10 PRO Tips: How to Become a Morning Person

Are you one of the people who hate mornings? Or tend to snooze the alarm over and over till it's too late? Hating mornings in general because of work or other lifestyle issues is one thing we've all been through. Waking up and staying in bed is one of the worse habits you can get into for your life. These things not only make you delay the things that matter but make you unhealthy inside and out. The best way to become a morning person is to sleep on time and use your mornings for healthy and energetic activities and nutrition.

Here are the best things that you can start, which can help you fall in love with mornings all over again:

  1. An exciting morning routine: A morning where you get up late, do everything in bed, and relax may be suitable as an occasional relaxant. But when you make a habit of spending your mornings like this, you lose your will and interest to do things in your life. When you leave the inactive behavior to the weekends or later in the day, it feels much more relaxing. The best way to make sure you feel excited in the morning is to jump out of bed and refresh your mind and body with positive habits. Using your mornings for yoga, workout, and nature time to wake your body up with physical exercise can make you feel fresh. The release of serotonin and the health benefits of early morning workouts or mental peace helps you become a better version of yourself. Moreover, mental relaxation activities like cleaning up your room, meditating and sitting in nature help you plan your daily goals with a better outlook.
  2. Bedtime stress: While sleeping early is an excellent way to wake up early and get on with an active morning, bedtime stress for the same is counterproductive. When you go to bed early with the stress of waking up on time and starting your morning routine, it renders you unable to sleep. Taking or expanding upon any stressful idea, be it work, personal issues, or even the act of sleeping, can cause sleep issues. While it can be challenging to control these thoughts as a beginner, read books, or practice meditation, journaling can be a perfect sleep time routine. When you teach your body these sleep time habits, your body and mind recognize it and tunes your mind to unwind automatically. Leaving your phone, work issues, and other things at the door help make your sleep time an unwinding and stress-free environment with zero effort. You can use other techniques to unwind and relax without worrying about your sleep or waking up time.
  3. Being realistic about waking up time: Waking up early is useful for various reasons, and most people try to do it without much leeway for their body clock. When you want to start waking up early, you should allow your body to adjust the body clock bit by bit. Waking up at 8 AM one day and deciding to wake up at 5 AM the next day to enforce lifestyle changes might not be a good idea. It would help if you tried easing into waking up early with small steps to allow your mind and body more time to wake up earlier. Start by waking up at 7:45 AM or 7:30 AM if you wake up at 8 AM. Once this becomes routine, you can repeat the steps to wake up as earlier as 5 AM or as per your goal. This is important because your metabolism, internal systems are used to working up to a certain point of time daily, and changing your body clock abruptly can lead to health issues or sleep debt.
  4. Get rid of the snooze option: Irrespective of the time you set alarms, the snooze button is a lifesaver for people who do not like to wake up early. As soon as the alarm rings, most people love snoozing it, and several alarms later, the stress and emergency rings lead to a chaotic and stressful morning. While the alarm system isn't the best way to wake up your body, it might be the only way to wake up on time for some people. However, the best way to enforce a healthy waking up system is to eliminate the snooze button. Not using/deactivating the snooze in your smartphone alarm or merely buying a new alarm clock without a snooze option can help. A few broken alarm clocks later, or some mornings of waking up later, can teach your body it is time to wake up early. Additionally, it would be best if you always used the alarm only when you know you're unable to wake up on time because of sleeping late for some reason. The best way to wake up is to sleep on time and let your body wake up on time.
  5. Let some light in: Waking up and setting the mood for the rest of the day helps activate our body and mind. But the first step to feeling fresh and activate our senses is by letting more natural light through the windows. Alternatively, switching on lights as soon as you wake up can indirectly activate the brain and our senses. The same principle applies when using more lights or screen time at night as the blue spectrum in gadgets, natural or artificial lighting helps our mind wake up. Moreover, opening up your room to allow ventilation, more light, and general openness to start a new day can be incredibly refreshing.
  6. Out of bed and into shoes: Waking up and kick-starting your body with exercise is one of the best scientifically proven way to stay healthy. If we consider the mindset of a person who doesn't like to wake up early and even get out of bed, starting exercise could be an impossible task. However, you do not need to start all the tips or methods to become a morning person at once. Once you achieve success in one or more, starting exercise of any form within the first few hours of waking up can give you the energy and health benefits of staying positive all day. Once your body is tuned to waking up, working out, cleaning your room, and other tasks, it helps us build momentum for the rest of the day. However, if you start work or any other task first thing in the morning, it can delay these quintessential positive habits and lead to bad days.
  7. Protein-rich breakfast and daily nutrition: In sleep, our bodies go through daily recovery and building cells. While our daily lives break down our food, replace cells, use up energy that helps us live, sleep is the time when it all jumps back. That is why a protein-rich breakfast can help our bodies recover and produce better energy with a protein-rich diet and breakfast. Focusing on your breakfast to have yogurt, eggs, and other high-protein, low-fat meals helps kick-start your day correctly. The best way to start a day is with the help of a proper meal you and your body loves.
  8. Daytime drowsiness and lifestyle issues: Do you wake late and tend to feel sleepy during the day? Most people feel drowsy or in the mood for a quick nap after their lunch. More often, this nap turns into daytime sleep, going on for more than 2-3 hours, disrupting your body clock. Like a house of cards, your night sleep-time takes a hit, followed by the next day's wake up time, and it all falls apart. The best way to address this is to use a sleep timer and get no more than 15-20 minutes of sleep if unavoidable. This power nap can help your body feel fresh and avoid getting into a deep sleep (30-45 minutes after closing eyes). As a result of sleeping in the afternoon, you fall asleep earlier and disrupt your next morning's sleep, which leads to lifestyle issues. Mostly we feel sleepy in the afternoon because of being inactive, and a walk or some time away from work, spending it in nature can help.
  9. Setting up the right sleeping environment: A calming sleeping environment isn't directly responsible for making you a morning person but helps you fall asleep earlier. Moreover, a right sleeping environment that is tidy, has appropriate lighting, and sets the mood for you to go to sleep with peace helps wake up too. A calm and tidy sleeping environment can help your body feel fresh in the morning and love your surroundings rather than feel miserable (both consciously and subconsciously in the morning). Using a luxury mattress, proper pillows for your head and spine to relax and recover for the day is one way to improve your sleeping environment. Or you can tidy up your room before sleeping and fall into bed with dim lights and curl up with a book. Meditating, journaling, and other night-time activities provide good sleeping hygiene too. Avoiding horror movies, stressful work calls, and other unhealthy habits right before bedtime is an excellent step towards loving your sleep. You wake up feeling fresh and ready to start a new day with new goals without junk lying around or emotional baggage from the day before.
  10. Morning positivity: Using your mornings productively or feeling fresh and ready is how a 'morning person' starts their day. But if you consider the factors mentioned above, they help you prepare and start your mornings actively. If we're to start our day right and fix things in our lifestyle, it also needs a positive approach. That is, waking up feeling good (even if it is by force initially) to start your day in the right tone. If you're used to reading newspapers and social media, the bad news, negativity, and other issues can get you. This deteriorates your mental health and leads to a bad start and not something to look forward to. When you wake up in the morning, the best way to be a 'morning person' is to look forward to something. It can be your work, exercise, time in nature, night time relaxation, or a list of goals you aim to beat daily. Waking up with an objective helps one start their day with the above tips and build momentum. That way, you're able to retire for the day by evening and spend time doing things you like, and eventually unwind for the sleep transition into the next day. This is more of a lifestyle issue than a morning activity, but having something to do in the morning without putting off your morning routine is a great way to feel motivated and start the day right.
     

Conclusion:
The best way to start your day is with uplifting activities that help you become better from the previous day. However, these things take time and shouldn't be enforced or integrated into your daily lifestyle all of sudden. Ease into one thing at a time, and carry it for 21 days or more to make sure that the habit lasts. Giving up on anything you want to integrate into your life for the first 21-40 days can reset any progress you make. Sticking to your morning routine and changing your lifestyle, one issue at a time, can help you lead a healthier and better life. 

Sleep is essential, but so is our sleeping environment, sleep hygiene, which dictates your sleep quality and your morning mood. Improving your sleep with the lifestyle changes mentioned above can help you sleep better and become a morning person with gradual changes. You'll no longer feel depressed, sad to wake up, or a general lack of motivation to do things throughout the day. While these things feel more related to your mental health, physical factors control everything inside, and improving your body can improve your mind!

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