We all know when we wake up from a great, peaceful and relaxing sleep. You wake up feeling energised, ready and willing to start the day. On the flip side we have all had those mornings where we get out of the wrong side of the bed which sets up a grumpy scene for the day.There’s nothing worse than having to spend a day in this mindset as it negatively affects you and the people you interact with throughout the day. All because you’re sleeping pattern was not optimal.
Below are 26 tips that will help you wake up on the right side of the bed, feeling bright, cheerful and positive to face that day that waits you.
Sleeping Tips – The Night Before
1. Avoid coffee, red wine and chocolate the night before – To wake up fresh you need to get a good sleep and one of the best ways to ruin a good sleep is to upset your stomach. Coffee, red wine and chocolate have been scientifically shown to disturb your sleep more than any other food. They upset your intestines in such a way that you will wake up constantly or have a very light sleep that doesn’t re charge you at all. Try not to have these things after lunch time. Hard I know!
2. Don’t eat dinner right before bed – A lot of people run home after work, cook up some dinner and then eat it and go to bed. This is a bad idea. The process of digestion takes a while and you do not want to be laying down right after you ate a big meal. Try and leave a few hours in between your bedtime and your dinner and see how you feel the next day.
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3. Create urgency – Set up extremely important and urgent tasks as the first items of the day so you have to wake up and finish them.
4. Go to bed happy with your partner – One of the best ways to get a terrible sleep is to go to bed before you resolve an issue with your partner. Before you go to bed make sure your partner is happy (as much as you can) and make sure that you are happy with them. It is also one of the best things you can do for your relationship, let alone your sleep.
5. Meditate and calm down before going to bed – Every night before going to bed do about 30 minutes meditation. This is amazing as it allows you to throw out all the days’ worries and forget about the issues of tomorrow. The future cannot be changed while you are asleep and the past is gone so there is no point losing sleep over it! Let it go. Simply sitting there and watching your breath is a great way to prepare yourself for a nice deep sleep.
6. Organize your room according to Feng Shui principles – For those of you who don’t know, Feng Shui is an ancient Chinese art of setting up your home in a way that balances the energies and vibes by putting furniture in certain “hot spots”. The bedroom is particularly important and people that rearrange their room according to Feng Shui principles have much more “rested” sleep. In particular the placement of your bed is important. Bedroom Feng Shui tips can be found here.
7. Go to the toilet – Even if you do not need to go to the toilet before bed you should still have a go and squeeze out whatever you can. The reason is that the kidneys will continue to work during the night and by the morning your bladder will be nice and full. If your bladder fills up early you might feel the need to go during the night and this cuts out valuable time from your sleep. You might think that sleeping is about the total time spent asleep but this is incorrect. It is important to stay asleep without breaking it because it takes some hours to get into the “zone” where you are truly at rest. A toilet break interrupts this zone.
8. Consciously choose at time to wake up – Before you go to sleep make the conscious choice to wake up at “x” time. Setting a personal intent is very useful and powerful. Before you sleep, mentally recite the time you wish to wake up.
9. Plan a non-negotiable agenda for the next day – This agenda should start right from the point you are supposed to wake up right till your day ends. If you don’t wake up, you will mess up your schedule for the day and end up with a backlog of work at the end.
10. Set your alarm clock (with the correct time). Probably goes without saying, but you can’t believe the times when people tell me they woke up late because they forgot to set their alarm clock or they set their alarm time wrongly!
11. Sleep earlier – Be realistic, if you target to wake up at 5am, don’t turn in at only 1am or 2am the night before expecting to be successful in waking up on time. You are more than likely going to crash in your goal. It is the times when I sleep early and have sufficient sleep when waking early becomes a significantly easier task.
12. Set your alarm clock 5 minutes earlier than your designated time.
During the Night
13. Not too hot, not too cold – Another sleep related tip: your sleep is greatly affected by the how hot or cold you are during the night. It is important to get a good balance as this keeps your energies calm and stops them from spiking. Try and find a balance between clothes and bed covers. For example, sleep without any clothes but with a heavy blanket.
14. Keep the window open – One of the best things you can do for your health in general and your sleep in specific is to keep your window slightly open during the night. This has two benefits. Firstly, the gap in the window will allow poisonous carbon dioxide to float away. The reason the human body breathes out is because carbon dioxide is poisonous. And during the night you take a heck of a lot of breaths and your room fills up with this gas. Let it out the window. The second reason is that you need to allow new oxygen to float in. This might also help you regulate the temperature of the room.
The Morning
15. Let the light in – The sun regulates serotonin levels deciding if you’re happy. The sun also regulates your circadian cycle (your natural alarm clock) which makes it easier for you to wake up.
16. Avoid the snooze function – As we all know, the temptation to hit the snooze button can be a dangerous and be a bit of a vicious circle. The lure to press snooze just one more time will eventually get the better of you and your early morning will be lost to a lot of broken sleep which is no use to anyone.
17. Place the alarm clock as far away from you as possible – There is no use placing the alarm clock next to your bed, you might as well unplug it and cuddle with it while you sleep. Put the alarm in a place where it will still wake you up in the morning, but make you work to turn it off.
18. When your alarm goes off, Wake up and STAY UP! – Do not go crawling back to your bed. Your bed is anchored in your mind as your sleeping haven. Move On! The second you wake up, move on to your next daily habit. Brush your teeth, take a shower, exercise etc.
19. Turn some music on when you wake up – I’m not talking that little dinky music on your alarm that makes Rap sound like Polka. Turn on the computer / radio and turn on a jam with a beat. Music controls emotions and body rhythms; use this tool to energize you mood in the morning.
20. Make a transition – If you always wake up at 10~11am, it isn’t too realistic to expect that you will immediately wake up at 5am the next day. Start off by improving your waking time by 15~30min every day until you reach your goal.
21. Drink a glass of water – A cool glass of water on an empty stomach actually has a lot of health benefits as well as serving to wake you up. The water will kick start your metabolism and as such you will wake up faster and feel more alert. Add fresh lemon to create a detoxing effect.
22. Breathe deeply – When you wake up the first thing you should do is take some deep breaths into your stomach and concentrate on waking up. Imagine breathing in a bright white light that makes your body feel happy and light.
23. Exercise – When you are groggy in the morning a nice run in the fresh air can help you wake up a lot faster. However, the interesting thing is that when you exercise in the morning you will actually have more energy the NEXT day. The more you exercise the more energy you will have as you become fitter and healthier.
24. Have something to be excited about – If you get up and go to a job you hate, work with a boss that drives you crazy you are not going to really enjoy waking up. However, if you have something you enjoy to go to you will be more likely to wake up happy knowing you have a bit of joy coming your way.
25. Establish it as a daily habit. Make it a daily wake up habit. It’s much easier to maintain a daily habit than one that’s only 5 days a week. If you keep having to balance around different timing schedules on weekdays and weekends, your body clock has to constantly adjust and it makes your task much harder.
26. Load up a full combination of the tips above. Don’t be modest and only use 1 or 2 of the tips above. As you already know, to wake up early can be a monumental task in itself. Combine as many of the tips to drive up your chances of success! Also known as the military tactic of ‘overwhelming force’ where you overinvest your resources to ensure the certainty of success.
The below video is by Robin Sharma who is an author of 11 international best selling books on leadership. The below short video details his wake up tips from a professionial work point of view. Want to get a head start on your competition? Then watch the below video.
Sources
Celestinechua.com
The Daily Mind
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