Becoming a morning person

Becoming a morning person

Some (a lucky few) are naturally ‘morning people’ – they delight in, and are rather smug about, being ‘early risers’; making the rest of us feel completely inadequate due to appreciating a damn good snooze.

It’s probably, in the interest of being upfront and honest, worth flagging at this point that nothing you’re going to read here will necessarily change your natural inclination, but here are our three top tips to tackling the issue… and we promise we won’t tell you not to hit the snooze button!

Don’t Hit Snooze.

OK, so we lied. But this is really important – if you get up as soon as your alarm wakes you (TIP – don’t keep it in easy reach!), you simply won’t have time to convince yourself you don’t want to get up, only to leave yourself with a minuscule amount of time before you need to set off to get to the office. Instead, you will be up with plenty of time, allowing time for breakfast, an awakening shower, a much less stressful journey to work, and possibly even something useful like exercising; catching up on emails; or listening to the latest TED talk.

Eventually, this might even become as much of a habit as continually pressing the snooze button was.

Be consistent.

This is sometimes referred to as good ‘sleep hygiene’ – by falling asleep and waking at the same times each day (even at the weekend) your internal clock will become so much more accustomed to a routine that getting up will no longer feel like such a chore, AND your working day will undoubtedly become more productive with evidence suggesting that this approach can also vastly increase energy levels.

Be as prepared as possible

If getting up is somewhat daunting, then take the time the evening before to prepare as much in advance as you can.

Preparing breakfast (and lunch), getting your clothes ready and thinking about the key things on your to do list of an evening will not only ensure that you sleep more soundly, but also that your morning will go off without a hitch.