We all know them. Morning people. The people who wake up looking amazing, with no puffy face or bags under their eyes, jump out of bed and smash out a session at the gym before going to work.
If you struggle to wake up in the morning, snooze your alarm multiple times, or wake up without any motivation to get out of bed, you’re not alone. Many of us are at our best in the afternoons or evenings and wake up most mornings feeling sluggish or lethargic.
The good news is, it doesn’t have to be this way. With just a few tweaks to your daily routine, you can fall in love with mornings (yes, really) and put some pep back into your step. Here’s how.
1. Sleep Better
The first step to becoming a morning person is getting more sleep. If you’re waking up unable to open your eyes or snoozing your alarm multiple times, your body probably hasn’t had good quality sleep.
There are many ways to get a better quality of sleep. You can cut out caffeine in the evening and avoid eating late at night. Another effective way to improve your sleep is to invest in an adjustable bed.
Adjustable beds, like this adjustable bed from Flexispot, help reduce the chances of snoring or sleep apnea - two common conditions that can negatively impact your sleep. Adjustable beds can also help with back pain or discomfort during pregnancy.
Adjustable beds come with adjustable headboards, so you can change the headboard’s incline between 0 and 60 degrees. This is particularly helpful if you want to read or carry out another relaxing task before bed without craning your neck.
Other ways to improve your sleep include taking part in daily exercise, avoiding blue light in the evenings, and investing in a sleep mask and noise-cancelling earplugs to avoid distractions.
2. Create a Morning Routine
You’ll be more motivated to get out of bed if you have a morning routine filled with healthy habits that you vow to do before you start work in the morning. The morning routine can include any activities to make you feel better, but we suggest including movement, reflection, and planning.
With that in mind, your morning routine might include a yoga session or bodyweight workout, followed by filling in your gratitude journal and making a to-do list for the day. If you’re short on time, restrict your morning routine to half an hour or less.
Even 10 minutes of exercise per day can postively impact your overall health, and you only need to set a couple of objectives per day to feel like you have something to work towards.
3. Make it Easy
Part of the reason people are reluctant to get out of bed in the morning is that there’s so much friction between waking up and going to work. Make things easier and effortless by removing the barriers between waking up and getting on with your day.
Want to work out in the morning but can never find the energy? Leave your workout clothes at the side of your bed the night before, so it’s easier to put them on first thing in the morning. Struggle to find time to make and pack your lunch for work? Make your lunch the night before and leave it in the fridge, ready to slip into your work bag the next day.
Small tweaks that make getting out of bed easier can shorten your morning to-do list and stop you from feeling too overwhelmed when you first wake up.
4. Go to Bed Earlier
A simple way to get more sleep and therefore feel more refreshed waking up is to get to bed earlier. It’s easier said than done, but if you reflect on how you spend your evening, it may be that some of that time would be better spent getting more sleep.
If you spend hours scrolling social media or mindlessly flicking through YouTube, pause and ask yourself whether you’ll feel better in the morning if you stop and go to bed. As a general rule, aim for between 7-9 hours of sleep per night, and you’ll find yourself becoming a morning person in no time.
5. Ditch Your Phon
For many of us, the first thing we do in the morning is to reach for our mobile phones. While it’s important to check for notifications or emails, we typically continue to use our phones to scroll through the news or social media for up to half an hour before getting out of bed.
To avoid the temptation to waste your morning scrolling, keep your phone in another room. If your phone is your alarm clock, invest in an old-fashioned alarm clock instead. If you’re worried about missing emergencies, put your phone on a loud setting for phone calls, then you’ll be able to hear it from the next room if somebody calls.
To challenge yourself, try to avoid picking up your phone until you leave the house, or if you work from home, until five minutes before you start work.
