Not a Morning Person? 5 Tips To Help You Get Out Of Bed!

#1 Don’t Snooze

Snoozing is the enemy when it comes to getting up when we want to. Not only does it delay us from getting up, but research shows that it can actually cause us to feel groggy and tired. One of the things our body does to wake us up, is raise our core body temperature, helping us to feel more alert. By hitting the snooze button, you are creating the impression of a ‘false alarm’ (no pun intended) on your body, meaning that your core body temperature is lowered. Then, when it comes to  actually waking up, your body is taken by surprise causing sleep inertia, that feeling of grogginess we all hate. On top of this, snoozing for short period of times actually holds no benefits whatsoever.

So what excuse do you have for hitting the snooze button? It does not really matter, because we all know that we should not be doing it. So for the forty sixth and final time, don’t snooze!

#2 Don’t be a night owl

You know what’s just as good as a solid morning routine? A solid evening routine. One technique that you can use to improve your mornings, revolves around setting similar bed and wake up times. If you develop an evening routine where you go to bed at 11:00pm every evening, you will begin to feel tired as that bedtime approaches. Then you must set a regular wake up time. Eventually, your body will adapt to these bed and wake up times, adjusting your internal body clock to fit them. You may even find that your alarm becomes an unneeded tool, as your body knows when to wake you up naturally based on your normal wake up time. Pretty clever right? So avoiding those late nights and developing a solid evening routine is essential in helping us get of bed!

#3 Change Your Wake Up Time… Slowly

You are feeling annoyed with yourself when thinking about your mornings, waking up at 9:00am when you know you should be getting up earlier. In an attempt to solve this problem, you set your alarm for 5:00am the next morning, only to then snooze your alarm.  The problem? Well, you have just deprived your body of an extra 4 hours sleep in one night.  It’s not the lack of sleep that is the problem, but rather the transition of losing 4 hours sleep in one night, not even our brilliant bodies can adapt that fast! So what can we do? The best thing you can do is to work in increments. If you want to wake up at 6:00am, and you currently wake up at 9:00am, start by taking 10 minutes off of this wake-up time. After a few days you may want to take off another 10 minutes. Continue doing this until you reach your wake-up goal. By following this process, the transition for your body is much kinder. You are less likely to feel that you are waking up earlier if you slowly adjust your wake up time.

#4 Set an Alarm Tone That Empowers You

This is a technique that I have been using for years – simple but effective. I use an alarm that actually creates some kind of feeling of empowerment within me. For me, I tend to use an excerpt from a motivational speech, but it could be something else like an upbeat tune. That way, when I awake in the morning, I am instantly motivated to get up and get on with the day.

#5 Create a Reason to Get Up in the Morning

Can you picture a time when you got out of bed, easily and when you were supposed to? Why did you get up that early? Did you have something to do? The final and most important tip involves developing a ‘must’ reason to get out of bed. Once you have developed a ‘must’, there is no way that you are not going to follow it up. It’s not a ‘should’ or a ‘could’, its a must! Whatever your reason is, make sure it develops a feeling of absolute certainty within you, meaning that there is no way that you are going to carry on sleeping. This will be the hardest tip to follow, but it will be the most effective in getting you out of bed.

Set yourself a goal that makes you jump out of bed in the morning!

Take-home message: It’s very easy to say: ‘but I’m not a morning person’. It’s a nice way out, it gives you an excuse to not feel guilty when you don’t get yourself out of bed. Literally anyone can be a morning person, once you stop making excuses. Try to implement some of the tips into your daily life. Of course, the first few days are difficult. However, after this short period, you will start to develop strong habits, that will make your trouble with mornings a thing of the past!

Let us know down below your troubles with mornings, and the steps you are taking to resolve them! 🙂