At some point in your life, you will have to get up earlier than you want to. Whether it is for work, an early morning class, or you are trying to start a good habit, everyone has been there. Your brain feels full of fog. Your eyes are heavy and take twice as long to move. The world seems to be moving twice the speed as it normally does, and you feel like you are moving in slow motion. Getting up early may be uncomfortable, but it’s not impossible. Once you learn the best way to wake up and start your day, it will become easier. Once you start the habit of waking up early, you will be amazed at all the work you are now getting done and how much free time you now have. You will never want to go back to sleeping in again (except on the weekends of course). Here are the best strategies for getting out of bed feeling refreshed and ready to conquer the day.
Set one alarm and stick to it.
Hitting the snooze button doesn’t automatically send your brain back into the deep, rejuvenating REM sleep for 9 minutes. It just wastes your time as you drift back into a half-awake, half-asleep haze that is just as difficult to get out of as waking up was just a few minutes before. Do yourself a favor, and set one alarm and stick to it.
Get right out of bed as soon as you wake up.
The hardest part of waking up is getting out of bed. It is easy to lay in bed after your alarm goes off thinking about the day, or checking social media. Soon telling yourself that you will lay in bed for just 5 minutes turns into 25 minutes, and you have to rush the rest of your morning routine. A good way to force yourself out of bed is to put your alarm clock on the other side of the room. Having an annoying motivator to take those first two steps is a great way to make sure that you are awake and moving when you want to be.
Take a cold shower.
Waking up in the morning is all about fighting off the fog of sleep and getting ready to face another day. One incredibly difficult, but also incredibly rewarding way to wake up in the morning is to take a cold shower. You can start with a warm shower at first, but try to stand under the icy cold water at the end for at least a minute. Tony Robbins, the motivational speaker, and author, wakes up every morning and jumps into his 57-degree pool. He says “...nothing can change everything in your system like a radical change in temperature.”
Try to create a routine that is as stimulant free as possible.
Caffeine is often the savior of anyone who has to wake up before 8:00 a.m. Coffee, tea and energy drinks are all great on the days where you didn’t sleep as well or were forced to go to bed late. However, they can be addicting, and if you use them too frequently, you can become dependent on the energy that they provide to get you going in the morning. I am not advocating a complete abstinence from caffeine, but to merely save it for the days where you really, really need it. By doing this, the effects will remain strong through continual use, and you won’t have to keep increasing the cups of coffee you drink every morning to feel refreshed and awake.
Force your body to work.
Exercise in any form is one of the best ways to wake your body up in the morning. It releases hormones from your adrenal gland that force your body to wake up and become alert. Anything from taking a walk to a few minutes doing some stretches to a few rounds of bodyweight exercises will work.
Try doing this right when you get out of bed:
Three rounds-
20 jumping jacks
10 push ups
10 squat jumps
I guarantee that after the third round you will feel more awake than five cups of coffee.
Create accountability.
Hold yourself accountable for getting up in the morning. Set up a reward system. Maybe for every week that you make it all five days getting up early, you treat yourself to something over the weekend. Maybe save some of your favorite cereal or breakfast food, and you can only eat it on the days that you get up early. Sometimes having a friend who also gets up early there to text you and motivate you to get out of bed also works!
Try Bio-energizers.
This is something that sounds strange and may look strange, but it is a tactic that I have used to wake up and stay alert throughout the day. In this video, Elliott Hulse does a great job explaining the benefits behind performing these movements and demonstrates a few that you can try on your own. Some of them may look weird or feel uncomfortable, but if you really give them 100 percent, they will wake you up and bring a breath of fresh air into your day whether it is 5 in the morning or 5 in the afternoon.
