The other side of sleep.

How to wake up

Think of sleep as something that begins the moment you wake up.

In other words, what you do during the day will affect what happens that night.
So let’s look at how to wake up.

While a jarring alarm will certainly get us out of bed, it doesn’t exactly start the day on an enjoyable note, it jacks up our stress hormones immediately, starting our day in “fight or flight” mode.

Here are some more humane solutions.

• Take advantage of natural rhythms. - Sleep occurs in multiple stages, alternating between deeper and lighter sleep. We sleep more and more lightly as the night goes on. If we wake up at just the right moment in our lighter sleep stages, we’ll feel reasonably good and snap into alertness quickly. But if we’re forced to wake up while in a deep sleep phase, we’ll feel groggy, disoriented, and sleepy — suffering from sleep inertia. There are many gadgets and apps that will sense your sleep cycles and wake you up when you’re sleeping your lightest. For example, the iPhone SleepCycle app or SleepBot will wake you up within a pre-specified time window when it senses your wakefulness. You can also track your sleep with gadgets and apps like Zeo or the Fitbit, which will help you gauge where to improve your sleep and wake routines.
  

• Wake up to light.
  The human body is designed to get sleepy when it’s dark and to wake when it is light. However, it is not always feasible to wake up with the sun, and this is especially true if you use light blocking shades to keep your room as dark as possible. Solution: Use a dawn-simulating alarm clock.
  Research shows that when people are slowly roused by gradually increasing light levels, they feel much more alert and relaxed than when they’re woken up by a sudden, blaring alarm. I love my Biobrite alarm close as it slowly lights up my room, reaching maximum brightness at my wake time. Increasing light has also been shown to raise cortisol in the morning (which is an important signal to your body to wake up), and to improve sleep quality.  It can even decrease depressive symptoms in seasonal affective disorders. (One small problem with with the light alarm clock though, if you have a vastly different schedule than the person you share your bed with, this might not make the later sleeper very happy).
  

• Wake up to soft, slowly building noise.
  Some types of alarm clocks (such as the Progressive Alarm Clock app) will also gradually increase noise or music, so that you’re slowly lifted out of sleep rather than being suddenly whacked in the ear with a loud morning DJ. (This one can work when sharing a bed if like me, you wear earplugs to sleep)
  

• Get moving right away.
  While I don’t have any research to support this argument, I believe it helps to put your feet on the floor the minute you wake up. It’s a recommendation I borrowed from Mike Boyle, and it’s worked tremendously well for my clients and me.
  When your alarm goes off, one of the worst things you can do is hit snooze.  Snoozing seems to increase sleep inertia. Instead, once that alarm goes off, simply sit up and put your feet on the floor.  Start shambling towards the bathroom, or anywhere else that isn’t your bed. There is something magical about movement that seems to speed up the waking process.
  

• Expose yourself to more light.
  Whether you wake to a dawn-simulating alarm clock or not, continue to expose yourself to light as soon as possible after waking.  This will stop melatonin production and increase your wakefulness. Throughout the day, get as much light as you can.  Most folks can sneak outside for 5-10 minutes. Run errands at lunch or eat outside. Do as much as you can to get that sunshine. The more bright natural light you can get during your normal waking time, the more your body will know to gear down at your normal sleeping time. (If getting natural light isn’t an option, you could always go with a device like Litebook Elite.)

  
  Think about good sleep as a 24-hour process. What you do during your waking period will affect your sleeping period, and vice versa.
  Reinforce your natural circadian needs. When it’s supposed to be dark and quiet, make things really dark and quiet. When it’s supposed to be bright, noisy, and stimulating, get moving with some bright light.
  Stick to a routine. Bodies love routines and consistency. If your body knows what to expect in your day, it’ll help you wake up and doze off at the right time.
  You can’t control your actual sleep. But you can control your sleep behaviors and environment. Take charge of your actions and surroundings, be consistent, and enjoy the Zs.)

What's so great about waking up? It starts the process for getting a good night sleep tonight.