Become a morning person

Are you dragging yourself out of bed in the morning and still feeling exhausted?

Firstly, it may sound obvious but more sleep is usually a good way to help you reset your body clock. For those that struggle with getting to bed on time for that much needed allocation of rest, here are a few tips:

• Cut back on obligations. If you’d like to get to bed earlier remove an hour’s worth of obligations in the later part of the day.
• Don’t press the snooze button. Research shows that telling yourself the night before that you’re going to get with your alarm works better than a loose wake up time.
• Talk yourself through it. It’s a fact that we all have to get up, start off the day by focusing on the positives rather than the drudgery of day to day tasks.
• Give yourself a reward. When you’ve woken up without pressing the snooze button celebrate it. Perhaps use the extra time in the morning to enjoy your favourite book, magazine, newspaper column or meditate.
• Exercise with the morning sun. Morning exercise kick-starts your metabolism, research shows that exercising before breakfast burns more fat calories.
• Use light to help you wake. Natural light is a sure way to retrain your circadian rhythms and wake earlier.
• Romance yourself to bed. Turn down the lights, volume and brightness on your devices to lull yourself into sleep mode.

Rise and shine.