At times, it can seem like the world is split into early birds and night owls. If you lean more towards the latter, you might look at morning people with envy. They are able to get up easier and seem to be able to start their day with a spring in their step. You too can achieve this with the right mindset. If you want to become more of a morning person, let’s look at some of the best ways to do so.
Fix Your Night’s Sleep
If you have had a good night’s sleep, you are going to be able to wake up more easily, and you should feel refreshed and ready for the day ahead. The best place to start here can be your biological clock. Check out Rise Science’s article to find out more about what your biological clock is and how it can affect your night’s sleep.
You should also try to focus on the quality of the night’s sleep that you have. Do you often wake up with aches and pains? This could be an indicator that your mattress is not doing enough to support you. Your spine, shoulders, neck, and hips need to be adequately supported regardless of the position you sleep in. Buying a new mattress and pillows can help you to have a much better night’s sleep than you would otherwise manage.
Set as Few Alarms as Possible
Some people get into the bad habit of setting multiple alarms and dozing their way through them. Others are guilty of hitting snooze one too many times. Neither are good, and you should instead be aiming to get up as soon as your alarm rings.
A sneaky way to make sure that you are able to do so is to place your alarm across the room. Whether it is a phone or a traditional alarm clock, the only way to turn it off will be for you to get up and go across the room to switch it off. Don’t cop out by using a voice-activated device like an Alexa! Once you are up, you need to stay up. However tempting it might be, you can’t go back to bed now! Though this can be difficult to train yourself to do, you should soon be able to get up with just the one alarm, and those days where you set multiple might be far behind you.
Get Fed and Watered
As soon as you are up, you should try to drink a glass of water. After eight hours of rest, your body is likely to be dehydrated. It will need a drink to wake up your brain and get things ready for the day ahead. You should try to stick to water here and leave juices and smoothies for breakfast. If you would like a little extra something in the water, consider adding a squeeze of lemon juice as this can have a few added benefits.
You should also try to have some sort of food to kickstart your metabolism again. This does not mean that you have to have a full breakfast here. Some people don’t feel hungry until a few hours after they have risen. Having something small like a banana or an apple could be enough to get you going, and you can then have your breakfast when you feel a little more settled.
Exercise
Not everyone wants to think about going for a run or hitting the gym, but it could prove to be just the move that you need to make. By getting out of bed and exercising, you will be flooding your body with endorphins and blood, and this will instantly make you feel more awake.
Why not try something like going for a run? There are many programs such as Couch to 5K that will assume that you have never been running before and will slowly build up your stamina and endurance. You could even get up and just do some basic stretches. This is just about getting your muscles warmed up and the endorphins flowing as it will help you feel more invigorated. Some people do feel sleepy after exercise, but others feel a lot more awake when they have started moving.
Perseverance
There are going to be some days where you really struggle to get out of bed. It might be cold while your bed is warm, and your plans to go for a run might have been interrupted by the sound of rain against your bedroom window. A little voice in your ear might be telling you that it will just be easier to just doze a little while instead of getting up.
As difficult as it might be, you need to fight against it where you can. There will always be a difficult day – you just need to make sure that you are fighting to get up and keep going. Though there will always be a day where you would rather be in bed, you should still commit to getting up when you originally decided so you can then approach your day with the right attitude. It will take time to get into this mindset, but once you are there it will hopefully be a habit that you can maintain for the rest of your life.
Can You Become a Morning Person?
Yes, everyone has the potential to become a morning person! We just need to make sure that we are putting the right level of work in so that we are able to leap out of bed. This might mean some adjustments to a sleep schedule, or a commitment to going for a run in the morning. Everyone will have different needs, but the right attitude will be everything. With a lot of hard work, you should be able to make the changes you need to see to become a morning person. Everyone has the potential, you just need to put the work in to make it a reality!