Waking up in the early morning as opposed to sleeping in late comes with several benefits. However, while some people are born as morning people and find waking up with the sunrise to be second nature, others struggle with waking up early.
The good news, though, is that you can go about adjusting your sleep schedule and transforming yourself into the morning person you’ve always dreamed of becoming. In this article, we’ll explore ten simple tips for waking up early that you can use to change your sleep schedule and life.
Put Your Alarm Far Away From Your Bed
The first step to becoming an early riser– and maybe even loving it someday– is to put your alarm clock far, far away from your bed.
If you’re a late-night owl or a grouchy person in the morning, by this point, it has to be an instinct to turn over in your bed and shut that annoying buzzing off. Eliminate this problem by placing your alarm or phone far away. Once you’ve shut it off, you did it! You’re out of bed! Now, you just have to stay up.
And do not, under any circumstances, take your phone and bring it back to bed. This is a gateway to accidentally falling asleep again. Force yourself out of the room, go to the bathroom, wash that beautiful face, and you’ll find that you’re awake enough to face the rest of the day.
Take a Warm Shower
This isn’t just a step in getting ready. Taking a warm shower in the morning has been proven to raise your creativity, but if you want what we call a “pro early riser move,” take a warm shower the night before.
A warm shower slows down your body’s metabolic functions and helps it relax into a state of drowsiness. If you time it just right, and we’ll tell you how in a minute, a night shower or bath can help you drift off.
So you don’t want to heat yourself right before bed. That’s because body temperature plays an integral role in regulating circadian rhythm, which tells your body when to feel sleepy or alert. By the time you lay down in bed and snuggle up in your covers, you want to be cool and dry, so time your shower so that you’re done about an hour and a half before bedtime.
The Miracle Morning
by Hal Elrod
⏱ 14 minutes reading time
🎧 Audio version available
Change Your Alarm
Most of the successful people we look up to are early risers.
And every person likes to wake up in a different way. Some want to wake up to the calming sound of beach waves or a musical instrument. Others like to hear a song. And you’ll find some people aren’t capable of getting up unless they’re woken up by someone else.
So to become an early riser, change your alarm– and change it again until you find one that suits you. And this doesn’t just apply to alarms! Your environment can make a dramatic difference in setting up your mood for you. Surrounding smells, sounds, light, and temperature affect you. Throw open those curtains to let the sunshine in. Take a refreshing shower right away. And leading us to our next tip, find a way to get your blood flowing.
Get Your Blood Flowing
If you want to take advantage of the early mornings– and not only that but to be productive as well, consider finding a way to chase that grogginess away. Exercise is a guaranteed success. The first few times, it will feel like you’re going through the motions, but if that heart rate is up, your work is being done for you. Anything from pushups to jumping rope will work.
Let’s take things up a notch and say you plan on doing something as ambitious as a full morning workout. First thing: good for you! That kind of determination will have you looking forward to mornings instead of dreading them.
And the second thing: do give yourself at least 15 minutes to wake up a bit before you launch into jumping jacks. Drink a glass of water– which is a huge booster, by the way. Stretching is a fantastic option. Don’t feel up to exercising first thing in the morning? We got you!
Consider options like taking a walk and enjoying the beauty and stillness of the world around you. If there’s a coffee shop nearby, take a walk towards it for a cup of coffee and savor it as you walk back.
Make Early Rising Tempting
Rolling over in bed and squinting at your Instagram, Facebook, and other social media platforms first thing in the morning just doesn’t cut in as enough incentive to make you want to become an early riser. And if you see something you won’t, that will put a damper on your mood for the rest of the day.
But you’ve got half of the trick right. Being social may be the thing to make your new habit stick. Join a running group in the morning, a book club, meet up with friends for an early breakfast or even play chess at the park.
Find someone who’s also intrigued by the prospect of seizing the day and those precious early morning hours and make plans with them. Whether that’s a friend, your partner, or a social climb, spending time together with someone whose company you enjoy, the more people that accompany you in this goal, the easier and more fun it will be to achieve it.
Plan Ahead What to Do With Your Extra Time
The secret to becoming happy, healthy, and wise lies in rising early.
Incentivizing yourself to use that extra hour or those extra two hours may be the trick to wanting to stick to your routine. If you don’t have a plan or an idea of what you want to get done with this extra time, you’ll be tempted to fall back asleep for a nap.
So, before you fall asleep the prior day, make a note or keep in mind what you would like to do with those hours. It can even be something as simple as reading a book, cleaning, or you can make use of the time and finish up some of the work you’ve been putting off.
You’ll find that there’s a drastic boost to your productivity. And the silence and tranquility of the early morning will have a clear effect on your productivity. So it’s not about having some extra time; the quality of time you’ll get is unparalleled.
And take comfort in knowing that no matter what happens during that, you’ll find that productive morning session to fall back on.
Do Not Rationalize
We’re all guilty of this. When we wake up, tired and falling asleep all over ourselves, we rationalize. We think: what if we cram working on those assignments later? That appointment can be rescheduled. Or, we don’t need to do that elaborate hairstyle we planned on.
But you have to understand that in the morning, we’re not the best decision-makers. Oftentimes, we’re upset because a wonderful dream was abruptly cut off. When that alarm blares, and you’re shocked into awareness, that feels a lot worse than waking up on your own, well-rested and at peace.
So if you allow yourself to talk yourself out of getting up early, you’ll never do it. When you rise early, you’ll be calmer, happier, and will be capable of handling challenges better. Leave your decision making to other parts of the day. One of those decisions includes specifying a time to wake up. Do that before you go to sleep the night before when you have a plan laid out.
Now, instead of being forced to make a decision, you just have to follow through with it. Take the advice of experts.
The 5 Second Rule
by Mel Robbins
⏱ 10 minutes reading time
🎧 Audio version available
Set a Strict Bedtime
Being an early riser doesn’t just mean waking up early– after falling asleep at 3 A.M., You need to get a sufficient amount of sleep before even considering waking up early and being productive.
So set a bedtime and stick by it. That means closing your book on that chapter, shutting off your TV instead of loading up another episode, and taking an early leave from social hangouts.
Sometimes, there will be a very compelling reason to let go of your commitment regarding bedtime. And that’s okay! Just try to be consistent.
It’s a Step by Step
Speaking of consistency, you can’t expect to force yourself to wake up three or four hours before the usual time your mind normally rises from its slumber. This isn’t a boot camp. We want you to leave this video motivated and excited to get a headstart on your day!
So, take it easy at first. Don’t make any drastic changes. That means waking up just 15 or 30 minutes earlier than usual. Do this for a few days. Then tack on another 15 minutes. Soon enough, and almost effortlessly, by the point, you’ll reach your end goal.
Think about this: when you’re up in the morning, hours before anyone else is awake, or work or school looms ahead of you, you can just sit back in silence. You can get ready to take on the world on your own time.
When there’s no rush, there’s a dramatic decrease to the stress and anxiousness we face to get everything done in a limited window of time– a window of time when we can barely open our eyes, no less.
Eat a Carb-filled Snack
Here is another night-before trick to make waking up early a breeze. Fill up on a carb-rich snack sometime before you sleep. Snacks that contain many carbs can assist your body in resetting its internal clock.
That said, don’t just eat any snack. It has to be healthy. Healthy snacks include peanut butter sandwiches, low-fat milk, cheese, or even yogurt with some granola. These snacks will help your body produce serotonin, which will help your brain in the sleep process. And bonus! You’ll never wake up in the middle of the night to a growling stomach.
Are you ready to face conquer the morning yet?
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