Not a morning person? Tried all the “meditation-in-the-morning” wake up tips to try and make mornings better? If those haven’t worked, don’t give up. For happier, more organized mornings, you just need a few tangible tips that are easy to try once and easier to replicate day after day. But first …
As you gain wisdom through your 30s, 40s and 50s, you lose a small percentage of deep, dreamless sleep each decade – that’s the kind of sleep that helps you wake up feeling refreshed and well-rested. So you do have to combat this natural shift by stacking your cards in favour of falling asleep quickly because unfortunately, REM-sleep loss increases little by little until your 60s. If that feels dark, don’t worry, the happy stuff is coming up next.
Set the stage for better sleeps and more organized mornings
Sleep research consistently shows an uncluttered room is proven to contribute to better sleep patterns. You don’t need to go totally minimalist – but you do need to reduce the amount of visual clutter in your bedroom. It’s called Mess Stress, and studies using brain MRIs have revealed neatness allows the brain to focus more, and better perform the tasks it needs to do.
“Clutter bombards our minds with excessive stimuli (visual, olfactory, tactile), causing our senses to work overtime on stimuli that aren’t necessary or important. [It]… constantly signals to the brain that one’s work is never done.”
– Sherrie Bourg Carter, psychologist
If you need help keeping your home, and your bedroom clean and uncluttered, consider a home cleaning service once a week. This will help you create a more calming space so your brain can be ready for sleep. Another top tip for falling asleep faster: Put down the phone and pick up an actual book.
Reading before bed helps your mind switch gears and shut off work-related or family-related thoughts. You know, the kind of thoughts that normally keep you lying awake at night and impact your morning.
4 more wake up tips you can use right now to make happier, more organized mornings
We’ve already covered the first big point: Start the night before. But there’s more to it than one helpful tip. Will the rest of these suggestions help turn you into a “morning person?” Probably not, but they will help get you out of bed faster and switch you into “day mode” easier. The trick is committing to the new plan for a month. It usually takes about 2 weeks to create a new habit and you should start to find things easier after that point but … commit to a month and see how you feel then.
Stop the snooze
Oh, this one’s hard. A trick is to set your alarm to the latest possible time you need to get out of bed in order to make it to work/school on time. If you don’t leave yourself any wiggle room, you’ll be late. And you’ll only have to be late a few times to realize that when that alarm goes off, you actually need to get up now.
Make your bed
If you make it, you won’t crawl back into it. You get instant gratification that you’ve already accomplished something in your day right off the bat. And, you are helping prep for a better tuck-down later that evening, so it’s a win-win-win. Make. Your. Bed … as soon as you get out of it.
Drink a cup of lemon water
Part of a happy morning is having a routine you can lean into, so you depend on muscle memory to get you through the worst part of your morning (which is usually the first few minutes). Start the day fresh with lemon water! Before you eat or drink, brush your teeth to get rid of the morning fuzz. Then start your day with a healthy jolt of citrus and H2O because squeezing half a fresh lemon into a cup of water does several great things for your body first thing in the morning:
- It gets you into the habit of drinking more water during the day
- It can set the tone for healthier food choices during the day
- It gives you a quick-boost of Vitamin C, which helps the immune system and enhances iron absorption from plant foods
This is a start to a new, clean morning routine and if fresh lemons are too pricey, you can absolutely use a tablespoon or two of concentrated lemon juice.
Follow a “getting ready” routine
Organized mornings really do come down to a solid morning routine. Take a look at how your morning routines usually go and look for ways to connect certain things-to-be-done to certain times. What time do you need to be out of the shower? What time do you have to be dressed and made-up? What time do your kids need to be up and having breakfast? If you can connect tasks to times that leave everyone enough time to get things done without being rushed, you’ll be able to set a more relaxed yet efficient pace to your morning.
Bonus tip: Outsource the things you don’t personally need to do, at least some of the time
You don’t have to be the one doing all the work all of the time. If you can get yourself and your family out of the house on time, feeling relaxed and ready for the day, then you can feel really great that while you’re all out, a home cleaning service is coming in to take care of your housework chores. Talk about helping you set the tone for clean and happy mornings and a good day! It won’t take long to start looking forward to waking up on “the-cleaner-is-coming-today!” days …
