The coffee you drink first thing in the morning is not energizing you, it is just hiding the problem.
After you snooze your alarm a couple of times, do you go get your coffee to help you wake up? Oh. And by the way… do you also check your phone right after waking up? That is why your morning feels so difficult. Easy is difficult. When you try to make your morning easy, waking up actually becomes difficult.
You might think that you are helping yourself to wake up. But easy is difficult. When you choose an easy morning, this is exactly what gives you a difficult morning. If you want to stop feeling exhausted in the first hour of the day, you just need to change your first five minutes. No coffee. You need to walk outside first to get something that is totally free: natural light.
1. Reject the easy morning to stop feeling exhausted.
When the alarm rings, your normal pattern is to walk slowly to the kitchen to get coffee and look at your phone half-asleep. But staying inside and staring at a screen does not actually wake you up. You might think that turning all your lamps to maximum brightness solves the problem, but the light from a cloudy day outside is still better.
Your eyes fool you because they adjust to the dark. Think about your phone: in the middle of the night, a low brightness hurts your eyes, but outside during the day you can barely see the image at maximum brightness. Your lamps feel very bright inside your house, but the actual amount of light is tiny. Even under a cloudy sky, natural light is twenty times stronger.
You are trying to force your body to wake up, but this dim light in your house keeps you asleep. You have to change your environment. Ah. But deciding to go outside will not help if you cannot even get out of bed. You need to win the battle against the alarm first.
2. Prepare your clothes the night before because you cannot trust yourself when you are tired.
When the alarm rings, you will want just a few more minutes in bed. But a study on morning awakening source shows that hitting the snooze button does not give you real rest. Hitting the snooze button just makes you more tired.
If you want to stop hitting the snooze button, remember the old story of Odysseus. He had to sail through a sea full of Sirens, creatures with a hypnotic song that lured sailors to their death on the rocks. He knew he would lose control when he heard the music. To avoid disaster, he ordered his crew to tie him to the mast before the danger appeared. Your warm bed works the exact same way. It is your Siren song. You cannot rely on willpower in the morning, so you need to tie yourself to the mast the night before.
To do this, place your clothes, shoes, and a cap right next to your front door, along with your phone or alarm clock. When the alarm rings, you will be forced to get up and walk to the door to turn off the sound. Since your clothes are already there, you skip the kitchen and the bathroom, put on your shoes, and go straight outside. As soon as you step through that door, your biology takes over.
3. Step outside immediately to switch off your sleep hormones.
Start a five-minute walk. Moving around gets your blood flowing.
As you walk, you get that natural daylight. According to research on human circadian rhythms source, this light hits your eyes and acts like a reset button. Your circadian rhythm is simply your body’s internal 24-hour clock. When you are in the dark, this clock produces sleep hormones. These hormones make you feel heavy and tired. When the bright outdoor light hits your eyes, the light stops the production of those sleep hormones. The light tells your body the day has officially started.
This morning light also affects your metabolism. A study from Northwestern University source showed that people who get moderate light earlier in the day have a lower body mass index. That happens because early daylight helps synchronize how your body burns food. By stepping outside, you are programming your metabolism to run more efficiently for the rest of the day. You do not need direct, bright sunshine. You just need to be outside so the natural light reaches your eyes. But this walk only works if you leave your biggest distraction behind.
4. Leave your phone inside to protect your attention.
Leave your phone on the kitchen table during the walk. It is another Siren song, and if it is in your pocket, you will end up looking at the screen and reacting to other people right away. Do not rely on willpower. Tie yourself to the mast and make the phone impossible to reach. The trick here is that leaving the phone inside uses your own impatience to guarantee success: you will want to go back inside to check your messages, which forces the walk to last exactly five quick minutes. You get your light, go back inside, and prepare for the final mistake you need to avoid.
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5. Delay your coffee so your body wakes up naturally.
“But Arata, what about coffee? Can I drink it?” Yes, you can. Coffee is okay. The secret is to stop using it early in the morning as emergency fuel. Remember that your body already has its own wake-up process: cortisol naturally rises to help you become alert, and caffeine affects this cortisol source.
If you need coffee the second you open your eyes, your routine has become too dependent on caffeine. You are simply not giving light and movement a chance to do their job first.
Coffee blocks adenosine source, which means it does not eliminate your tiredness, it just hides it. When the caffeine leaves your body, all that sleepiness hits you at once and leaves you exhausted in the middle of the day. To avoid this crash, many people on the internet say you need to wait ninety minutes to drink coffee after waking up. But the science does not prove this exact number and you do not need to become a slave to the clock.
All you need is a better first action. Get out of bed, walk outside for five minutes, and get some natural light. Then, if you still want it, coffee is allowed. The ultimate goal was never to make you quit the drink. The goal is to stop using coffee as the emergency button you must press for your day to start.
The comfort of the snooze button and staying inside is keeping you tired. Easy is difficult. Set your alarm away from the bed. Stand up immediately. Leave your phone inside. And step out the door for a five-minute walk.
You get rid of the grogginess with movement and natural light. After that, you can have your coffee.
When you choose the hard path for the first five minutes, the rest of your day becomes easier.
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