Snooze button is one of the worst inventions of all time!
What was the first decision you made today?
I bet it was to extend your arm and hit the snooze button on your alarm.
And yeas, we are all guilty of doing this, we all want those “five more minutes” of sleep in our cozy, warm, soft beds. We all kid ourselves that this will give us time to wake up or make us more productive or less tired. But we are doing more harm than good.
By interrupting our sleep cycle we are confusing our brains in turn feeling groggy and more tired than before we hit snooze. This is because our brains start the whole sleep cycle all over again, every time we hit that snooze.
So frustration builds up, not just from that awful sound of the alarm but also because we know we are doing something we are not supposed to. And we start our days being late, stressed, groggy and feeling guilty.
Not a good start of a day in any scenario…
What to do about it?
Nothing, if you are fine the way you are and don’t feel the need to change. I found that changing my routine and switching my late nights for early mornings really helped me out, a lot! All that creative energy, fresh and rested brain, quiet times without giving a single fuck if I would wake the neighbors, more things done, shops work, legit to call people and giggle …. And most importantly, I have a bigger piece of the productive part of the day…
I compiled a list of tips and tricks for better sleep and avoiding snooze I found on the internet and tested them all on myself.
These are the ones that actually work, even on a notorious night owl like myself:
1) Develop a bedtime ritual
• Stop using all electronic at least an hour before bed
• Have a warm shower
• Do relaxing stuff
• Drink a cup of warm tea
• Meditate
2) Go to bed at the same time and wake up at the same time
• This is super important as your body and brain will start getting sleepy and wake up naturally. Our systems love predictability!
3) Quality of sleep is more important than quantity
• Workout regularly in the morning as this will improve the quality of your sleep as well as wake you up
• Set a gentile alarm that will wake you up gradually instead jolting you out of bed
• Ditch alcohol, caffeine and cigarettes at least 4 hrs before bedtime
• Have a light snack like glass of milk or a banana before getting to bed
4) Develop a morning ritual
• Turn off the snooze button and forget about it!!!
• Jump out of bed as soon as the alarm goes off
• Drink water as first thing, this will wake you up
• Do your morning rituals such as coffee, morning pages, breakfast, to do lists…
• Don’t check your social media and email before hitting the office
• Workout! At least 10 min of stretching will do wonders!
5) Set the perfect setting
• We spend around 24 years of our lives sleeping, invest in a comfy bed! Also some good pillows, comforter even pillowtop!
• Adjust the temperature to a nice 22C at all times if possible
• Cover all little LED lights blinking around the room or just buy a nice sleeping mask
• Cut off all distractions in form of phone, emails, kids, pets……
• Don’t do anything else in bed but sleeping and having sex. You can have a comfy chair for reading and never ever bring a phone, tablet or any kind of electronic to bed with you
I hope that this was helpful
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Damn, you are ruthless! If I was to inflict such discipline on myself, I would cry every day... Maybe that is why I'm always late, in a hurry and stressed out :D