How you wake up goes a long way in defining the rest of your day. It’s no surprise that the internet is awash with guides intended to help you make the most of this critical part of the day. These guides can often veer into pretty extreme territory, filled with health gurus and entrepreneurs preaching why you should wake up at 5 am or drink a shot of ginger and raw egg yolk. While the benefits of these more extreme morning routines is up for debate, there are a whole host of wonderfully simple changes you can make to your daily routine to help get the most out of your morning. Here are 7 simple tips for starting the day right.
1. Create a rhythm
Sleep experts all agree that developing rhythm plays a keep part in determining the quality of sleep. Going to bed at a fixed time each night, and waking at a similarly fixed hour helps your body to develop a sense of rhythm and pattern that improves the quality of your sleep. The ideal number of hours for a healthy adult to get each night is said to be between 7 and 9, so this should be accounted for in the sleep schedule that you design for yourself.
2. Say no to the snooze button
Ah, the snooze button! One of life’s greatest temptations. But when it comes to feeling refreshed in the morning, the temptation of hitting the snooze button is one best avoided. Hitting snooze, especially when it happens repeatedly, messes with the effectiveness of the sleep schedule you have created for yourself. Waking up and falling back asleep multiple times acts as somewhat of a false start to the day that can make it harder to wake up feeling fresh. It’s a short term satisfaction that holds you back in the long run. Avoiding the temptation of the snooze button will help you feel more refreshed when you do get out of bed.
3. Get straight up
Especially if it’s cold out, or there’s a long day of work ahead, tearing yourself out of the cosy duvet can feel like a monumental feat. Many of us have a tendency to wake up at a reasonable hour, only to dawdle in bed for long enough that our early rise is no longer so early. The best solution to kick-starting your day right, is to do so immediately. Once you wake up, try to throw off the duvet and get straight out of bed. This immediate action helps to jolt you awake, making you feel overall more refreshed and energised about the day ahead.
4. Avoid scrolling
Now that most of us sleep with a smart phone or tablet within arm’s length, it’s become common practice for many to wake up and get stuck straight in to their morning scroll. Whether it be social media, emails, or the news, it’s best to save your morning scrolling for later, perhaps with a tea or coffee, rather than to do so from bed. Scrolling in bed might seem quick and casual, but it can be all to easy to get sucked into the digital world and end up losing a good chunk of your morning to scrolling the endless depths of your newsfeed.
5. Drink water
It may seem too simple to count as actual advice, but you’d be surprised how many people skip out on this important tip! Nutritionists agree that water is the best way to start the day, as it replenishes the hydration you have lost throughout the night. Keeping a bottle of water by your bedside and drinking a good few gulps when you wake up helps to kickstart your body into action for the rest of the day. Breakfast drinks like coffee can have a dehydrating effect, so it’s best to make sure you’ve got plenty of water in you before reaching for your morning brew.
6. Stretch
In order to squeeze the most out of your day, it’s important to achieve a healthy state in both body and mind. If flat-out exercise in the morning isn’t your thing, then doing some simple stretches can serve as a great alternative for waking your body up right. There are tonnes of free guides available online that show how to effectively use stretches to activate your muscles in the morning. Start easy, and work your way up to more intense stretches to set yourself up for the day. Especially if your work involves hours of sitting at a desk, stretching out properly in the morning can spare you the pain of a stiff back.
7. Eat a healthy breakfast
They don’t call it the most important meal of the day for no reason! Eating a healthy breakfast is one of the most effective ways of setting yourself up for a day of hard work. Making sure to include a well-rounded selection of nutrients will help keep your energy level throughout the working day, and help to curb the urge to snack. Experts recommend eating breakfast within an hour of waking up to really kick your metabolism into action.
They may sound like 7 all-too-easy tips, but putting them into practice can utterly transform your morning routine - and your whole day with it!
