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When waking up is hard to do, consider the following strategies.
We’ve all had those mornings when we just can’t shake a feeling of sluggishness, even when we’ve technically gotten enough sleep. In an effort to perk up on tired days, many of us load up on cup after cup of coffee.
But over-caffeinating can leave us jittery and anxious (not to mention perpetually running to the bathroom).
Perhaps there’s a better way to banish morning fatigue and get on with your day with the energy you need.
That beloved button on top of your alarm clock may not be so helpful after all.
Spending the last half hour or so of nighttime rest in what researchers call “fragmented sleep” has consequences for your ability to function throughout the day.
Pro-tip: Try the 90-minute sleep cycle hack by setting two alarms — one for 90 minutes before you want to wake up and one for when you actually want to wake up.
The theory is that the 90 minutes of sleep you get between snoozes will be a full sleep cycle, allowing you to wake up after your REM state, instead of during.
Fatigue is a classic symptom of dehydration, and even a mild case can trigger feelings of sleepiness, changes in cognitive ability, and mood disruptions. Let a glass of water freshen up your entire body before you get moving.
Pro-tip: If you find you still can’t shake morning lethargy, try upping your intake of water and other noncaffeinated beverages throughout the day.
There’s a reason it feels so good to stretch when you wake up. Overnight, during REM sleep, your muscles are literally paralyzed (atonia), and reactivating them releases energy-stimulating endorphins.
Pro-tip: If you have a bit of time for morning yoga, take it; just 25 minutes has been shown to boost energy levels and brain function.
Cold showers are reported to reduce sick-day absences from work.
If you don’t want to take a full shower, a splash of cold water to the face, to signal a temperature change to your body, may also do the trick.
Is getting out of bed the main problem? Keep a spray bottle or water mist by your bedside table so you can lean over and mist yourself without even opening your eyes!
Pro-tip: One cult-favorite product is Saborino’s Morning Face Mask from Japan, which has essential oils to activate your senses. In one minute, this sheet mask cleanses, invigorates, and moisturizes your skin.
Note: People with sensitive skin may want to avoid this product.
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The jury is still out on whether breakfast is the most important meal of the day. But research does say that skipping this first meal can negatively affect your energy and ability to pay attention throughout the day.
Food is fuel. Give your body some calories to put it into action at the start of the day.
But if you’re working out in the morning, remember to eat after, not before.
This will (a) burn more calories, (b) boost your metabolism, and (c) help you avoid an unsettled stomach.
Pro tip: Build a fatigue-fighting breakfast instead.Since what you eat at breakfast can affect how you feel for hours, making the right choice is critical for your morning.
Reach for a combination of fatigue-fighting foods like lean proteins, whole grains, nuts, and lower-sugar fruits.
All breakfasts are not created equal, so take stock of your morning food choices. Sugary items like sweetened coffee drinks, pastries, and breakfast cereals can lead to the classic blood sugar spike-and-drop that leaves you feeling drained.
Pro-tip: Pay attention to nutrition labels to see how much sugar you’re getting at breakfast — and cut back wherever possible. Keep whole foods like apples, carrots, and oranges on hand for easy access.
That’s right, we said less coffee — but not none! Though coffee has plenty of health benefits, chugging a lot in the morning may indirectly contribute to increased fatigue later in the day.
Participants in one study reported feeling more tired the day after they had consumed caffeinated drinks. Experimenting with a reduced amount of caffeine in the morning actually may make you less tired.
Pro-tip: Avoid the big mugs. Purchase a smaller cup, if you have to, to help reduce the amount you drink.
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Sunlight bumps up your body’s serotonin levels, leading to improved sleep — and, therefore, increased daytime energy. And, according to a series of studies at the University of Rochester, spending time in nature “makes people feel more alive.”
Sounds like a very good reason to carve out a portion of your morning in the great outdoors.
Pro-tip: If going outside is a chore in the early morning, adjust your curtain so that the sunlight seeps in when you’re getting ready to wake up.
Sure, when you want to crawl back into bed, exercise may sound pretty unappealing — but it may be exactly what your body needs to get help booting up.
Research consistently correlates aerobic exercise with reduced fatigue.
See if you can squeeze in a quick walk or bike ride, or try a longer workout for even more benefit.
Pro-tip: When pressed for time, get your body up with a few rounds of high-knees and jumping jacks. Even 30 seconds of torso twists could do the trick, or plan a short cardio commute on your way to work.
Is it possible that negative feelings about your job or stressors at home are draining you of morning oomph?
You may not be able to fix certain situations overnight, but once you’ve identified them as a source of mental and physical exhaustion, you can often take some action to alleviate them.
Pro-tip: Streamline harried mornings at home by making school lunches the night before, or make time for morning meditations and create calm before your day begins.
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Sometimes all we need for an energy boost is a little excitement on the horizon.
To beat morning fatigue, consider scheduling a phone call with a friend during your commute, penciling in an outdoor walk on your midmorning break, or pre-making an appealing breakfast that calls you out of bed.
Pro-tip: Let another schedule determine yours. Make an earlier morning podcast or radio show part of your wake-up routine.
If morning fatigue becomes a chronic problem, it could be caused by depression or anxiety. People with depression can feel worse in the morning or only feel depressed in the morning.
The only way to know, however, is to track your mood or see a professional.
Pro-tip: Dig a little deeper. Asking some key questions about your mental health state may reveal an underlying condition that needs professional attention.
If your bedtime habits can have so profound an effect on your rest, so too could your waking routine. You’ve probably heard of sleep hygiene — the handful of best practices that help you fall asleep at night.
These include:
Getting up at the same time each morning helps maintain circadian rhythm, the internal biological clock that’s responsible for feelings of sleepiness.
Make an effort to rise at the same time every day — even on weekends — to see if you can banish the midmorning slump.
Sarah Garone, NDTR, is a nutritionist, freelance health writer, and food blogger. She lives with her husband and three children in Mesa, Arizona. Find her sharing down-to-earth health and nutrition info and (mostly) healthy recipes at A Love Letter to Food.
Nodding off in class is common for students of any age.
Late nights studying, long hours on a job, sitting in a warm classroom after a big lunch, a long evening class, or simply finding the teacher or subject matter a trifle boring all can contribute to classroom sleepiness.
For tips on how to stay awake in class or in any setting that requires your attention, consider the following strategies.
While this may not be easy or appropriate in the middle of a lecture, walking around, jogging in place, doing jumping jacks, or any activity that gets your blood pumping can juice up your energy and attention levels.
If you’re in a long lecture that has a break in the middle, use that time to get up from your seat and move your body. And if there’s no formal break, ask to use the restroom and get a little exercise on the way there and back.
You can also try some chair stretches like shoulder rolls, seated twist, and others.
If you’ve ever seen a new parent pushing a stroller on the sidewalk with an infant aboard, they may be doing more than simply getting out of the house for a few minutes. Being out in fresh air is invigorating.
And if you’re stuck in a classroom or other indoor setting, taking a few deep breaths can help deliver a little more oxygen to your system.
That might be just what you need to stay awake and attentive.
Downing a cup or two of coffee, tea, or other caffeinated beverage can be a simple but effective jolt to your senses.
But how much caffeine do you need to be alert? Well, it varies from person to person, in part, based on your sensitivity to this precious ingredient.
Mayo Clinic reports that about 400 milligrams of caffeine per day — about what you’d find in four cups of coffee — is usually plenty to keep a person awake and attentive.
Coffee can sometimes lead to higher spikes in energy and lower dips when the caffeine wears off, so caffeinated tea may have a somewhat milder, more consistent effect than coffee.
Coffee or teas without a lot of added sugar are also healthier choices than sweetened, high-caffeine energy drinks. A 16-ounce energy drink packs a lot of calories and more than twice as much caffeine as a standard cup of coffee.
Staying hydrated is a key strategy employed by long-haul truckers and others who have to put in long hours at tedious jobs.
Fluids help keep your blood flowing, which means your brain is getting plenty of oxygen and nutrients to keep working sharply in and outside of class.
Even becoming slightly dehydrated can cause fatigue, irritability, and other health problems. Having a water bottle with you in class — if it’s allowed — can make a big difference in keeping you hydrated and focused.
Being actively engaged, whether it’s taking notes or participating in a classroom discussion, can help keep you from snoozing during a lecture.
You may just need to occupy your mind more during class, so take good notes. They can be questions or comments on the lecture if there aren’t facts to jot down.
If the class allows for questions and discussions, be the student who raises a hand and keeps the conversation going.
One of the keys to getting a good night’s sleep, which in turn means less daytime sleepiness, is to follow a set schedule of bedtime and wake-up time.
By going to sleep at approximately the same time every day and waking up at the same time, you’re setting your body’s natural clock to know when it’s time to sleep and when it’s time to be awake and learning.
Try to aim for 7 to 8 hours of sleep each night, though if you’re in your teens or 20s, you may need as many as 9 or 10 hours to become fully rested.
Exposure to light, especially in the morning, is one of the simplest and cheapest ways to wake up your mind and body for the day ahead.
Taking a brisk walk in the morning can energize you for hours. If that’s not possible, open up your blinds as soon as you wake up to let the morning sunlight into your home.
Exposure to morning light helps you wake up faster, and perhaps more importantly, it sets your internal clock to be awake during the day and sleepy at night.
Sitting in the back of a large — or even a small — lecture class can put you one step closer to an unplanned nap. It’s a little tougher to fall asleep if you’re in the front row, just a few feet from the teacher.
Mint has many health benefits. One of the most useful in class — apart from making your breath smell better — is how peppermint can help stimulate the hippocampus, which is a key part of the brain involved with alertness, memory, and other thinking skills.
If you’re upset about your grades, the news, or something that happened this morning, your brain expends a lot of energy. It’s going to wear you out and make your tired.
If you’re experiencing emotional exhaustion, problems can range from daytime sleepiness to poor sleep at night, as well as irritability, poor concentration, headaches, increased pessimism, and much more.
Using meditation and relaxation techniques to help cope with stress and anger may help restore your energy and give you a happier outlook. Even just few days of mindfulness meditation training can help boost your attention and thinking skills.
You may feel more like sitting up, paying attention, and working if you’re wearing business-like clothes as opposed to comfier outfits. It may keep you focused on the work in front of you.
If you struggle to stay awake in class once in a while, just remind yourself to get enough sleep on “school nights” and try the strategies above.
But if you’re consistently sleepy in class or other times during the day, tell a doctor.
You may have a condition such as obstructive sleep apnea that’s keeping you from getting enough restorative sleep at night.
Otherwise, a warm cup of tea or coffee, or perhaps a little exercise or meditation may offer more benefits than just helping you keep up with your schoolwork.
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Parents
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If your child doesn't want to get up in the morning for school, it's likely that he just doesn't get enough sleep. In the table below we present the daily sleep rate for children of different ages.
Sleep norms for children However, in practice, not all children are ready to comply with this norm, preferring to go to bed as late as possible.
So, before answering the question of how to get the child to school in the morning, you need to understand how to put him to bed in the evening.
As a rule, children go to bed reluctantly. Even if they are tired, they want to spend as much time as possible doing their favorite activities, playing video games or surfing social networks.
If your child is used to staying up late, don't just get him to bed two or three hours early. Such a sharp change in sleep patterns can lead to insomnia, a decrease in overall tone and an increase in nervous tension. The time of going to bed should be adjusted gradually, ten to fifteen minutes in two or three days.
Once your child has established a routine, try not to deviate from it. Of course, on the weekends you can allow yourself to stay up late and sleep longer, but make sure that the student does not get too far behind the schedule, otherwise the process of adapting to early awakening will have to start over.
In addition, you need to create conditions that will allow the child's body to prepare for sleep:0057 . Your student should have a comfortable sleeping place in a room with good light and sound insulation. In the warm season, it is advisable to leave the window open all night so that fresh air enters the room.
Following these simple rules will help your son or daughter get better sleep and gain strength.
Now let's talk about how to facilitate the process of awakening.
If the child observes the daily routine and sleeps well, there should be no problems with getting up early. Here are a few more things that will help your child get up for school.
Try to make sure that something pleasant is waiting for the child after waking up. A delicious breakfast or watching your favorite YouTube show in the morning will serve as a good stimulus to wake up and cheer you up.
Starting your morning with a glass of water at room temperature is a healthy habit. Water immediately after waking up allows you to start many necessary body processes.
Just 5-7 minutes of vigorous movement after waking up will help restore vigor to the body. If the child is bored with the same exercises, offer him to simply move to his favorite music.
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Another healthy habit. Morning shower is a very effective way to relieve drowsiness.
Smartwatches and fitness bands support special applications that analyze the phases of a person's sleep and allow you to activate the alarm during the fast phase, when it is most comfortable to wake up.
Even with all the above steps, waking up in the morning can be problematic. This is especially true for children with a "late" chronotype, whose period of activity falls in the evening and night. But why do you have to get up early for school?
If you study at home and don't go anywhere in the morning, you may not have problems waking up. At Foxford Home School, classes usually start at 10:00 am and run until about 3:00 pm. You don't need to spend time on the road to get started – just turn on your computer. And the materials can always be viewed in the recording.
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The distribution of human activity during the day is determined by a "biological clock" called circadian rhythms. It depends on them at what time of the day it is able to work effectively. Based on biorhythms, it is customary to divide people into three groups, depending on the time of their activity, into "larks", "doves" and "owls". If your child finds it difficult to get up in the morning, he may belong to the third, latest chronotype.
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January 26, 2011 Health
If the alarm clock in the morning does not save you for a long time, and the bed does not let you out of its strong embrace, it does not matter. We will show you how to learn how to get up early and stop hating the whole world after waking up.
We have long divided people into owls and larks according to the time when they wake up and when they work best.
I am more of an owl than a lark, because the night for me is something special. It is at night that wonderful thoughts and ideas come to mind. But inspiration is inspiration, and life dictates its own rules, and we can’t always go to bed and get up when we please. You still have to wake up early in the morning.
The child must be taken to the kindergarten by 8:30, and the director vaguely resembles the principal of my school, so I'm a little afraid of her - it's better not to be late. You still have to get up early anyway, and often it turns into a whole quest: wake everyone up, feed, wash, and dress some. Folk wisdom “Raise - lifted, but forgot to wake up” - this is about me. And, as always, interesting tips and a look at the problem of getting up early from a slightly different angle come to the rescue.
Arina Nikitina offers 25 tips for those who find it hard to wake up early. Items 1 and 25 are my favorites. :)
1. Find the cause of .
That is the reason to wake up early. It could be a statement that only losers sleep late, or that there is a lot to do, or that at 10 a.m., all the sun loungers on the beach are already occupied with towels of more nimble vacationers. Find your motivation.
2. Forget the Snooze alarm button. Put it clearly at the right time (6-7 am). The alarm clock rang - do not pull your hand to the Snooze button, but get up!
3. Be aware of the consequences of your "just 5 more minutes!" Personally, my 5 minutes can turn into all 10, and sometimes even 30 minutes. Every extra minute spent in bed can cause you to fall asleep again.
4. Sleep well and get enough hours of sleep. If you can't sleep, it doesn't matter what time you get up. You will still feel overwhelmed. Healthy and full sleep is the basis of your vigorous day.
5. Make your bedroom a pleasant place to relax .
From the color of the wallpaper on the walls to the pattern on your sheets, these are all very important factors too. So is the pillow you sleep on. Even better, if you position your bed so that the morning sun shines directly into your eyes, then you will definitely not sleep for a long time.
6. Open the window. I myself have noticed more than once that if you just ventilate the room well before going to bed, you fall asleep much faster.
7. Proper sleepwear . It should be comfortable. Nightgowns that end up on your ears in the morning are not very conducive to sound sleep.
8. Sleep with happy thoughts . And do not try to scroll through the preparation for the delivery of the project in your head.
9. Create your own sleep ritual . For my child, for example, this is a mandatory reading of a book and a glass of water at night (milk cannot be slipped yet).
For you, it can be listening to pleasant music or reading a book.
10. Avoid "night traps" . This is when your hand reaches for an interesting magazine or book, or maybe a TV remote control or computer to see if someone has commented on your post. The latter is especially dangerous, since we are all familiar with "Honey, someone on the Internet is wrong!".
11. Dinner should be light. And avoid alcohol and caffeinated drinks at night.
12. Take a bath before going to bed . You can use lavender oil - very relaxing. For children, it is good to brew a sedative collection and add to water. Although on particularly difficult days, such a bath is suitable for you.
13. Try to go to bed always at the same time . And even on weekends.
14. Turn off all lights completely. It is best to sleep in complete darkness.
If a night light is on, your body will not be able to fully relax and will be on guard all the time. And what is healthy and sound sleep here ?!
15. Find the correct alarm ringtone . It should not be too soft, otherwise you just won't wake up. But it is also better not to choose too sharp and loud. She can be quite annoying. It would also be nice to put the alarm clock somewhere far away so that you have to get up for it.
16. Are you awake? What about stretching? Good and correct stretching is very helpful. They should not be sharp, otherwise you risk pulling your leg or back or getting a cramp as a gift. Stretch gently and sweetly.
17. Charge . As children, we were forced to do exercises in kindergartens and primary classes without fail. And who can boast of daily morning exercises now?
18. Water glass .
After waking up, it would be nice to drink a glass of water. Water will help your body wake up and remove the substances accumulated during the night.
19. Unobtrusive reminder. Still having trouble waking up? Try, for example, hanging your plan for the week or day in the bathroom next to the mirror. While you wash your face and recognize yourself in the mirror, at the same time you will read what you have planned.
20. Comfortable get-up clothes . It can be a bathrobe, slippers or warm socks (very important in winter, when you don’t really want to get out of bed).
21. Find a friend in misfortune , that is, someone who will not allow you to stay in bed after the alarm sounds. And even better if this person is very positive and energetic. Then the kick will be something like a charge of vivacity.
22. Be prepared for bad surprises.
When you are sleeping sweetly, you may be awakened by a late call or a bad dream. And after you wake up, falling asleep quickly again may not work. So it would be great if you could find your own way to fall asleep.
23. Cheer up. Cheerful music of your favorite artist in the morning is the best soundtrack for getting ready for work. Plus coffee, tea or your favorite fresh juice is the key to a good morning and high spirits.
24. And open the window again. Only after waking up. More fresh air - we drive sleep out of the apartment!
25. Congratulate yourself. And preferably loudly. The louder the better! It could be something like "Hooray, I did it!". And you can share your joy with a neighbor in misfortune, who also needs to get up early. At the same time, he will wake up.
One of my friends said that she found the perfect time to sleep - from 23:00 to 6:00. And she feels great if she goes to bed and wakes up in this time frame.
