Let’s Chat… Waking up Earlier and How!
Welcome back, everyone! Today, we’re excited to hone in on a topic that often brings anxiety, procrastination, or dread…. that’s right, waking up in the morning! We all know the all-too-familiar feeling of ‘doom scrolling’ before bed and incidentally causing yourself to lose hours of sleep. This year, we’re here to put a stop to alarm snoozes and instead push ‘start’ on starting your day earlier and retaining more morning hours! If this is a concept you’ve EVER been interested in, we highly encourage you to follow along below to evaluate which new habits you can begin integrating into your lifestyle as soon as today.
Waking Up Early With These Strategies:
- Set Yourself Up for Success: There are several factors that contribute to your morning wakeup outside of the actual moment that your alarm goes off. In order to dive into an early morning routine, it’s essential to set yourself up for success by taking measures the day before that will help assist your ability to get your day started. Some of our favorite ways to offload the ‘to-do’ morning tasks are: meal prepping for the week, making coffee or tea the night before, laying out supplements/medicine easily in reach on your counter, choosing your outfit for work the night before, packing your lunch or work tote/backpack the night before, etc.!
- Extra Tip: If none of these resonate with you, we encourage you to write down a ‘typical’ morning routine and what it looks like. Once you have transcribed all of the steps you regularly take to start your day, evaluate which can be swapped into your nighttime routine, or executed weekly to offset a daily to-do item!
- Allow Yourself Time to Wind Down at Night: Through the same message that we started off this blog, we encourage you to evaluate your nighttime routine as that will highly impact the ease through which you wake up the next day. Do you hop into bed and keep your phone near you? Do you watch TV until you fall asleep without allowing yourself a moment away from blue light? What if you tried reading before bed? Being intentional with your nighttime routine by affording yourself resources that will naturally help you fall asleep is a much stronger method to support an earlier wake-up call. If you’re also interested in evaluating a holistic approach to sleep wellness, we suggest you explore Magnesium supplements as a natural boost that contributes to restful sleep!
- Make Changes Gradually: The first step is being realistic with yourself; there is no reasonable method to instantaneously shift your alarm from 8:00 AM to 5:00 AM, and creating that large of a change will undoubtedly feel impossible to uphold. For this reason, we encourage you to begin shifting back your wake-up call in smaller increments on a consistent basis. For example, can you try setting back the clock even 5 minutes early each day for a week? Doing so will result in 35 minutes saved in week one, 70 minutes (over an hour!) by week two, and so on. Making small changes and showing up for yourself by staying accountable to small, daily goals is the most reliable way to make a sustainable, long-term change.
- Explore your Wake Up Call: If you dread your morning alarm (like most of us!), then the New Year is a perfect time to explore different options to help you rise in the morning with a sense of calmness and readiness to take on the day. Waking up because of an urgent alarm is guaranteed to cause an increase in cortisol at the beginning of your day which causes negative associations. Instead, explore methods like the Hatch System to mimic a natural wakeup from daylight instead of a blaring noise.
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