Spring is just on the horizon, and the longer days may be waking you up a little earlier than usual. Instead of fighting the early sunrises, considering starting to embrace the fact that you’re naturally woken up! Here are some ways to make your transition to a “morning person” a bit easier on your body.
Start off your mornings right by ending your days right! The first step may be preparing yourself for an easy morning before heading to bed. This could mean fully charging your laptop and phone, packing your bag for the following day, preparing meals, and having a general idea of what you’re going to wear the next day (which may also mean checking the weather the night before!) Alongside your preparation, get in the habit of a nightly routine. This could mean showering or washing your face, then brushing and flossing your teeth, face masks, moisturizer, and all those fun yet tedious beauty and health necessities. When you actually go to bed, you may even consider meditating before sleeping to slow your body down and relax.
In the mornings, it can be easy to roll over and press snooze on your alarm. If this is an issue you have, you could try placing your phone far enough away from your bed so that you physically have to get up in order to turn it off. Then you’ve already overcome the hardest part of getting up early—actually getting up! Next, you can either make your bed or get dressed in the outfit you’ve hopefully already thought of the night before! Something that I’ve found to making waking up a bit more fun (if that word’s even applicable to waking up early) is doing something you enjoy when you wake up early as a sort of reward for making yourself get out of bed. I like to watch Netflix while drinking my coffee, or journal.
Fueling your body for the day is also crucial when getting up early. I am very much a coffee person, and I know that I need coffee to wake up. Before my coffee, I try to drink at least a glass of water and drink a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar in water. ACV is a great source of probiotics and has become part of my morning routine as it helps with digestion! If you’re looking to kick start your digestive system without the vinegar-y taste of apple cider vinegar or kombucha, drinking hot lemon water before caffeinating your system may serve as a worthy alternative. Make sure to follow up with a nutritious breakfast (if that’s what your body is feeling) and then finish up getting ready for your day by maybe putting on makeup, doing your hair, or whatever it may be that makes you feel fabulous before taking on the world!
Know that your mornings should motivate you and prepare you for whatever you have going on that day. If waking up early starts making you feel groggy or takes a heavy toll on your day, you may not be heading to bed early enough! It’s ideal to get 8-10 hours of sleep a night, although that may not be wholly realistic for the average college student. Most nights, I try to get at least 7 hours of sleep so that I can function the next day. Hopefully these tips help you generate new, fresh starts to your bright spring days!
Make sure to like HC Belmont on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, pin with us on Pinterest, and love us on Instagram