whole day and more than enough boost to wake yourself up. Also, regular exercise should help you sleep better, which would ultimately lead to waking up easier.
How to wake up without the alarm clock?
Most of us use alarms to wake up in the morning, but what some of us don't know is that our bodies have a built-in alarm that works a lot better than the ones we have on our phones. Our bodies can be trained to wake up each day at the exact same time, give or take a few minutes.
All it takes is for us to maintain the same sleeping schedule for a while and our body is going to start to follow that same pattern. You can notice this happening if you wake up with an alarm early during the weekdays, but come the weekend, you wake up approximately at the same time, even if you didn’t set your alarm.
Finally, here are some additional tips that should make it easier for you to wake up in the morning.
Avoid caffeine 6 hours prior to bed time
While it will increase alertness during the day, caffeine can be a huge problem that will prevent you to get enough sleep. To get enough sleep, don’t drink coffee or other caffeinated drinks for at least 6 hours before you go to bed or you will mess your sleep fragmentation.
Caffeine is a stimulant that we’d use to wake ourselves up, so, limit your caffeine intake to the morning. Instead, have a cup of chamomile tea before bed. If you are a huge caffeine addict, you might want to go out for a fresh air just before you go to sleep to avoid disrupting your circadian rhythm.
Avoid alcohol
While you might feel it is easier to fall asleep after a few drinks, drinking alcohol before bed is bad news. Even if you are a morning person that loves morning sunlight, you'll have trouble to get out of the bed in the morning.
Not only will you dehydrate and wake up feeling sore, stinky and hangover – but you’ll also have trouble waking up in the first place. Choose being refreshed instead of a few hours alcohol satisfaction.
Sleep less than 10 hours and more than 7 hours
The excessive sleepiness is not good – bur rather a restful sleep that will keep producing melatonin. The most ideal time frame for a sleep is anywhere from seven to nine hours. In general, most people sleep between 7 and 10 hours and that is the ideal time frame if you wish to wake up easily.
Sleeping more or less than that will often result in not wanting to leave the bed, feeling tired and grumpy or even damage your mental health. More often, you will end up oversleeping and not waking up on time.
If you sleep more than 10 hours every day, you might need to visit a sleep specialist who will give you a healthy diet to follow, teach you the techniques of deep breathing as well as give you a wellness advice that will improve sleep quality. In rare cases will you get certain medications, unless you have a severe medical condition that requires treatment. In any case, the doctor will provide medical advice that you should follow or maybe even beta blockers so you could start developing a healthy sleep schedule.
Avoid working late night
If you’re late to bed, you're going to be late out of it, as well. Before going to the bed, our internal clock says it’s time to sleep and body prepares for the shut off automatically. The last thing we want is to interrupt it during this process. If you can, limit your work to the daytime as the late night work disrupts the sleep wake cycle.
Late night working, especially if it involves blue light, messes the sleep fragmentation, giving you a poor sleep quality. Sure, sometimes you'll have to pull an all-nighter, but if you wish to wake up easily and without an alarm clock –don't spend your nights working. Sleep instead or you might feel tired in the morning.
Avoid blue light before bed time
The sleep medicine had confirmed that the blue light emitting from the computer screen is sleep's worst enemy as it often causes trouble falling asleep as well as entering the stage of the deep sleep. Any type of bright light keeps us awake for a lot longer than we would've been if it weren't for it. Since every screen around us emits blue light, avoid spending time on your gadgets before you go to sleep. Read a book instead. If you can't avoid being in front of a screen for whatever reason – use blue light glasses. Otherwise – change the pre-sleep habits and reduce the screen time!
Conclusion
And those are all the tips we had on how to wake yourself up easily every morning! We know some of them might seem like a hassle at first but once you get used to the morning routine, you'll be set for life. But what do you think? How do you wake yourself up in the morning? Let us know in the comments.
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