How to make winter wake-ups easier

Waking up is hard to do…

In winter, every wake-up seems to feel like when your alarm goes off at 4am because you have a flight to catch. Except that, instead of the excitement of a holiday to pull you through, you have the dread of work to look forward to, and while it feels like 4am, it’s actually 7.

It’s not all in your head

Believe it or not, it feels harder for a reason. Levels of Melotonin (A.K.A. ‘the sleep hormone') cycle daily, and are about 10 times higher during the night than they are during the day. Melatonin plays a significant role in initiating and maintaining sleep so it makes total sense that your brain produces more of it at night. But, levels also cycle seasonally, and are a lot higher in winter months (when nights are longer) than they are in summer. Waking up in the dark confuses your brain (dark means night and night means sleep, right?), which explains why it feels so much worse when your alarm goes off in winter than in summer. As much as your body might want to sleep from 4pm to 9am every day during December, most of the time our schedules can’t really accommodate that and, let’s be honest, you wouldn’t be able to squeeze much fun in either.

So how can you make those winter wake-ups easier? Read on my friend…

Fake it ‘til you make it

Imagine waking up to natural sunlight streaming through your sheer curtains, maybe a few birds lightly chirping and the smell of coffee gently filling the air. Sounds like a fantasy right? For me it felt like a very, very, very distant fantasy. Living in a city centre flat where the bedroom window faces a narrow alley, even the sunniest summer mornings would still fail to create light and I’d find myself suddenly jerked out of sleep either by my alarm or by the bin lorries (ahh nature.) The reality for most people is that winter means darkness and waking up naturally and gradually before work when 7am feels like 3am is hard to do. The solution? Fake it.

What you need:

A sunrise alarm clock
I don’t want to be too dramatic but using a sunrise alarm clock has Changed. My. Life. These clocks are designed to mimic a natural sunrise and are surprisingly bright. You can change the length of the sunrise depending on how gradual you want it, you can alter the brightness, and you can decide whether to add an alarm sound as well (I’ve gone for tropical birds but if you can handle the sound of water without needing to pee then they have a nice gentle wave sound too). Granted I have only been using this since Christmas (thanks Mum) but I can already feel a difference. I set my sunrise to last for 45 minutes, starting at 5.30 and ending at 6.15 and every day I have, without fail, woke up before the sound of tropical birds has gone off. More importantly, when I wake up to this light I actually feel awake and like it’s time to get up. This is the one I have - Lumie Bodyclock Spark 100 - £74.99 - but there are tonnes on the market so shop around.

A coffee machine timer

I don’t have one of these yet (unless you count when my boyfriend makes one for me), but if you love coffee, what better way to lure yourself out of bed? From what I can see, these machines are fairly affordable. Adding this into your routine can even condition your body to wake up when you start to smell the coffee so consider setting it to be ready a couple of minutes before your alarm goes off every morning.

Take a look at them yourself here.

Something to look forward to

Okay so I’m not entirely proud of this but if I miss an episode of Love Island I WILL get up an hour earlier to watch it before work with a coffee. Even though I get up at an ungodly time on these days, I actually feel loads more awake and focused by the time I start work. I’m not saying you need a shameful love for reality TV for this to benefit you, it can be anything from reading a book, exercising, or going for a coffee at your favourite spot. The point is, if you have something that you are excited to do when you get up in the morning (rather than just stuff you have to do like work), it makes it a hell of a lot easier.

It’s not just about waking up

As well as the obvious energy levels and mood, sleep quality is super important for everything from creativity to focus to decision-making. If you want to achieve those goals that you’ve set yourself (in work or outside of work), then you’ve got to address your sleep first and foremost.

Sleep quality starts way before you go to bed. Look at improving it by cutting out caffeine after lunch, incorporating a wind-down routine such as a meditation, a nice bath, or a bit of reading. Night-time melatonin has been shown to be suppressed by even dim light which can make it harder to get to sleep in the first place; try to cut out screen time before bed, put your phone out of reach and switch that TV off!

If you feel like you’d benefit from a bit of herbal help, I’ve found valerian root extract useful in improving my ability to get to (and stay) asleep. I also spray my pillows with lavender mist which is relaxing and also makes me feel like I’m in a fancy hotel.

Sources:

https://www.yourhormones.info/hormones/melatonin/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC270037/

https://newsroom.clevelandclinic.org/2019/03/08/is-hitting-the-snooze-button-bad-for-your-health/