First Tip: Consistency
My first tip involves consistency to improve your circadian rhythm. We want you to get up at the same time within a 1 hour window, every day of the week, including weekends. We want to give your body a sense of regularity when you are starting your day. This will help regulate your circadian rhythm or your internal clock, to a standard time of waking up. Our bodies like consistency, and it is possible to train your circadian rhythm and normalize it to a set pattern. Think of when you travel to a new time zone. It takes about 1 day per hour of difference for most people to adjust. This is your body adapting to the new time. This is exactly what we are trying to do, without the expensive travel.
Second Tip: Sleeping Pattern
The second reason behind this tip is also about consistency. What time you wake up will affect what time you go to bed. Let’s say you get up at 7am Monday through Friday. On the weekend when you don’t have to work, you sleep in an extra 3 hours to 10am. The later you sleep in will typically mean you will go to bed later because you will not be as tired. This isn’t really a problem with Saturday as you can just sleep in again Sunday morning, but this means you probably wont be tired enough to fall asleep at a decent hour on Sunday. This could mean you fall asleep a few hours after your regular bed time Sunday, yet have to get up early Monday, thus starting your week off feeling tired.
If you are following this tip, you will wake up Monday feeling much better and ready to take on the week. You will most likely make better choices like go to the gym or eat better food, because you won’t be too tired to do those things.
Third Tip: Picking the Right Alarm Clock
My next tip fits in perfectly with the first. If you are going to be getting up consistently throughout the week, I want to make sure the experience of waking up is as pleasant as possible. Choosing a good alarm clock will make waking up more pleasant and will have a positive effect on your health. A typical alarm clock or alarm on your phone is loud and will startle you awake each morning. What this does is it spikes your heart rate, raises your blood pressure and causes your body to release stress hormones and adrenaline. It’s equivalent to someone scaring you awake each morning. Not only is this unpleasant, but the cumulative effects of this over many years is very stressful on your body, namely your heart. We need a less stressful way to get you up each morning.
The best possible alarm clock to use is actually the sunrise. The least stressful way of waking up is by using light and it is how are bodies are designed to get up. We are very sensitive to light when sleeping and the sun offers gentle way of waking us up. Now I know that this may be unrealistic as not everyone gets up at sunrise, some get up before, and living in Canada, the sunrise changes drastically depending on what time of year it is. So the next best option is to use an alarm clock that mimics the sun and gradually increases in brightness to wake us up. These clocks are easy to find on the internet and many also come with a backup audible alarm that will also increase gradually in loudness to make sure you don’t sleep in. I promise you that once you switch to this way of waking up, it will be hard for you go back.
Last Tip: Changing your Snoozing Habit
The last thing I want to mention in this video ties in very well with what we have already chatted about, and that pressing snooze. You don’t need me to tell you that snoozing is bad, but you may start to see why it is so bad from some things we have mentioned in this video. First off, if you add up all the time you spend snoozing during the week, that is valuable sleep time you are wasting with interruptions. I usually get my clients to add up the time they spend snoozing. In the worst cases vie seen, its been from 5 up to 8 hours per WORK week! That is an incredible amount of sleep you are wasting. The second reason is we already discussed how waking up to an alarm can be stressful on the body. With snoozing, now you are repeating that one, two, three, or more times each morning! This is like watching a horror movie each morning because you are repeatedly pumping your body with adrenaline. Over a lifetime, by changing your snoozing habit, you can see a very large change in your in your health and that is something we want you to improve.
Chris Munro
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In this 10-part sleep series, personal trainer Chris Munro emphasizes the importance of getting enough nightly zzz's and regulating your sleep cycle. Explore how to improve your quality of sleep from the moment you wake up until your head hits the pillow.