We’ve
all met people who seem consistently chipper early in the morning, and
experience no observable loss of vigour or enthusiasm during the day.
For
some, this comes quite naturally. Many habitual early-risers have the built-in
ability to get up early and still maintain an adequate energy level without
resorting to copious infusions of caffeine. If this description sounds like
you, then you’re probably a morning person. Good for you!
Others
are less fortunate. If you find you need to drag yourself out of bed in the
morning, and feel an urge to whack away at the snooze-bar on your alarm clock
(possibly dislodging a few items from your bedside table in the process), then
you’re likely not a morning person. Maybe you’re a night owl. Or perhaps you
just enjoy getting an ample nightly amount of shut-eye.
To
be sure, old habits die hard. If you’re a non-morning person who has recently
embarked upon a career path that will require you to get up much earlier than
you’re used to, or if you’d just like to increase your productivity early in
the day, then you’ll need to adjust your routine. Changes in sleep patterns are
not always easy to stomach—but there are some practical steps you can follow to
ease the transition.
In
any case, the key is to ensure you go to bed early enough to still get a
healthy amount of sleep; experts recommend about eight hours for most adults.
•
Simplify your morning routine—before you retire for the night.
Lay out
your clothes, organize your lunch and snacks for the following day, and pack
anything else you need in your luggage/briefcase/backpack. The last thing you
want in the morning is to squander precious minutes hunting around for
important items, or (even worse) realizing you’ve forgotten something after
you’ve left for work.
•
To fall asleep sooner, power down and cut the lights.
Several
years ago, I spent some time volunteering in a village in rural Costa Rica. In
that community, as in many parts of Central America, locals both go to bed and rise
quite a bit earlier than I was accustomed to in Canada. This is partly because
farmers in pastoral areas are obliged to begin their work early in the day. But
it’s also a function of the day-night cycle in regions near the equator, where
the duration of daylight hours varies little over the course of a year.
One
factor that I believe facilitated my quick transition to the Costa Rican sleep
pattern, was that the community where I stayed had little noise at night (apart
from a few animal sounds), and was relatively dark after the sun set—just after
8:00 PM. There were no streetlights, and few appliances or television sets.
There
is a useful lesson here for those of us who live in cities and industrialized
areas: if you’d like to go to sleep and wake up earlier more easily, try to
isolate yourself from bright lights and noisy appliances at least half an hour
before your intended bedtime. Reading with a nightlight or listening to some
gentle music before bed is okay—but watching TV or checking e-mails immediately
before you hit the hay might interfere with your ability to fall asleep.
•
Find an alarm clock that works for you.
The
archetypal alarm clock jars the sleeper into consciousness with a strident
“beep, beep, beep”. But that high-pitched hectoring is not for everyone, and it
doesn’t exactly launch the day on a pleasant note.
Fortunately,
a wide range of alternatives are now available, including daylight simulators
that gradually brighten, and high-tech alarms that slowly entice you into a
state of wakefulness with gentle tones. There are also various apps available
for your smartphone.
•
Suppress the urge to hit the snooze bar.
Waking
up once is hard enough. Trying to wake up twice in the space of ten minutes (or
three times in the space of twenty minutes, as the case may be) can actually
disrupt your circadian rhythms, and leave you feeling sluggish and
discombobulated. Furthermore, if you stay in bed long enough to allow yourself
to slip into a deeper sleep stage, you’ll likely find it even harder to get up
on your next attempt.
•
Leave yourself plenty of time for a wholesome breakfast—at least
twenty minutes.
A
balanced breakfast that includes fruits and vegetables, proteins, and complex
carbohydrates will allow you to maintain peak performance throughout the day,
and help you avoid some of the negative consequences associated with quick (but
not necessarily healthy) breakfast options—including heartburn, an upset
stomach, or an energy level that wanes by the mid-afternoon.
