Breaking up may be hard to do, but I would argue that waking up is even harder — especially when you have to be up and out the door at an ungodly hour in the morning. So how can you make waking up early easier? Well, I'll be honest — it's never going to be exactly pleasant. Thanks to this handy infographic, though, we can strategize ways to make it slightly less painful. Created by app launcher WhereDat, which helps your phone boot up its apps a little quicker, the infographic explains 10 relatively simple tricks we can employ to make waking up… not a breeze, perhaps, but you get what I mean. (Also, I see what you did there, WhereDat. You help phones boot up apps when they're feeling sleepy, and you help people boot themselves up when they're feeling sleepy. Clever. Veeeeeery clever.)
I know, I know — it's a holiday weekend, so why the heck am I telling you about how to make waking up early easier? Now is the time to sleep in, even if it's really poor sleep hygiene to do so! But the sad fact of the matter is that, come Sunday night, we'll all have to prepare ourselves to return to the daily grind — which probably means waking up early for most of us. It never hurts to be prepared, right?
While we're on the subject of being prepared, let's not forget about the little things you can do to make your mornings less terrible once you've actually hauled yourself out of bed. First off, don't press the snooze button. Seriously — and we've got science to explain why. Here's the thing: Once you roll over and start to drift off again, you reboot your entire sleep cycle. Then, when your alarm goes off for the second time, you stand a higher chance of being woken up again during one of the deeper parts of your cycle. That'll make you feel groggy like nothing else, so for the love of all that is holy, don't do it. If want to maximize the amount of sleep you get without needing to hit the snooze button, check out the web app Sleepyti.me — it'll calculate exactly when you should go to bed based on what time you need to get up in the morning.
Then, give yourself something to look forward to in the morning. Does a good breakfast make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside? Make sure you give yourself enough time to treat yourself to one. Does your favorite song jazz you up? Get ready with it playing in the background. These little bonuses will go a long way towards making waking up a little more pleasant.
Check out the full infographic below. Sweet dreams!
Images: Tommy Hemmert Olesen/Flickr; The Hobbit/Tumblr; WhereDatApp
