How to wake up

For ages, mankind had no problem waking up early. Our early ancestors were accustomed to rising with the sun. For them, to wake up in the morning was to start their day-long journey in surviving that day. Everyday, our ancestors had a long to do list of essential tasks for their very survival. Perhaps that is why they seem to have had no trouble waking up in the morning, and perhaps this why we do. Our lives no longer depend on essential daily tasks, like hunting and foraging and making sure we have enough food and water and appropriate shelter to survive until the next morning. Instead, our lives are filled with more nonessential tasks, like taking out the trash, getting to work on time, going to the gym, and holding business meetings. I use the term "nonessential" here loosely, because although failing to do these things consistently could lead to deterioration of health or loss of a job, none of them contribute directly and immediately to our survival the way everyday tasks used to. So my guess is, it could be that we experience much less urgency these days in waking up early. To combat that, some of my tips here will include ways to create a higher sense of urgency, however false, to help you solve the question of how to wake up.

Another theory is that our modern society is inundated with information, stress, responsibilities, and pressures from all over the map, and this makes us overworked and overtired. Think about just how much you cherish your sleep. It's probably because by the end of the day, or even at times during the day, you are so tired and exhausted from all the pressures and stresses of your daily life. Come morning time, it's no wonder you might have trouble waking up. Our bodies seem to always grasp at those few extra minutes of sleep, making it ever more difficult to wake up in the morning. To this end, I'm going to discuss a few ideas for helping to manage your stress and daily pressures.

Finally, there's just no denying that many of us simply don't get enough sleep on a daily basis. We stay up late to do a little extra work, or watch some tv, and then we wake up early to try to get a head start on the day. Sleeping late and waking up early on a regular basis is a recipe for disaster. Yet many times we don't realize it because of things like our morning coffee or mid-day energy drink that help us make it through our busy lives. It's a simple idea, but if you want to make it easier to wake up in the morning, then you need to start going to sleep earlier in the night. On the topic of sleep deprivation, I'll talk about how to wake up by sleeping more and getting more out of your day.

Perhaps the hardest part of waking up is resisting the urge to stay in bed and go back to sleep. Once we wake up, we need to immediately get up. Giving yourself an excuse to physically get out of bed is the key to waking up early. Rearrange your tasks for the day so that you have something important to do in the morning, immediately after waking, like going to the gym, picking up groceries, running some errands, or even making a phone call. If you like to cook, start learning to cook more breakfast foods and get in the habit of waking up early to do so. Encourage yourself to do more in the morning instead of reserving it for your ritualistic coffee. If you keep giving yourself the luxury of getting a slow start on the day, you'll keep doing just that and it will always be a challenge for you to wake up in the morning.

If you try this for a few weeks and find you're having trouble keeping yourself accountable for your self-imposed urgency, go the extra mile and schedule business meetings in the morning. Or, if you're a student, sign up for an early morning class. By making waking up absolutely mandatory, you'll start getting into the habit and it will slowly become easier. The first few mornings will be hell, but once you create a better sleep schedule (see below), you'll wake up in the morning refreshed and much more easily.

Often times, the reason we can't wake up in the mornings is because we're overtired from our stressful lifestyles. But the truth is, much of this stress is unfounded. Try to reexamine the pressures and responsibilities in your daily life and think about which of them are actually worth stressing about. Chances are, none of them. If you draw everything out to the worst possible scenario, you'll most likely realize it wouldn't be that bad. Reflecting on worst case scenarios is a good mental exercise useful for reducing stress, and this will allow you to sleep much better, which will in turn lead to an easier wake up time. With less mental stress, your body will be able to recoup faster during sleep, not to mention actually fall asleep faster. Start to eliminate the things in your life that cause the most stress and add the least value. As you streamline your life this way, you'll feel noticeably better in mood. You'll rest easier, and therefore, wake up easier, too.

This might sound counterintuitive, but you can actually start to sleep more by waking up earlier. This is because we as humans are meant to be awake during daylight hours. If we regularly wake up early, our bodies will be in sync with the course of a normal day and become tired at the end of it. Have you ever gotten that second wind late at night, sometime around 10 or 11pm, and then stayed up until 3am because you were being really productive? Well, that's fine, and you could just wake up later to get a full night's sleep, but don't you still somehow feel tired? This is because staying up and waking up late put your body out of tune with its biological clock. By following a sleeping pattern that coordinates better with the sun, you'll find that that second wind starts to kick in earlier, around 4 or 5pm. You'll feel tired earlier, sure, but there's no need to stay up later if you've already been productive in the morning and throughout the day.

In fact, staying up late to finish up some work or get a head start on the next morning does more harm than good. Here's how. The earlier you go to sleep before midnight, the more effective your sleep is. That is, your body and mind recoup from the day much more quickly and sufficiently (this is probably because our internal clocks are already telling us to get ready for the day when it hits 3 or 4 in the morning, so trying to go to sleep at that point makes us work harder to do so and gives us less time to recoup before waking up). Staying up late sacrifices this benefit, causing you to need more sleep or not feel rested when you wake up in the morning. So, how can you easily wake up in the morning? By getting more sleep. How do you get more sleep? By waking up early. It's an odd catch-22, but it's easier to keep up with once you get started.

1. Drink less coffee, and eliminate all caffeine after 4pm. You'll then start to rely on it less and less for waking up in the morning.

2. Be more active, particularly in the earlier half of the day. Aside from adding urgency to your morning, an early gym routine will also keep you energetic during the part of the day when you need it.

3. Eat less complex carbs and processed foods. They make your body work harder. Also, give yourself a cut off time for eating, around 9pm. This means no snacking either. This will give your body time to wind down and get ready for sleep instead of kicking your metabolism into gear.

4. Stay consistent. If you wake up early during the weekdays, wake up early on the weekends as well. If you don't wake up close to your usual time on the weekend, even after a night out, you'll risk throwing your sleep schedule off kilter. You can make up for lost sleep with a short nap during the day, but make sure to keep it under an hour, and don't take it later than 5pm.

5. Follow some of these basic things and you're well on your way to waking up and becoming an early bird. If you're still having trouble, there are some helpful products you can buy for assistance. I'll list them below.

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