Wake Up Early for More Self-Care
How do you begin each day? If you are not a morning person like me it can be hard to start each day. But it’s important to give yourself time in the morning for yourself. Make a plan to wake up early for more self-care.
Wake Up Early for More Self-Care
Part of the reasons that it’s hard for some people to wake up is because they spend too much time on devices before they should be going to sleep. Scientists have been studying effects of electronic devices on sleep and they say that the data does not bode well for people who love to be on their devices in bed. Many people who have these behaviors have reported that they have experienced remarkable decreases in sleep and sleep satisfaction.
I know I am guilty of this. Often I cannot fall asleep when I’ve been watching on my phone in the evening. It’s important to set a time limit for devices to remind yourself to settle down at a specific time. This is so easy to do on most phones! You can have it power down or quit out of apps at a certain time. Even my middle-schooler does this on school nights so that she goes to sleep on time.
Instead of going to bed with your devices, you should set them to do not disturb mode, or turn them off completely. This will allow you to have a better quality of sleep. A better route to take would be to try reading something soothing before you go to sleep. That way you’re engaging your imagination, which is a lot easier to deal with than the effects of screen light radiation.
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Have Good Bedtime Care Habits
Are you relaxed before you go to bed? Staying away from technology has already been mentioned here, but there are lots of other things that you can do to help you to get good rest, and reduce stress. Sometimes it’s a good idea to do some stretches 1 – 2 hours before bed time. That will help keep your body flexible, and maybe even get your heart rate up for a few minutes. After you cool down from some light movement, your body will be more relaxed and ready to get into bedtime modes. You can push this further by taking a nice soothing shower. That will help to further relax your body, and put you in a calmer state of mind.
Choose a New Alarm Tone
Once you’ve gotten into better habits of resting, you can begin to start to find ways to wake yourself up earlier. One of these ways would be to try using a new alarm for your wake-up time.
The new alarm will make it easier for you to get up because it’s a lot less familiar than whichever one you’ve been using. That will keep you ready when you hear it, and you’ll be a lot less likely to hit the snooze button and send yourself back into the bad habit of leaving at the last minute. In fact, it would be a good idea to stop using the snooze button entirely, because it can help you to feel more tired when you’re jarred out of
sleep multiple times each morning. Sleep until you need to get up, then get up right away so that you don’t waste precious time.
Make Changes in the Room
One really easy way to force yourself to get up would be to change the orientations of your room. Try putting your alarm somewhere you can’t reach it so that you have to physically get your body out of bed to shut it off. Once you’re on your feet, it’ll be easier to just take yourself to the shower. You might even want to make setting up a shower time outfit part of your night routine before bed. That way you’ll be reminded of the plan
that you had for the day, take your shower, and spend your time getting ready early.
Have a Schedule for Your Morning?
A great way to make sure that you take care of everything you need in the morning would be to make a schedule for your morning hours. This makes it easier for you because it takes the guesswork out of what you need to be doing with that part of the day. That allows you to start with confidence and the expectations that you’ve set for yourself. As you check things off the list, you’ll be able to start your day with a feeling of
accomplishment, and the knowledge that you’ve already taken some of the stresses of the day off of the table.
Give Yourself the Time
The most important part of getting up earlier, is the time that you’ve set for yourself. This is the part of your day where you will focus on some kind of positive message like a positive mantra or daily affirmations, reading something soothing, or doing positive self-talk. This will allow you to start your day feeling refreshed and protected as you meet the challenges that are presented.