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I just love to be cosy in bed.
I had horrific insomnia in my early twenties, and worked really hard to get into a bedtime routine – including no caffeine after 3pm, a calm and serene bedroom and a consistent bedtime. So now, going to sleep isn't a problem –it's waking up with enough time to enjoy my morning.
At the moment, my alarm goes off at 7.30am, and I snooze it until 8.15am – giving me 30 minutes to shower, get dressed and out of the house.
I'd love to be able to get up just a little earlier – I'm writing a book at the moment, and would love to be able to do some work in the mornings. I'd also like to be psyched to go for a run before my day starts.
So I tried a couple of the most popular "morning person" hacks on the internet, to see if any of them could work for me.
1. Tackle my snooze problem head-on with an app.
AlarmMon is an app that makes you play a game to shut off the alarm. The idea is that the mental stimulation will wake you up enough to get out of bed. I'm sorry to say that this was an absolute disaster.
The UX of the app is awful – it took me several goes to set up the alarm the night before, and I kept clicking on pop-up ads accidentally. When my alarm went off at 7.30am, I got so befuddled that I played 2 seconds of the game before closing the app. I tried to update the alarm to go again in 15 minutes, but just kept opening tab after tab of spammy ads!
The other annoying thing is that you have to make sure the app is open and running all night – it doesn't have permissions enabled to sync up with your regular alarm clock.
Will I keep this habit up? Absolutely not.
2. Lay your clothes out the night before.
A large part of being a "morning person" involves being more organised the night before. I love choosing new outfits to try, but when I'm in a rush in the mornings I fall back on the same options. When the weather is hot, that means I end up wearing the same two sleeveless jumpsuits on repeat.
I took some time one evening to try out some new ways of wearing these light pinstripe trousers from H&M – and settled on this cute "retired lady artist but make it fashion" look. It was really relaxing to hop in the shower in the morning and know exactly what I was going to wear.
Will I keep this habit up? Yes!
3. Try a sleep lamp to wake me up gradually so that when my alarm goes off, I'm less groggy.
My friend and colleague Jasmin raves about her Lumin lamp but at £60, it's a little steep. I wanted to find an affordable dupe, that would still wake me up early.
There were plenty of cheaper options on Amazon (under £19.99), but I went for a slightly more expensive lamp that had 81% five/four star reviews – the IREALIST, £30.
It's stylish and easy to operate, and fits in nicely alongside my Muji diffuser. I've used it for a week straight, and the gradual sunrise has meant that while I'm still not super-keen to get up, I'm far less groggy.
The only downside is that the radio antenna isn't great, so I use the pre-set sounds to wake up. If you want a radio to wake you up, it might be worth investing an a sunrise clock that has that as its focus.
Will I keep this habit up? Yes!
4. Make breakfast.
I don't get hungry until around 10am, so I don't want to shovel in food while I'm still yawning at home. But maybe eating something will help me wake up and be more alert? Unfortunately, the answer was no – this just didn't happen. My boyfriend makes me a cup of coffee before he leaves for work, and that's about as much as I can handle until 10. So as much as I wanted to be a breakfast at home person, this wasn't for me. I'll keep having some cereal when I get into work.
Will I keep this habit up? Nope.
5. Try getting up early at the weekend too.
Getting up early in the morning at the weekends goes against all I believe in, but Morning People swear by it.
However, I quickly learned that getting up early at the weekend doesn't mean that I have to be *productive*. On Saturday, I got up at my normal weekday time of 8am, and took some coffee back to bed to read the paper on my phone. I got dressed and went to get groceries at 10.30am, and by 11am I had bought the ingredients to try out a recipe from a new cookbook (Dining In by Alison Roman, so good!). On Sunday, I was a little hungover, but still got up at 9.30am to potter around the house. It was really great to have so much of the day stretching out ahead of me.
Will I keep this habit up? Yeah, I'd like to!
6. Drink water to feel more clear-headed.
I have a water bottle next to my bed, but only use it to take a sip to wash down my daily medication – or if I wake up SUPER THIRSTY after a salty dinner. But my Morning Person research tells me that chugging some water in the mornings will help me wake up.
I alternate between two water bottles – one is a Chilly's x Pret large insulated one, and the other is a Corkcicle that I got in TK Maxx. I like them both because they keep water cold overnight.
So when my 2nd (ok, fine, 3rd alarm) went off at 7.50am, I drank the whole bottle, and sat up straight in bed. Drinking icy cold water certainly helped me wake up, and though I still dicked about on Instagram for 20 minutes, I was in work five minutes early.
Will I keep this habit up? Yes!
7. Exercise first thing.
I find it very hard to motivate myself to exercise before work, unless I have a class booked, but Morning People say it's the greatest. To my credit, I tried to find some classes near my house, but there was nothing available that would get me into work on time.
I then set my alarm earlier than usual, so that I could go for a run outside, or do some Yoga With Adriene at home (I love her!) . I laid out my exercise clothes by the bed, and ran a slow but steady 20 minute loop around my area. I felt great afterwards, but I don't think it's something I'll keep up – I love to use exercise to de-stress after work, and I still think booking a class in the evenings is the best way for me to do that. Maybe it's not what a Morning Person would do, but I'm trying to be kinder to myself, and find ways to make changes work for me.
Will I keep this habit up? Probably not.
What did I learn?
It's ambitious to try and make changes to your body clock – and what works for some people doesn't work for everyone.
That said, I still learned some useful things – I've begun to build time into my mornings to allow me to do the things I enjoy. I set my alarm a little early so I can happily browse through Instagram with a cup of coffee, and I drink a load of water first thing to wake me up. I've claimed back some of my weekends, and am a total convert to the natural light alarm clock.