8 Steps to Waking Up Bright-Eyed and Bushy-Tailed

Do you feel like the morning alarm ALWAYS goes off too soon? Do you watch the clock, promising you’ll get up at the next even number of minutes? If you’re anything like me when your tired you’ll be reaching for the sugary snacks and asking for your coffee to be delivered intravenously.

I’ve found a few simple practices that help me bounce out of bed early, often before my alarm even goes off.

1) Get to bed between 22:30 and 23:00

To feel at your best try getting a regular seven to eight hours sleep each night. When you sleep your body produces hormones responsible for repairing and regenerating your body. If you regularly miss out on this part of your sleep cycle you can expect niggles, aches and pains to stick around longer. A lack of quality shut-eye also makes exercising seem more of a chore.

2) Dim the lights a few hours before bedtime

Your body is tuned into the cycles of day and night. Daylight makes your body produce cortisol, a hormone that’s responsible for keeping you awake. At night melatonin and growth hormone are produced to go about physical and mental regeneration.

Study after study suggests that being exposed to light makes your body think it’s daytime. It then keeps producing the hormones that we need during the day, suppressing the hormones we need to get a good nights sleep.

Remember the eclipse in 1999? Birds, horses and a few other animals were falling asleep in the middle of the day! I tried using that excuse in my maths class but my teacher just wasn’t buying it ;-)

3) Turn the TV and computer off a couple of hours before bed

This relates to #2. If your brain’s still buzzing when you try to go to sleep you’re unlikely to drop off anytime soon. It’ll also give you time to catch up with your partner, take a relaxing bath, read a good book (no murder mysteries though) and generally unwind.

If you have to work late on your computer try this free software that dims your screen in sync with the time of day.

4) Eat a balanced meal a couple of hours before bed

If your blood sugar drops during the night your bodies going to give you a wake up call. If you often find yourself getting up in the night to go to the loo, or just find yourself lying there awake try having a snack before bed.

5) Make your bedroom dark

Think cave-like. By making the bedroom pitch black you’re reassuring the brain it’s night time. Blackout blinds are good, or you could get a thick set of curtains up in your bedroom.

6) Avoid caffeine after lunchtime

Always cracks me up how after an evening meal at a restaurant they offer you coffee. Let me get this straight, the same coffee we drink to wake us up in the morning? The same coffee that kick starts our day and stops us from dozing off? Now? After a meal just an hour or two before bed?

A typical cup of coffee has around 300 mg of caffeine in it. So if you drank it at 15:00 you’d still have 150mg of caffeine whipping round your system at 21:00. That’s sure to make dropping off into a deep restful sleep a challenge!

7) Unplug electrical appliances and switch off your mobile

Electrical devices and mobile phones emit something called Electro Magnetic Fields (EMFs). These have been shown to interfere with sleep quality and duration. So, better safe than sorry. Try switching off and unplugging all electricals in your bedroom, along with turning off your mobile phone.

8) Exercise early in the day

Overall regular exercise is going to help you sleep better. But the time of day you exercise is important when looking at getting a good nights’ sleep. When you exercise your body produces hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol. Both get you going and take a while to clear from your blood stream. So, exercising in the morning is usually better, especially if you find exercising past 19:00 stops you getting to bed on time. If it’s a case of exercising at 19:00 or not at all I’ll see you at the gym at 19:00 ;-)

Wrap Up

Getting a good nights sleep is going to give you more energy to get things done. It’ll also help with weight loss ’cause when you’re well rested you’re less likely to crave the sugary and starchy carbs that get stored as fat. So go ahead, give a couple of the tips above a go and see how you feel.

Got a favourite tip for getting a good night’s sleep. Feel free to share below