How to Wake up Fast When You’re Definitely NOT a Morning Person

I have a confession to make: I wasn’t always a morning person. If it was super early, I’d have half a dozen different alarms set on my phone, about 15 minutes apart, to try to drag my butt out of bed.

Even with a cup or two of Death Wish coffee, which has the highest caffeine content of any commercially available coffee, I’d sleepwalk through the first part of my day, which isn’t ideal when you’re trying to pay attention in a class. Who thought it was a good idea to have classes start so damn early, anyway?

If you’re like I once was and hate the idea of leaving your nice, comfy bed to face the cold, cruel world, here are a few things to help you learn how to wake up fast when you’re definitely NOT a morning person.

1. Keep Your Alarm Away

Most of us set an alarm on our phone, drop it next to the bed and call it a night, but that can make it harder to wake up in the morning. Whether you’re using your phone for an alarm or one of those frightfully annoying rolling alarm clocks that you need to catch before you can shut it off, you need to keep your alarm clock on the other side of the room.

Just standing up in the morning can help make it easier to stay awake and get your day started. Learning how to wake up fast can be a pain, but this is one of the easiest new things you can address.

2. Get Enough Sleep

According to the CDC, as many as one out of every three people aren’t getting enough sleep. You might think you can get away with two or three hours after a night of partying, but it catches up with you.

The average adult needs between seven and nine hours of sleep. Getting up in the morning is a lot easier if you get enough sleep at night.

3. Exercise

If getting out of bed is a struggle, exercising in the morning might seem impossible, but hear me out. Exercising early in the morning helps give you a boost in the form of endorphins which will help get you going.

Plus, it gets your daily workout out of the way early so you don’t have to worry about it for the rest of the day. I highly recommend it!

4. A Minute at a Time

One tip to help you learn how to wake up fast is not to try to get up earlier all at once. If you need to get up earlier than normal, the best way to do it is one minute at a time.

Every other day, set your alarm back one more minute. Your body will adapt more slowly, and before you know it, you’ll be getting up earlier and be more productive during the day.

5. Ditch the Caffeine

The average half-life for caffeine in your body is anywhere from four to six hours. That means if you have a cup of coffee with dinner, your body will still be processing it when you’re ready for bed, which can make it harder to sleep, and thus harder to get up in the morning.

You don’t need to skip your morning coffee — god knows I don’t — but stop drinking coffee or other things that contain caffeine at least six hours before bed.

6. Coffee Timers

There’s nothing better than the smell of a hot cup of coffee in the morning to entice you out of bed. Spend some extra money on a coffee pot with a timer so you can set it up before you go to bed, and your coffee will be ready the same time your alarm starts going off. You may find you’re climbing out of bed to the smell of that coffee even before your alarm goes off!

7. Let in Some Light

It’s tempting to set up our bedrooms with the darkest blackout curtains we can buy, but if you need to get up in the morning, you might want to open them up a bit. Letting some natural sunlight into your bedroom can help make it easier for you to get up in the morning and fall asleep at night.

8. Just Do It

When it comes down to it, as Shia LeBeouf once said… JUST DO IT! You won’t be able to get up earlier until you start trying to wake up in the morning. Just suck it up and do it — stock up on your favorite caffeine-laden beverage and stick it out for the long haul. It will suck for the first few weeks, but it will serve you well in the long run.

No one likes getting up in the morning — especially me — but there are plenty of ways to make it a little bit easier. Just don’t give up — if you quit, you’ll just have to start over again, and there isn’t enough caffeine in the world for that.