I am the exact definition of a morning person. Even when I’m off school, on holiday or on a weekend, you will scarcely find me asleep past 6.30 am. Sure, I like to stay in bed for another half hour or sometimes even more, but once I’m awake, I’m up! I’ve never been able to understand how people can stay in bed until 8 or 9am- or later! Honestly, it mystifies me!!
Anyway, with all this time I have in the mornings from getting up so early, I manage to take it pretty slow, which is always nice. Because of this, I have lots of time for a morning routine- which I’m going to write about in this post, as well as sharing some tips on how to train your body to wake up earlier.
The first thing I like to do when I wake up is get up and head to the bathroom to wake myself up. Getting out of bed and trekking to the bathroom, as well as splashing cold/ lukewarm water onto my tired face helps me to feel more awake and ready for the day.
After this, I normally shower. Sometimes, I will have showered the night before, so I don’t need too- in which case I’ll get back into bed for a little bit. I tend to only wash my hair a couple times a week, so if I shower on a non-hair wash day, my showers are pretty quick.
After my shower, I get back into bed where I like to read my bible or pray for a little while. Sometimes, if I have a lot of time, I might read or bullet journal or even blog- but I tend to have no more than half an hour most mornings.
After this I get up and get dressed, washing my face again and spritz on some toner if I remember. For breakfast, I like to make smoothies however as it is getting towards the colder months, I’ve just been having a bowl of cereal or toast most mornings. I normally drink water with this.
After breakfast, I do the normal morning things- brush teeth and hair and so on. Then I get ready to leave for school (Monday-Friday), Band rehearsal (Saturday) or Church (Sunday).
What I love about my mornings is that they are so long and relaxed. Sometimes on school mornings, I have as much as an hour and a half between when I get up and when I leave the house. This is really nice because it gives me time to think and means I’m not stressed or rushed.
So what can you do if you want to train yourself to wake up earlier so that you will have longer mornings?
The first thing to do is to go to bed earlier! This probably isn’t a big deal if you go to bed pretty early anyway and get enough sleep, but if you’re going to bed after 11.30 and want to train yourself to wake up quite a bit earlier than you’re used to, you should probably turn in a little earlier- even if it is only by a half an hour.
The next thing you need to make sure you’re doing is getting good quality sleep. This means that you won’t feel so tired when waking up in the morning. This can be done by the obvious things like no screens or food for an hour before going to bed, only drink water or milk, no caffeine late into the afternoon and so on.
Once you’re getting enough good quality sleep, you can work on actually waking up earlier.
To do this, you can use what I would call the ‘three alarms method’. To do this, you set three alarms on your phone or clock or whatever. The first is for 30 minutes before you want to get up, the next for 15 minutes before you want to get up and the last for when you want to get up. Then you leave your alarm on the other side of the room and go to sleep.
When you are woken by the first alarm, get out of bed, walk across the room to turn it off, drink a few sips of water, and go back to bed for 15 minutes. When the second alarm goes off, once again get out of bed and turn it off, then go to the bathroom and wash your face off or take some more sips of water. Then get back into bed for the final 15 minutes. When the final alarm goes off, get out of bed to turn it off and don’t get back into bed. Get dressed or take a shower or have breakfast or do whatever you do first thing in the morning. Hopefully, by the time you get out of bed for the third and final time, you will be pretty awake and ready to go!
Over time, you should find yourself waking up more naturally around the time your alarm goes off. Eventually, you will be able to decrease it to just one alarm 15 minutes before your final alarm. After this, you will be able to take away this alarm too because you will be waking up naturally around half an hour before your final alarm. And finally, if you trust yourself enough, you might be able to get rid of your final alarm and wake up naturally around half an hour before when you need to be out of bed by.
Hopefully, this post has given you some ideas for your own morning routine and some tips for if you need to train yourself to wake up earlier!
Not So Perfect 