How you wake up in the morning impacts the rest of your day – if you wake up in a rush because you’re stressed out, you missed your alarm, you’re running late, and you feel like you didn’t sleep well, odds are you aren’t going to have the best day! On the other hand, if you wake up feeling refreshed with plenty of time to get ready, you’ll probably feel quite prepared to take on the day!Having an effective morning routine is really important for feeling good. Whether you’re an early bird or a night owl, we’ve got some tips to help you utilise your time in the morning so you can feel and perform your best!
Get your full eight hours of sleep
Funnily enough, one of the key parts of a good morning routine isn’t even about the morning! Rather, you need to be aware of how much sleep you need, and how to achieve that. Generally, eight hours is the standard recommendation – and we think that’s a pretty achievable goal!If you’re aware of when you need to get up in the morning, work backwards from there to figure out when you need to go to sleep to get a full eight hours of rest. If, for example, you know you need to be awake at 6.30, then you should be in bed and asleep by 10.30.The reason this is so vital to a successful morning is simply because it means you can feel refreshed and rested enough to actually get up. Instead of needing “just five minutes more”, having a full eight hours of sleep will enable you to have the energy to get up when your alarm rings!
Use less alarms
Speaking of alarms… Stop hitting snooze! We want the sleep we get to be high quality sleep, and five-minute intervals are not only poor quality sleep, but also one of the most inefficient methods of sleeping. You will likely end up feeling more tired when you hit the snooze button!Even if you didn’t quite manage to get your full eight hours of sleep, we still recommend that you get up at your first alarm. If you really struggle with this, you might like to try putting your phone far away from your bed so you have to physically get up to turn it off!Another added benefit to getting up at your first alarm is that it starts to become an engrained rhythm. Your body will get used to being up and moving at the same time every morning. Eventually, you may not even need the alarm as your body wakes up on time naturally!
Hydrate
How often do you wake up in the morning with a suuuuuuuper dry throat? It’s likely that throughout the night, you’ve become a little dehydrated. Luckily, hydration can be a great way of helping you energise in the morning. Water helps with so many vital functions that it makes sense that it helps wake us up too!One really easy way to build this into your morning routine is to simply fill a glass of water before going to bed and keeping it on your bedside table. This way you can grab it first thing in the morning without even getting out of bed!
Get moving!
Physical exercise can help us mitigate mental fatigue – and doing it in the morning is a great way to snap yourself awake and get into the right headspace for a productive day.The great news about getting moving and getting your heartrate up, is that you don’t actually have to anything too strenuous for it to be effective! You could try a half hour of yoga or taking a run around your neighbourhood. Even if you don’t have the time for that, you might instead just do a short routine of sit-ups, pushups, squats, or any other body weight exercises you felt like doing.Regardless of how long, or how difficult the exercise you do in the morning is, you’ll feel significantly more alert and ready for the day afterwards. As time progresses, you’ll even find yourself wanting to do more each morning!
Review your plan for the day
The goal of having a good morning routine is to allow us to have a productive and enjoyable rest of the day. While you’re a student, this often looks like studying, sports, and any social events. We want to have the energy to enjoy all these things!As a final step in your morning routine, we would recommend reviewing your plan and goals for the day. If you need help figuring out how to set yourself a study schedule, check out our guide here! Having a study schedule is great for utilising your time in the most effective way. However, it’s not very helpful if you aren’t actually using it!This is why it’s a great idea to review your study schedule, and must do priorities first thing in the morning. You can plan your day (and your newfound morning energy!) around what needs to be done to achieve your goals. This allows you to be as prepared and ready as possible for the day ahead, with a clear goal in mind.Like any other skill, building a morning routine is one that takes some practice. You might find that some of these tips work better than you for others! However, it’s important to make sure that you’re setting yourself up for the best day possible – and that starts as soon as you alarm goes off. Want to know more about EduExperts’ educational offering? Get in touch with your local centre here.
