I’m probably definitely the last person who should be giving advice on how to be a morning person. I’m not the kind of girl who sleeps halfway through the day or schedules her classes late (I have 8am or 9am class every day), but mornings are definitely not when I shine.
Any time you read about the morning routines of successful people, they all start with the same thing – waking up early. I love reading about other people’s morning routines, but I’ve never been able to develop the discipline to stick to one of my own. I’ve wanted to turn this around for awhile now, but have been especially motivated by my mom’s new habit of getting her day started early. (She forced herself to wake up early every day for 21 days and finally made it a habit.)
You may be asking yourselves “How is Sammy giving advice on waking up early, if she can’t actually do it herself?” Well, despite my incapabilities to actually be a morning person, I’ve done enough research to help me turn over this new leaf that I feel qualified to share some of the tips I’ve found with you.
Set your alarm across the room.
Setting your alarm on the opposite side of the room from your bed is key to forcing yourself to get up, which is the first step. It’s so easy to just fall black asleep after reaching onto your nightstand and hitting snooze on your phone or alarm clock, but when you actually have to get up to turn off the alarm, it makes it a lot more difficult to just fall back asleep.
Keep a consistent schedule.
The easiest way to trick your body into loving mornings is to keep your schedule consistent and to commit to it. If you want to make waking up your new thing, then you need to force yourself to do it everyday until it becomes second nature.
Splash some water on your face.
The best way I’ve found to immediately make myself feel more awake is to splash some water on my face right after turning off my alarm. It’s easy to do, not nearly as torturous as it sounds, and it gets the job done.
Expose yourself to natural light.
It’s so tempting to pull down all of the blinds before going to sleep in order to shut out the sun in the morning, but if you really want to make waking up early a habit, the sun needs to become your new best friend. I personally like sleeping with my blinds open because I like being woken up by the natural light in the morning and it makes it easier to stay awake once you’ve woken up.
Brush your teeth right away.
This might be a weird one, and maybe it’s just me, but the best way for me to get myself up and ready for the day is to brush my teeth right away. For some reason once I’ve brushed my teeth and gotten the dry “sleep taste” out of my mouth, it’s practically impossible to go back to bed.
Another trick I’ve found, that I really like is setting two alarms. I always set one alarm for the time I want to wake up and one set for 15 minutes before then. This way when the first one goes off I feel blessed to be able to sleep a little bit longer and since the 15 minutes isn’t long enough to get into a deep sleep, it’s easier to wake up when the second rolls around.
