It's not Friday, it's Sunday (where did all that time go?!), but it does felt like this weekend didn't come at all. I was buried under too much assignments and projects to update this space, but now I'm giving myself a little breather so here I am. I'm feeling extremely guilty because I didn't fulfill any part of last week's resolution of waking up the moment the alarm rings in the morning because my sleep cycle is pretty much messed up now. But not all is lost, as throughout the week while I hit the snooze buttons repeatedly to catch precious minutes of sleep, I have devised 5 methods to wake up in the morning much more easily:
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| Photo credits: instructables.com |
If the latest you need to wake up is at 8am, don't set your alarm too early at say, 7.15am, and space out your alarms in intervals of 15 minutes all the way till 8am. The chances of you hitting the snooze button is 100% and the chances of oversleeping is pretty high too. You wake up groggy, full of angst, and dissatisfied.
Recommended: Set your alarm four minutes before the time you need to wake up. Why four minutes? Five is just enough for a little quick snooze, but to deter yourself from falling into that trap - four. Or three. Then, set a second alarm at the time you are supposed to wake up. That thought of entertaining another snooze button so quickly is likely to push you off the bed a little easier.
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| Photo credits: watchfit.com/ |
You know what they say: ruin your favourite song by setting it as your alarm. But it makes for a personal good morning gift to yourself if you can wake up to something lovely.
Recommended: Set an upbeat, cheerful song as your alarm, or something that you always perk up to when you hear it. Try not to choose something melodious or you'll sleep through it. My personal alarm rings to the tune of 爱是一颗幸福的子弹 because it's something that my brain clicks to.
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| Photo credits: rockthetrend.com/ |
3. Scientific: Plan your sleeping hours at multiples of 90 minutes.
It's all about the REM sleep cycle: at the end of every 90 minutes from the moment we start falling asleep, we enter a more shallow stage of sleeping - which makes waking up more natural. If you were to force yourself to wake in the middle of an REM sleep cycle, you will wake up more disoriented. This method really helped me a lot whenever I'm tight on time during exam periods. Read this for in-depth explanation.
Recommended: Plan ahead and set your alarm in multiples of 90 minutes, a minimum of 3 cycles in the night - 4.5 hours (3 cycles), 6 hours (4 cycles), 7.5 hours (5 cycles). This way, you will be more ready for the whole day.
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| Photo credits: wired.com |
4. Make dreamland less appealing, or reality more attractive.
Tall order when it dreamland means no assignments, a carefree lifestyle and fluffy comforters. But little efforts count when it comes to overcoming the ginormous inertia called waking up.
Recommended: Tidy your room, pick out an outfit, visualize your morning to-do list before you need to get out of the house - throw in a little something or two to look forward to, perhaps checking on your overnight oats or meeting your best friend for breakfast.
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| Photo credits: one-eye-closed.com |
5. Stop lying down and...
A little trick I've discovered throughout my whole week of trying to achieve my resolution - it's only a battle between the mind and the (lazy) body. If you're strong-willed enough to trick the body into believing that it doesn't need sleep as much as it's trying to convince your mind, then perhaps you can enjoy truly angst-free mornings.
Recommended: Putting your feet to the ground helps a lot as a first step and signals to your body to wake up. It immediately switches the body to waking mode, and keeps you moving for the day.
Do you have any tricks to help yourself wake up faster? Share them in the comments!
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