11 Ways To Make The Most Of Every Morning

Lots of people set the alarm with the best of intentions, knowing that's the time they need to get up to meet the day's demands. But then the alarm clock seems to ring far before they're ready to rise, so they're hitting snooze and, eventually, running late. Something's got to give. The key lies inside your body.

"An important factor in being able to wake up easily at the desired time in the morning is the timing of one's circadian rhythm, or 'body clock,'" says sleep researcher Leon C. Lack, Ph.D., a professor in the school of psychology at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia.

Much of what you need to do to wake up on time starts by planning your sleep schedule the day and the evening before –- and by making your mornings count.

Know Why You Want To Wake Up

Michelle Segar, Ph.D., a healthy living expert and motivation scientist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, says that to make any change in your life stick, including waking up on time, you need to clearly define why it's important to you. What's your motivation? Do you want to get up in time to have breakfast with your family, get in some exercise, or just have a few moments of reflection to be better prepared for your day? Maybe you're just tired of the stress of running late every morning. Once you crystallize your reasons, take a second step and tell your family or roommates about the change you want to make. Accountability helps as much as an alarm clock.

Rethink Mornings

Now that you're clear about what you want to do when you wake up and what it takes to get more sleep, consider trimming down your morning activities. This could let you set the alarm clock for a few minutes (or more) later. If you've decided you want time to have breakfast with your family, save some time the night before by setting out clothes, shoes, and bags. Are you spending 15 minutes in line at the café to get coffee? That's a quarter-hour more you could be sleeping by buying a coffee maker with a timer –- another wake-me-up device that will brew your favorite hot drink on your schedule.

Get To Know Your Body Clock

If you've been riding the sleep deprivation roller coaster for a while, you might not even know how much sleep your body naturally would want if you weren't staying up late and slapping around the alarm clock in the morning. Lack explains that, in general, your body makes changes in anticipation of your going to sleep, such as dropping in temperature and heart rate and secreting melatonin into your bloodstream one to two hours before your regular bedtime. This get-some-sleep cycle peaks at about 3 to 4 a.m., and then your body starts a gradual morning waking-up process. One way to figure out what might work best for you is to set a consistent bedtime that starts about 8 hours before your alarm is going to go off. Stick to that for several weeks (including weekends) to get a feeling for how well your body responds. Lack notes that some people are naturally night owls and will still find it hard to go to bed early (at least what's early for them), even if they have to wake up early as well.

Try Melatonin

Your body naturally makes melatonin to stimulate your sleep. You can take a melatonin supplement to help re-orient your body clock. Try a low dose of 0.5 to 1.0 milligrams five to six hours before bedtime for a few days. Lack says that, "after several nights, this should result in an earlier timed body clock, earlier sleep onset, and earlier easier awakening in the morning." Melatonin doesn't work well for all kinds of sleep disorders, however, and can even result in drowsiness the next day for some people. People with autoimmune disorders or diabetes, those taking birth control pills, blood thinners, sedatives, or some kinds of blood pressure medication should not take melatonin without first discussing it with a health care professional.

Power Down Before Bedtime

Part of getting up on time is getting enough sleep the night before. And getting ready for bed is a process of winding down. Segar warns that spending time in front of "screens" (TV, laptop, etc.) right up until bedtime doesn't lead to restful sleep. Use the alarm clock in your favorite gadget to set a reminder to turn everything off at least an hour before you slip between the sheets -- no excuses.

Get Bright Light First Thing In The Morning

The bright lights of your flat screen TV before bed can make it hard to go to sleep, but bright light for an hour or two once you wake up can help set your body clock to accept your wake up time. "This can be from sunlight, especially in summer, or artificial bright light if it is cold, dark, and rainy outside," says Lack, who is part of a research and development team that has developed bright light devices for this purpose. If your schedule allows it, a walk in the morning sun or a restful breakfast on the patio would be good for both your mood and better sleep.

Reorganize Your Evening Schedule

To figure out what's interfering with your sleep and therefore your waking up, take a look at your day and how you spend your evenings. You might have to reorganize some of your activities. For example, even if the only time you can get to the gym is after dinner, this time slot can result in poor sleep. Segar suggests finding another time to work out earlier in the day. According to a National Sleep Foundation Survey, about one in four adults believe their work schedule makes it impossible to get enough sleep. If you're overburdened on the job and constantly work late into the evening, try to find ways to share the load with a partner or colleague.

Get A Sleep Evaluation

Sleep disorders such as obstructive sleep apnea or health issues such as allergies or depression could be leaving you with poor quality sleep. No matter how hard you try to get to bed on time and wake up on time, you'll still be tired in the morning and sleepy during the day. Talk to your doctor about testing to find out if you have an underlying condition that's making sleep difficult.

Make Hitting -Snooze' Harder

Now that you've identified the obstacles to going to sleep on time, it's time to create some obstacles to staying in bed. If your alarm is right next to your bed and the big "snooze" button is easy to reach without raising your head off the pillow, you're probably going to try to sleep in longer. Put your alarm clock at the other end of your bedroom so that you're forced to get up to turn it off. And consider setting a second alarm (also far away) if you're having a lot of difficulty getting up. When you're trying to reset your sleep and wake times, you might also ask family members or roommates to help you get up until you're in sync.

Keep Your Sleep/Wake Schedule On Weekends

If you're running on empty by the time Friday night rolls around, sleeping in on Saturday could sound like heaven. But compensating on the weekends actually feeds into your sleepiness the following week because it interrupts your natural body clock, which doesn't have a weekend setting. Whatever your set bedtime/wake time is for the weekday, you'll have to stick to it on the weekends. According to research in Chronobiology International, a consistent bedtime on the weekends seems to lead to better sleep and easier waking during the week. Plus you get to spend that weekend morning time any way you'd like.

Keep A Log And Evaluate It Weekly

Keep track of all the better sleep efforts you're making and write down how you feel, suggests Segar. Do you have more energy? A peppier mood? Are you more patient with your family? Are you still sleepy or slapping that alarm clock snooze button? After you've tried a new strategy or two for a week, take a look at your journal. If the steps you're taking are working, keep it up. If not, take another look at the obstacles and other strategies you could try. Segar advises going through this weekly experiment-and-evaluate cycle for 6 to 12 weeks. "Don't expect perfection," she says. "That's another setup for failure. Instead be self-compassionate as you learn how to make this important lifestyle change."

"11 Tricks To Waking Up In The Morning" originally appeared on Everyday Health. A version of this story was first published on the Huffington Post February 25, 2013.

Also on HuffPost:

Kokoon EEG Headphones

Kokoon

These form-fitting headphones use algorithms to analyze your sleep and automatically adjust audio levels accordingly. The accompanying Kokoon app gives you detailed information about into your sleep patterns, as well as a library of guided sleep tapes developed by sleep scientists for those times when you’re having an especially hard time. As the community of wearers grows and gives feedback, the “intelligent library” expands and evolves according to what works best for most people. And a smart alarm wakes you up at the optimal time in your sleep cycle.

Kokoon EEG Headphones are available for pre-order for $219; expected to ship in 2016; https://kokoon.io.

Hush

Hush

These smart earphones may save the day (or the night) if you’re hypersensitive to noise or sleep beside a snoring partner. Creator Daniel Leesays that in college he was often kept up by noise, but that drowning out the noise came with its own problems. “One night, as I was lying in bed next to a particularly irritating ‘celebration’ next door, I desperately thought that there just had to be a better way; I needed to be able to block out all these noises but, at the same time, still hear my alarm to wake up for classes in the morning,” he told me. “That's when the idea for Hush hit me.” So he created Bluetooth-enabled earplugs that communicate with your phone, allowing you to customize which alerts or calls you want to be woken up for. And when your alarm rings, only you--not your partner or roommate who may want to sleep in--will hear it.

Hush headphones are available for pre-order for $150; expected to ship in December 2015; https://hush.technology.

SleepPhones

SleepPhones

Offered by the company AcousticSheep, these elastic headphones look like a headband you’d wear running in the winter, and help you fall asleep to the music or white noise of your choice. In 2015, they announced a Bluetooth model, so you can wirelessly stream your sleep sounds from a phone or other device.

SleepPhones are available starting at $39.95; www.sleepphones.com.

Sleep Shepherd

Sleep Shepherd

Try a nightcap--but not the alcoholic variety. Dr. Michael Larson set out to create a product that would induce sleep naturally, finding inspiration in hypnosis. The result is Sleep Shepherd, a nightcap made of light, breathable fabric and featuring a brain wave sensor and two speakers. The cap plays sounds in each ear and then monitors your brainwaves, adjusting the frequency of the tones accordingly. Once you fall asleep, the tones stop.

Sleep Shepherd is available for $149.99; sleephat.com.

Wellograph wellness watch

Wellograph

Wellograph, an electronics maker, is adding sleep tracking to the list of features on its smartwatch. The new technology will also be able to monitor stress, which is, of course, a key obstacle to sleep.

The Wellograph watch is available for $299; https://wellograph.com/

OURA Ring

OURA Ring

This waterproof device fits over your finger and gives a detailed overview of your sleep each night. It will tell you how long you slept, how "efficient" your sleep was and how long you spent in various sleep cycles. OURA will also track your resting heart rate and provide data about your daytime activities, ideally helping you achieve overall wellness in your sleeping and waking life.

OURA ring is available for pre-order starting at $299; http://ouraring.com/.

Sleep Pillow Sounds

ClearSky

This app uses 70 background sounds–from “light rain” to “row boat” to “cold drink with ice”–to help you get to sleep. It also allows you to create up to 300,000 customized sounds.

Sleep Pillow Sounds is free on the App Store.

Pzizz

Pzizz

This app promises to help you “beat insomnia” by generating a unique mix drawn from music and billions of possible sound effects each time you start it. It also includes a “Power Nap” function and the choice of stereo or 3-D sounds.

Pzizz is free on the App Store and Google Play.

Sleep Time

Azumio

This app is a robust sleep tracker with a “Sleep Lab” function that can analyze your sleep over time and also integrate with the Apple Health app. It also includes exercise suggestions to help you optimize your sleep.

Sleep Time is $1.99 on the App Store and free on Google Play.

Mimo

Mimo

This company, aimed at creating the “smart nursery,” has invented ways to monitor babies’ sleep by tracking breathing, movement, and sleep patterns through a sensor-equipped onesie. Dulcie Madden, the co-founder of parent company Rest Devices, believes parents can use this data to improve their baby’s sleep—and consequently get more sleep themselves.

www.mimobaby.com

The Baby Shusher

The Baby Shusher

The Baby Shusher looks sort of like a minimalist pepper mill, and is small enough to be placed in the baby’s crib. The idea is that “the rhythmic shush reminds the baby of being inside the womb, where there is a constant inundation of loud sounds from blood flow and other in utero noises.” The timer can be set for 15 to 30 minutes. The makers also offer the Baby Shusher app -- the same shushing,via your smart phone.

www.babyshusher.com

Sound Sleeper

Sound Sleeper

Sound Sleeper, a white noise app with a timer, not only gives you a “womb” sound option, but also a “hair dryer,” a “Shhhh,” and a “Vacuum Cleaner” option. After the timer runs out, if the baby starts crying again the noise will resume. And if a noise you want isn’t offered, you can record your own, as well as track your baby’s sleep.

Sound Sleeper is free on the App Store and Google Play.

Baby Connect

Baby Connect

This activity logger allows you to track your baby’s naps alongside feeding times and other aspects of baby care and well-being such as temperature, mood and diaper changes.

Baby Connect is $4.99 on the App Store and Google Play.

Eat Sleep: Simple Baby Tracking

Make Sail, Inc.

This app allows you to track your baby’s eating, sleeping, and diaper changes each day, giving you an easy-to-access breakdown of your child’s activities. For the sleep function, you enter the time your baby wakes up and then how long they napped. Eat Sleep also allows you to track sleep of multiple children and sync the data across devices.

Eat Sleep: Simple Baby Tracking is free on the App Store.

Baby Sleep Instant

Urbandroid Team

With its selection of monotonous, low-frequency sounds ranging from shushes and heartbeats to the whirl of a washing machine, Baby Sleep Instant helps lull your baby to sleep. If none of the pre-loaded sounds do the trick, the app allows you to record your own.

Baby Sleep Instant is free on Google Play.

White Noise Ambiance

logicworks

This app’s library of 80 different soundcreates a relaxing mood for adults and babies alike. It was designed by a father with 6-month-old twin daughterswho wouldn’t sleep at the same time.

White Noise Ambiance is $1.99 on the App Store.

Sleepy Baby Light Bulb

LightingScience

While different types of light can disrupt sleep, the Sleepy Baby bulb emits soft white light in an effort to promote healthy sleep patterns. It promises to help your baby sleep for longer periods of time and get back to sleep quicker should he or she awake in the night.

The Sleepy Baby light bulb is $29.95; https://definitydigital.com/bulb/id-sleepybaby/Sleepy_Baby

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