10 Easy Ways to Become a Morning Person

Today, when most of us scroll the night away and hate getting up in the morning, a morning person is almost like one of those mythical creatures. Still, while we can’t help but emphasize that we’re not one of them every time we’re asked, most of us secretly wish that we had our lives together as much as them. Indeed, saying goodbye to the annoying snooze sessions and the stress of rushing to get ready in the morning sounds like a dream. The good news is that it can be an attainable one with enough willpower. If your daily schedule demands you to be on your feet early, rather than hating the world, you should do your best to adjust as much as you can for your own sake. If you have trouble getting up in the morning, here are a few tips that can help you out.

Think about why you want to become a morning person

First things first, if you love sleeping and your bed is your favourite place, it is no wonder you hit that snooze button. After all, you’ve still got time before you need to start getting ready and there is no good reason for you to be up before that. So, it is clear that if you truly want to change your mornings, you need a good reason for waking up earlier. Think about why you want to become a morning person. Is it to become more energetic and productive throughout the day? Is it to have some quiet me-time before the rest of the household wakes up? Is it to become healthier through exercise and a hearty breakfast? You will need continuous motivation in order to develop your new habit of waking up earlier and if you cannot name any reason other than it is what you “should” do, it will be difficult.

Create a good nighttime routine

Waking up fresh in the morning and having a good morning routine actually starts the night before. Naturally, in order to wake up well-rested, it’s essential to get enough quality sleep. And the road to good-quality sleep can be bumpy in the 21st century. In your nighttime routine, you should limit your screen time to two hours before you are going to bed; the light emitted by your technological devices can interfere with the production of your sleep hormone, making it more difficult to fall asleep. Needless to say, you should banish your TV from your bedroom if you have the bad habit of falling asleep while it’s on. You should also refrain from having caffeine late in the afternoon if you want to fall asleep seamlessly, as caffeine can be in effect as long as 6 hours after consuming it. Instead, what your routine should include is a relaxing activity before bed to help you wind down and prepare for a good night’s rest. For instance, take a bath or shower and read a book.

Consistency is key

A good nighttime routine also has to be consistent. If you want to make it easier for your body to fall asleep and get up, you should make sure you go to bed and get up at the same time every day – this includes weekends, too. Keep in mind that in order to get up early but still get enough sleep, your bedtime needs to be earlier, too. At first, it might be difficult to adjust it. Doing it gradually can help, but as time goes by, you will notice that your body gets used to it. Keeping your bedtime and wake up time consistent indeed makes it much easier to get up early without feeling groggy.

Let the sunlight in

As we already mentioned, light can interfere with your sleep schedule. Too much artificial light at night will not let you have a good night’s rest. But that is not the whole story. On the other hand, a deficiency of light will make it difficult for you to properly wake up. Daylight is one of those things that tell your body that it’s time to start the day, and with a lack of sunlight in the morning, you will find it more difficult to obey your alarm clock. This can be remedied by leaving your blinds or curtains open when you go to bed and allowing the rising sun to gradually wake you up in the morning. However, this solution is not viable for everyone. If there is a lot of artificial light leaking in through your windows at night, you would sacrifice your quality of sleep this way. In that case, the next best thing you could do is open your blinds or curtains as soon as you wake up. 

Find the right alarm

We all hate our alarm clocks, but this does not have to be like this. In fact, the annoying sound of the alarm clock is not exactly ideal for a peaceful morning ritual. Unnatural, sudden and loud sounds, such as beeping, wake you up too suddenly and can cause sleep inertia. It is not a pleasant feeling, but unless you absolutely cannot wake up to anything else, you should switch to something gentler. In fact, melodic sounds that come in gradually and don’t jolt you awake but still wake you up effectively are less likely to cause sleep inertia. So, keep this in mind when choosing your alarm sound. If you are one of those people who have trouble waking up to their alarm, push snooze way too much or simply sleep through their alarm, you should implement a different approach. One thing you could do is placing your alarm clock far away from your bed so that you need to get up to turn it off. Once you’re up, resist the urge to go back to bed but use to opportunity to open the blinds and do some stretches.

The power of morning coffee

Earlier, we have mentioned that you need some good reasons to get out of bed ahead of time. For some people, this can be something as simple as morning coffee. Coffee is more than just a beverage, it’s a ritual, and we all know how important routines and rituals are for a balanced life. If you love coffee, indulging in it every morning will improve your mood and your day, not to mention a hot cup of joe will also wake you up and make you more alert. The caffeine in coffee stimulates your brain, so you’ll feel more ready to take on the day, and the fact that the antioxidants in coffee make it a healthy beverage is just a bonus. You can implement a ritual of grinding and brewing coffee yourself in the morning, or you can use a coffee machine and get your cup of joe with just the push of a button. In addition, you can stock up on coffee pods with different flavours and experiment every morning, which will make you look forward to getting up.

Play some music

Music makes everything better, so if you want to start the day in a good mood, you should start listening to music as a part of your morning routine. If you don’t live alone and don’t want to wake up your household members, you can use Bluetooth earphones that won’t get in the way as you’re going about your routine. Playing your favourite upbeat tunes first thing in the morning will help immensely with getting out of bed and it will give you a boost of energy. It can even become a part of your motivation to become a morning person. You can look forward to finding out what song your favourite music streaming platform has prepared for you for the day every morning.

Prepare and conquer

Another thing that would be useful to include in your nighttime routine is preparing for the next morning. We tend to procrastinate on mundane tasks, such as choosing what to wear or packing our lunch. We leave them to the morning when we’ll be in a rush and just get stressed out because of the lack of time. Starting the day by getting stressed by something that could have been easily avoided is not exactly ideal. So, what you can do is prepare as much as you can the night before. Prepare your outfit, prepare your breakfast and lunch, pack your bag... these are small things but they will give you peace of mind, knowing that you will have plenty of extra time in the morning to get ready comfortably. Getting some tasks out of the way will also lower your anxiety and help you sleep better.

Set yourself up for a good day    

Ultimately, no matter why you decided to do this, the reason you are working towards becoming a morning person is to improve the quality of your days in one way or another. Whether it’s to be more productive and feel diligent or to be healthier and feel better about yourself, certain activities will help you if you implement them in your routine. For instance, waking up just half an hour earlier so that you can do some stretching, yoga or exercise is a great way to have a more productive day. But doing something that you like in that short time, such as journaling or reading, is also a great way to put you in a good mood. If you know that you will feel better throughout your day if you wake up early and enjoy some of these activities before your day starts, there will be nothing holding you back from becoming the morning person you want to be.

Change your mindset

As you can see, becoming a morning person is not something that will happen overnight, so, don’t be too hard on yourself. However, if you are constantly saying that you admire those who can wake up early and achieve a lot before the rest of the world has crawled out of their bed but you simply cannot do that, you are making yourself believe so and are setting yourself up for failure. Like many other lifestyle changes, this one, too, depends a lot on your mindset, so that is where you should start your journey from. With the aforementioned tips, you should be able to become an early bird and catch the worm before the world has even woken up.