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How often do you actually wake up feeling energized?
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How many times a week do you get up when your alarm rings, without hitting the snooze button?
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Nothing is worse than going to bed early, only to wake up still feeling exhausted.
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There are number of factors that affect how tired you feel in the morning, and you probably have some habits that are robbing you off your energy.
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We'll look at some of the solutions that you should adopt, which will help you wake up early and well rested.
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Let's get started.
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1. Stop snoozing.
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When you snooze, you're not really getting more sleep.
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It doesn't make you feel better about waking up.
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It actually does nothing beneficial for you.
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Every single time you hit the snooze button you wake up feeling more tired.
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This is because our sleep consists of 90 minute cycles.
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When you fall back asleep for such a short amount of time, your alarm wakes you up in the middle of your sleep phase, which will leave you feeling even more tired and sluggish.
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What I recommend is to use an app called "Sleep Cycle".
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What this app does is it wakes you up at the end of your sleep phase.
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It does it by tracking your movements during the night and the alarm only goes off, when it detects you're at the end of the cycle.
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Waking up this way will leave you much more energetic than waking up in the middle of your REM phase.
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2. Get enough sleep.
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We need a certain amount of sleep every day for our body to function properly.
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This may sound stupid and you probably already know this, but we tend to regularly sleep either too much or too little.
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One of the reasons this happens, is because we go to sleep at inconsistent hours.
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One day we go to bed at 10 p.m., the next at 3 a.m.
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But you should go to sleep and wake up at the same time seven days per week.
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This way your body gets into the rhythm and you can wake up naturally at the end of a sleep cycle, every single day.
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Also everyone has a different amount of sleep needed to feel energized.
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If you want to find how many hours you personally need to wake up refreshed, go to bed at the same time every night for a week.
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Wake up without an alarm and write down the number of hours you slept every night.
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At the end of the week, you should be able to see how many hours you need to wake up and have a great day.
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You can then use this information to know when you should go to bed, to wake up at the required time.
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3. Rehydrate and get the blood flowing.
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It's crucial that you hydrate yourself first thing in the morning.
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After 6 to 8 hours without water, you'll naturally be dehydrated, and dehydration causes fatigue.
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Every single day before going to sleep, I always place a glass of water on my nightstand.
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That way when I wake up, the water is already waiting for me.
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The objective is to rehydrate your body and mind as fast as possible, to replace the water you were deprived of during the hours you slept.
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Often when people feel tired, whether in the morning or afternoon, what they really need is more water, not more coffee.
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Another important thing to do, is some light exercise as soon as you wake up.
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Any physical activity that gets the heart rate up and the blood flowing is going to raise your energy levels.
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It may seem counter intuitive, but researchers say expending energy by engaging in regular exercise, doesn't make you tired, it actually creates energy in your body.
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Even if you think you're too tired to do anything, get up and walk around the room, and in a couple of minutes you'll feel some energy that wasn't there before.
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The exercise doesn't need to be anything extreme.
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No need to go run a marathon before breakfast.
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What I usually do is just some stretching, followed by jumping jacks and burpees.
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4. Avoid screens before bed.
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Your TV, smart phone and computer screen all produce artificial blue light.
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The problem with artificial light in the evening, is that it tricks your body in to thinking that it's actually day time.
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When it gets darker outside, your body naturally produces a sleep hormone called melatonin.
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Since artificial light blocks melatonin production, we can really screw up our sleep, because your body doesn't send signals to your cells that's it's night time.
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That's why you shouldn't be looking at any screen at least 2 hours before bed.
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If you're watching this video on your phone at 2am, because you have to get up early...
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Well..
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You should apply this tip tomorrow and maybe replace your phone with a good book.
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For those of you who absolutely can't do without your phone or computer before bed, there is a solution for this blue light problem.
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There are two apps that you should install on your phone and computer, called Twilight and F.lux.
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What they do is, they block most of the artificial blue light by making your screen more orange.
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And the best part is, both are free.
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However if you're serious about fixing your tiredness problem, you won't be using any screens before bed anyway.
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I hope you learned something new today.
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I've been applying all of these tips for some time now and they definitely help.
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If you have any other solutions that have worked for you and you'd like to share, post them in the comments below.
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Together we'll become better than yesterday.