The WoW Style

Are you a sleep thief?

What’s the first thing you do when you wake up? Do you find yourself trying to steal a few more minutes of delicious sleep? If so, it’s time to create a more exciting morning routine with our morning wakeup tips.

While catching a few extra z’s may seem like an innocent way to kill a few minutes in the morning, the snooze button can be doing you more harm than good. When you wake up in the morning, it’s because your brain is ready to start the day. Going back to sleep can restart the sleep cycle, making it hard to feel fresh when you finally do get up.

You’ll also be setting the wrong intention for the day, one where it seems like you’re trying to avoid the day, rather than embrace it. Instead of running away from the morning, make waking up an experience you look forward to every single night.

Read on to learn about 4 different ways to start you’re day off right!

Stretch and Breathe

Light stretching and breathing exercises, made our list of morning wakeup tips since they help you get into your body after a long night’s rest. After a while of consistently waking up and doing a stretching and breathing session, your brain will expect it, and your body will look forward to it.

Here’s a list of exercises you can start using in your morning routine right away:

• Inhale and Exhale (timed intervals)
• Wrist Stretches
• Ankle Stretches

Since your body’s been still for hours while you were sleeping, your muscles won’t be as flexible as they are at the end of the day. Keep things simple by just gently twisting your wrist in a circular motion one way for a little while, and then the other way for a little bit. Next, switch to the other wrist, and eventually do the same thing for each ankle.

While you’re doing these simple stretches, you can also begin the inhale and exhale exercise. For the inhale and exhale exercise, you’ll start by inhaling slowly for 4 seconds, and exhaling for 4 seconds.

Next, inhale for 5 seconds, and exhale for 5 seconds. You’ll continue to increase both the inhale and exhale by 1 second until you reach 10 seconds.

Night Owl Morning Wakeup Tips

If you’re used to staying up late and sleeping in, suddenly changing your schedule can surprise your brain and body. For night owls, we suggest embracing the shock of waking up early by taking an ice-cold shower.

Here are a few morning wakeup tips to make your shower even more refreshing:

• Relax your body
• Breathe deeply
• Play music with a shower speaker

Your cold shower can be an invigorating experience that removes unwanted tension from your body, while also priming it to prepare for the day. Since the water will be cold, it’s natural to want to scrunch up your face, tighten your muscles, and maybe even raise your shoulders towards your ears. However, to truly benefit from a cold shower, you have to relax your body, and allow yourself to feel temporarily uncomfortable.

Millionaire life coach, Tony Robbins, spends time in his plunge pool, filled with cold water, every single morning. He enjoys cold showers mainly for the physical health benefits, such as stress reduction, and better circulation.

Create a Bedtime Routine

The way you go to sleep will dramatically impact the way you wake up in the morning. If you want to know how to live without an alarm, start by perfecting your nighttime routine.

Here are a few do’s and don’ts when it comes to creating a good night time ritual:

• Avoid screens an hour before sleeping
• Don’t eat right before going to bed
• Once in your bed, don’t do any activities but sleep
• Turn off any unwanted noises

Looking at things on your phone, or watching t.v. right before bed, can hurt your sleep quality. Instead of unwinding, your brain’s working hard to make sense of what it’s seeing, and the light’s from the screen can trick your body into thinking it’s time to be awake. You should also avoid doing anything but sleeping while you’re in bed.
While reading may seem like a great bedtime routine, it’s only helpful if you do it while you’re not actually in your bed. If possible, it’s best to read outside of your bedroom altogether.

When you read in bed, you’re signaling to your brain that your bed’s not just a place to sleep. On the other hand, if you only use your bed to catch z’s, your brain will start to activate sleep mode, the second your head hits the pillow.

Go Green for Breakfast

Green vegetables are jam-packed with all of the nutrients you need to start your day off right. Rather than weighing your stomach down with heavy carbs, or sugary cereals, give yourself an incredible advantage by going green. Nutrients like vitamins K, A, C, B6, and more, exist in leafy greens like Kale.

If a salad in the morning doesn’t sound exciting to you, that’s a-okay. We love encouraging our readers to blend up their morning dose of greens into a delicious, protein-packed smoothie.

Here’s a list of ingredients to make a healthy smoothie that also tastes great:

• Handful Kale
• Handful Spinach
• ½ cup Greek Yogurt
• 1 tbsp Flax seeds
• 1 tbsp Chia seeds
• 1 tbsp peanut butter
• ½ banana

It’s up to you whether you want to mix your smoothie with fruit juice, or water. To get the healthiest smoothie, we suggest using water and adding in a couple of pieces of frozen fruit for flavor. Tart frozen fruits such as strawberries, mangoes, and pineapples, tend to work best with this smoothie recipe.

Become a Morning Person

Now you know all about our best morning wakeup tips! When you take the time to care for your body, mind, and heart, your morning can be a truly empowering time.

We hope that our article will inspire you to become the morning person you’ve always wanted to be. If you want to find more ways to bring more sunshine moments into your world, check out our Lifestyle section.