Mornings are wonderful. There’s something about being awake and getting work done before other people even get out of bed that just makes you feel so productive and energized. I’d definitely classify myself as a morning person, but I certainly wasn’t always one.
Throughout high school and my early college years, I struggled so hard with getting up early. I’ve never been the type of person to sleep until noon, but getting up at 7 or 8 am seemed to be next-to-impossible. Sometime over the past two years, I’ve made a transition to being a morning person. More often than not, I’m awake at 7 or 8 am and, with the addition of a cup of coffee or two, I’m fully ready to go first thing in the morning. While I didn’t have some perfect formulaic transition, I think there are definitely some tactics I used to make this transition.
1. Go to bed early
I know, I know, this is lame. Wouldn’t it be great if you could go to bed super late and still manage to be chipper first thing in the morning? Yeah, it doesn’t work that way. We’re not superhuman and we can’t function on 5 hours of sleep. Don’t stay up all night watching Netflix, as tempting as that is. Budget yourself 8 hours of sleep—if you want to wake up at 7, go to bed at 11.
2. Figure out your “magic number”
Remember how I just said “budget 8 hours”? Yeah, that’s really only an approximate. Once you start playing with your own sleep schedule, you’ll start to see how much sleep you need to feel your best. For me, it’s closer to 7.5 hours—it all just depends on you.
3. Find something to wake up for
It’s ten times easier to wake up early if you have something to look forward to. For me, this is usually some sort of workout (once again, I’m some sort of weirdo that gets joy out of working out). It can also be something fun, like catching up on your favorite blogs (*hint hint*) or making something delicious for breakfast.
4. Ditch the snooze button
Snooze is a fickle friend, isn’t it? Hitting the snooze button a million times seems so rewarding when you’re doing it, but in reality, you often don’t get any decent quality sleep afterward and instead you wake up even more exhausted. Put your alarm across the room or find one of those annoying ones that make you chase it or do some mental task to prove you’re fully awake.
5. Get some light in there
Flip your lights on first thing when you wake up. Even better, ditch the blackout curtains and let the sunlight stream in in the morning. The light triggers part of your brain that “hey, it’s time to get up” (there’s definitely a scientific explanation for that, but I don’t study science so I got nothing).
6. If all else fails, literally force yourself to get up early
Want to build a habit of getting up early? Make it so that you have no other option. Sign up for classes in the morning or schedule your job so that you work first thing—anything that forces you to get up early. Once you continue that for long enough, it’ll become a habit that you won’t have to force yourself into.
Yay for mornings, productivity, and actually sticking to a reliable sleep schedule!!
xo, Taylor
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