Getting out of bed in the morning is life’s toughest chore – particularly so if you’re not a morning person.
After hitting snooze five times, you climb out of bed and head straight for the door, before making your way to the office, where you spend the next eight hours trying to keep your eyes open.
As great as it sounds; you’re unlikely to find many companies that are willing to let you work between 1pm and 9pm. Yet, you don’t have to settle for a life of exhaustion and low productivity.
Nobody is born a morning person. It’s possible to improve your sleep schedule. You just need to learn how to master the morning.
How to be a morning person and wake up bright and early
Becoming a morning person is all about taking control of your routine. At the moment, your busy schedule is setting you up for failure in the morning. Cut out the late-night work sessions or ‘just one more’ Netflix binges and work towards developing a routine that gets you to bed earlier.
Getting more sleep will ultimately leave you feeling better in the morning. However, if that isn’t practical or still isn’t quite enough, fitting any of these five activities into your morning routine could help you to feel more energised throughout the day.
Don’t hit snooze
You might think that extra five minutes of sleep will allow you an extra five minutes of productivity during the day. However, you will ultimately wake up feeling worse than if you had started your day when your alarm first went off.
A sleep cycle takes 90 minutes to complete and failing to see it through can leave you feeling groggy. Likewise, only 20% of that is spent in deep sleep, which is when you really recharge. As a result, hitting snooze has little impact on your energy levels and is likely to leave you feeling more tired, due to the multiple interrupted sleep cycles.
Leave your phone alone
Most of us check our phones immediately after waking up, whether we’re answering emails, checking the news or scrolling through Facebook. However, this is a guaranteed way to start your day off with negativity or stress.
Instead, give yourself 30 to 60 minutes to wake up before turning on your gadgets. You will have more time to collect your thoughts and slow down your morning routine, ensuring that you start your day calmly.
Be a yogi
After cutting out the snoozing and browsing, you will have lots of extra time in the morning to use elsewhere. Rather than grabbing an extra half an hour of sleep, try performing an activity that helps you to wake you up and stretch your muscles. This is likely to be far more beneficial.
If just sitting alone with your thoughts isn’t enough, meditation could be the perfect way to clear your mind of clutter and set yourself up for a good day. Likewise, breathing exercises have been shown to boost energy levels.
Go for a run
Nothing will wake you up quicker than getting your blood pumping. Before you head for a shower, get in a quick workout.
Not only does working out before your first meal of the day burn 20% more fat, but it also arouses your body, which will make you far more alert throughout the day. Likewise, exercise releases mood-boosting hormone endorphins, which will make getting out of bed a happier experience.
Open the curtains
As tempting as keeping the curtains closed is, sunlight is required to tell your body when the day starts. This will help your body to wake up and will also improve your sleep the following night.
Likewise, sunlight also provides vitamin D, which studies have shown help to keep us happy and energised.
Read more:
Sleepless nights? We asked an expert about the new high intensity sleep trend
https://live-newstatesman-b2b.pantheonsite.io/sleep-more/