Rise and Shine

Rise and shine?

by Maya Nauphal

 

Waking up early to go to school every morning: probably most challenging part of your day. Your alarm goes off, you press the snooze button repeatedly until you are late for class. No matter how much you know you should get up, your brain somehow negotiates you right back to sleep. And worst of all, once you’re up, all you can think about is how inviting your bed looks. Seems pretty hopeless doesn’t it?

Here are a couple of tips to get your morning started efficiently:

 

-       Set your alarm clock 5 to 10 minutes before you need to wake up – you will then have extra time to fight with your body to get out of bed.

-       Place your alarm clock away from your bed so that you will have to get up to turn it off. Use two alarms if necessary.

-       Do not listen to the voice inside your head, the one telling you that ‘a couple more minutes’ won’t make a difference. Those ‘couple of minutes’ will quickly turn into half an hour. The more you think about it, the less you will want to get up. Rather, make jumping out of bed a reflex.

-       Try to include bananas, eggs or yogurt in your breakfast. These foods contain tyrosine, an amino acid that helps ‘create’ dopamine and norepinephrine, your brain’s ‘wake up’ chemicals.

-       Drink a glass of ice-cold water as soon as you get up. The cold will shock your body into waking up.

-       Don’t have a cup of tea/coffee every morning. Studies have shown that your body gets accustomed to caffeine so the more you drink it, the less effective it becomes. Save the caffeine for really bad mornings.

If none of the above work, try finding someone to pull you out of bed on time.