DAY 4 of back to school series. Find more posts here.
As school approaches, we’ll all have to start waking up earlier. And if you’re like me, you’ve completely messed up your sleeping schedule during the summer. But fear not, it’s not as hard as you might think to ditch your old habits. Read on to find out the different things you can do in order to start waking up early and conquering your alarm clock.
1. Take gradual steps. If you wake up at 9:00am now, don’t try to wake up at 6:00am immediately. It’s not going to happen. Studies show that it takes at least 2-3 weeks to change your sleeping schedule. So instead of taking a big jump, try to wake up 15-30 minutes earlier than every single day. Eventually, you’ll reach your goal.
2. Give yourself enough time for a proper rest. This means that you can’t stay up until 2am on your phone. Figure out how many hours of sleep you need and actually sleep for that amount of time. Quality of sleep is important but so it quantity. You can’t expect to feel refreshed when you wake up if you only had four hours of rest.
3. Put your alarm clock far from your bed. If your alarm clock is right next to you, you’ll be inclined to press snooze as soon as it starts ringing. If it’s away from you, by stopping your alarm you’ll already be up. You could even download an app that makes you take a picture of something or do a simple equation in order to turn your alarm off. By doing this, you’ll definitely feel more awake.
4. Set bedtime based on sleep cycles. The average person has 5 sleep cycles that are about 90 minutes long. So to find your bedtime, you should count back 7.5 hours from your wake up time. For instance, if you need to wake up at 6 am to get ready for school, you should be in bed, asleep by 10:30 pm. By doing this, you’ll feel less groggy when you wake up.
5. Make mornings pleasant. Create a morning routine that will make you excited to wake up. Take the time to be yourself a cup of coffee and read a little if you want. Workout if you’re into fitness. You can even allow yourself to watch a video from your favorite youtuber before you get ready. Just add anything to your routine that will make mornings more bearable.
6. Eliminate all sources of light at night. Bright lights can suppress the hormone melatonin which can lead to sleeplessness. So turn off any TV screens, laptops, phones and any other electronic devices (no blinking lights on your phone either) an hour before you sleep. Close your blinds too and invest in blackout blinds (they are honestly a game changer). You want to create the perfect dark environment.
7. Wake up your senses in the morning. Make sure that you open your blinds first thing in the morning. The bright light will help, trust me. Then, take a shower or splash your face with water. Listening to music or drinking a cold glass of water works too. Whatever it is you do make sure that it awakens one (or more) of your senses. Once your body and your mind are simulated, you’ll feel less tired.
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