When your alarm goes off, do you wake up feeling ready to tackle the day, or do you struggle just to get out of bed?
You’re not alone if you like to hit the snooze button or scroll through your emails and social media before getting up.
A recent survey of 2,000 participants revealed that it takes the average person 24 minutes to get out of bed each morning -- and that’s after two alarms go off.
Unfortunately, stalling your morning like this makes it even harder to get out of bed, and you’ll be more groggy the rest of the day. That’s why this not-so-great routine has to go.
Just think of what you could do with that extra 24 minutes back in your day. Imagine yourself waking up refreshed and excited to accomplish your goals.
If you’re ready to finally break this bad habit and learn how to become a morning person, we’ve got you covered.
5 Tips to Help You Become a Morning Person
The secret to becoming an early bird isn’t just forcing yourself to get up as soon as your alarm goes off. Do this, and you’ll set yourself up for failure (not to mention feel exhausted and miserable for days).
Instead, follow these five tips to make the transition from night owl to morning lark much easier:
1. Skip the Booze and Food Too Close to Bedtime
Winding down with alcohol may seem like it helps you relax and fall asleep. But it actually leads to poor quality sleep and a lack of deep sleep. So you’ll wake up feeling groggy and not well-rested despite sleeping.
Food can have the same effect.
If you’re eating too close to bedtime, you’re not giving your body time to properly digest what you ate. Rather than helping you sleep, your body will be busy breaking down food for energy you don’t even need.
So leave enough space between dinner and bedtime -- and skip the second glass of wine or dessert.
Want to fall asleep faster and achieve a deeper sleep? Learn what foods to eat and skip before bedtime and how nutrition affects sleep when you’re done here.
2. Improve Your Wind-Down Routine
A wind-down routine should get your head and body primed for relaxation and sleep. It should lower your heart rate, clear your head of negative thoughts, and tell your body it’s time for rest.
You know what doesn’t belong in a wind-down routine?
The latest news stories, murder mystery documentaries, and work-related stresses.
These can raise your heart rate, trigger alertness, and make it difficult for your mind to disconnect and shut down. And they all lead to crappy sleep and even crummier mornings.
You should also get in the habit of turning off screens at least two hours before bed. That includes TVs, phones, tablets, and anything emitting blue light (which contributes to lower melatonin levels and poor sleep).
Instead, add these ideas to your wind-down routine:
- Read an enjoyable book
- Diffuse some relaxing essential oils (like lavender)
- Sip a nighttime tea (like chamomile) as you recap your day in your journal
- Try some gentle stretches and yoga for sleep
- Meditate
Experiment with a few ideas to see which help improve your sleep hygiene and lead to better tomorrows.
3. Get to Bed Earlier
One of the simplest things you can do to become a morning person is to get to bed earlier.
Oftentimes we’re just not getting enough sleep each night, which naturally makes it more difficult to wake up and get out of bed.
To combat this:
- Count backward from when you need to wake up to see what your absolute latest bedtime should be.
- Aim for 7-9 hours of sleep.
- Add a 30-minute buffer so you can start your wind-down routine at that time.
So for example, if you have to be up by 7 AM and want to clock 8 hours of sleep, you should begin your routine at 10:30 PM and be in bed by 11. Easy peasy, right?
4. Move Your Workouts to the Morning
You may find that working out in the afternoon or evening gives you too much energy, making it tough to fall asleep a few hours later.
So swap your PM workouts for a morning movement session. You may score higher energy levels during the day and sleep better at night.
5. Set Up a Special Morning Space or Routine to Look Forward To
What if you’re not getting out of bed because you’re not excited about what’s on your plate for the day?
If every day feels like the movie Groundhog Day, it’s time to create a space and routine that gets you out of bed and energized.
Maybe this is as simple as laying out a yoga mat next to your bed and jumping right into a sunrise routine.
Perhaps it’s starting a morning tea or coffee ritual outside where you can think about what you want to accomplish that day.
Or maybe it includes a yummy breakfast or smoothie you prepped the night before.
Whatever it is, having something nice to look forward to can make the act of waking up early much more enjoyable.
Use These Tips to Become a Morning Person
After reading this article, you now have the tools you need to become a morning person.
What you do in the first hour after waking up sets the tone for the rest of your day. So see which tips resonate with you the most and choose one or two to tackle first.
Once you master those, move on to the others. Then voila!, you’ll be a morning person in no time.
Save this article as you work your way through the tips we discussed. Even better? Share it with a friend who also struggles with mornings, so you can both become early birds together!
Author: Devan Ciccarelli
Email: devan@behappynothangry.com
Instagram/Facebook Group: @behappynothangry/Be Happy Not Hangry
Website: www.behappynothangry.com
