Good Morning, Sunshine

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Before we begin, I want to chat about those little New Years Resolutions some of us made a few months back. How are you doing on those, by the way? Did you know that 38% of South Africans never make resolutions? I was surprised by that little stat simply because I always seem to hear the statement "Oh I NEVER make resolutions simply because I always end up breaking them", and so I thought that percentage would be higher. This means that 62% of us DO make resolutions. Want to know something scary? A whopping 8% of us actually stick to our resolutions. So 92% of us that do make resolutions eventually end up forgetting about them or failing at them. Now I wouldn't get too hit up about these stats - they're taken from some pretty little website that probably doesn't have any credibility and it's only resolutions we're talking about.

How does this all fit in with becoming a morning person? Well, I'm glad you asked (and even if you didn't - you probably didn't - I'm going to answer you anyway). One of my resolutions was to become a morning person. And guess what? I failed.

I've come to realise something about myself - if I wake up early, take 30 minutes or so to collect my thoughts/pray/journal, have a shower and just enjoy a quiet moment to myself before the hustle and bustle of the day begins, I am a much happier person. Not only am I a much happier person, but I'm more productive, more calm and collected and am filled with a refreshing energy throughout the day. I also sleep so much better at night if I wake up early in the mornings. With all of this being said, you'd assume I wake up early every day, right? Not so much. In fact, it's quite the opposite. I love my sleep and I really struggle to be an early riser. It makes more sense for me, my health and my happiness to wake up early each morning, yet I struggle to do it. I am a snooze button addict. I'll press that bad boy three or four times before I reluctantly get out of bed and get ready for the day. I know how great I feel if I get up early and I really want to get better at doing it so I thought I'd put together a little "how to", if you will, on how to become a morning person. There a hundreds of articles online about how to become a morning person. These articles of full of helpful tips with scientific reasoning behind how they help and so this is just a little list of things to do that I've pulled from these articles.

Get 8 hours of sleep a night, every night.

We all know that the 8 hour requirement is pretty golden. It's important to make sure you get 8 hours of sleep consistently because firstly, your body needs to rest and secondly, your body will thrive off of knowing that its going to get a consistent amount of rest.

Turn off all electronics 30 minutes before going to bed.

Disconnect, wind down and open a real book with real, paper pages. Forget about replying to that one last email or scrolling through Instagram for five minutes more. Your mind needs to let go of all of that before you fall asleep. If your days are anything like mine, you've been going, going, going all day long - this half hour is a good time for you to reconnect with yourself and sit with your thoughts about the day you've just had.

Have a set wake up time and a set bed time.

This allows your body to know what to expect, and like I said before, your body will thrive off of consistency. After a while your internal body clock will begin setting itself according to your sleep/wake up routine.

Create a night and morning time routine.

I'm all for a good routine. In fact I thrive off of my own little routines - I'm sure you will too. These routines can be as simple as having a shower in the morning once you've woken up or moisturizing your hands before you fall asleep. Whatever works for you my friend!

Expose yourself to natural light

Letting natural light into your bedroom helps adjust your body clock.

Place your alarm clock somewhere that requires you to get out of bed to switch it off.

It's so much easier to hit the snooze button if all it requires of you is to reach to the bed side table next to you. In fact, last year I developed the terrible habit of switching my alarm off in my sleep! I've slept right through important early morning lectures because of this. Putting your alarm somewhere that requires you to get up and out of bed means the hardest part of getting up is done and you can begin your day.

For the next week or two I'm committing myself to implementing these little tips in the hopes of becoming a morning person. Ideally waking up early will simply become a habit and all of life's problems would be solved, right? If only it were that easy. Are you a morning person? If so, drop me a comment with how you do it please? This late sleeper needs to change her ways!