Sleep experts are a dime a dozen at the moment. Their books populate the best-sellers lists, their clinics pepper the streets, helping everyone from insomniacs to athletes get their optimal sleep. Sleep is a collective problem, we can’t ignore it. Some of us get too much, some of us get not enough. And most of the time, their strategies are genius. We know the majority of them, work out, eat right, practice rituals, turn off your tech, bring lavender into the bedroom. So what if you’ve got the sleeping thing down to a tee but it’s the actual waking up that you’re struggling with? Where are all the wake-up experts?
Where are the people who specialize in helping you wake up feeling refreshed, energized, and ready to go, instead of groggy, dull, and flat? The hard work doesn’t stop when you fall asleep, you know. Sleep inertia is what actually causes you to feel as though you haven’t slept enough, and so many other things can make you look and feel less than fresh when you wake up, so it’s important to nip those things in the bud and wake up fresh as a daisy.
Is your nighttime routine holding you back?
Sometimes you need a little help to wake up feeling fresh and energized. There are some ways you can feel fresher and wake up looking fresher too. Start the night before with the right products.
“People wake up looking puffy for many different reasons,” says Margarita Lolis, MD, a dermatologist. The most common reason for waking up looking puffy is the build-up of fluids in the facial tissues. These fluids can also be caused by dehydration or too much salt in your diet. So while you’re trying to prevent any of these factors the night before, you can also work on your ‘I woke up like this’ game by getting yourself some overnight products that really work. Sarah Chapman’s Overnight Facial Treatment sinks into the skin at night and helps you wake up looking fresh, glowy, and dewy. Sarah’s treatments are a favorite of Victoria Beckham’s for a reason and will work while you sleep.
If you need something a little stronger, Elemis Pro Collagen Marine Cream will definitely save your life. A rich night cream, avoid delicate areas like your eyes if you have thinner skin and focus on the areas that get dry or need an extra boost or glow. To make sure your overnight creams and oils actually work, you should use a silk sleep mask to help your products sink into the skin and actually work.
Slip’s Silk Masks are my absolute favorites, so soft and silky, they help you get a perfect night’s sleep as well as keeping all your products firmly on your face (and not anywhere else!) pair this with the pillowcase and you’ve got a winning combination. For extra help to wake up looking fresh, put a Jade Facial Roller in the fridge before you go to bed, and when you wake up give yourself a facial massage. This will reduce puffiness and make your skin look glowy and healthy.
Use this quick trick to energize yourself
Before you go to bed, keep a notebook or diary next to your bed and start making notes of all the things you’re grateful for from the day before. This will help trick your brain into being more positive, to help you feel better throughout the day and can actually make you wake up feeling more positive, optimistic, and energetic.
There’s nothing like a reminder of how great things are to inspire a positive and productive morning. You can use the Make It Happen notebook to start a list of all the things you’re thankful for, or simply keep it in your Getting Stuff Done planner with your day to day plans.
Finally, figure out why you wake up tired
If you use a regular alarm clock, you will experience some trouble waking up in the morning. This is sleep inertia. You feel groggy because part of your body is still in a sleep state. This feeling can last from fifteen minutes to four hours, and that fact alone should make you want to fix this as soon as possible. It’s simple. It’s caused by your alarm ripping you out of deep sleep. And the thing is, your alarm doesn’t know what stage of your sleep cycle you’re in, and it doesn’t care, either.
According to some statistics, there’s a 45% chance that your alarm clock will wake you up in REM sleep. And only a 9% chance that it will wake you up at the optimal moment for your sleep cycle. You’re likely to reach for caffeine when you feel this way, but it’s better to just fix this problem from the start. So the first thing you need to do is get yourself a sleep stage alarm clock. Sleep Cycle alarm will track your cycles and wake you up at the best possible moment, reducing that groggy feeling. Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night or too early in the morning and actually felt as though you could get up? That’s probably because you were in an optimal position to wake up. It’ll make a huge difference to your routine and how you feel when your alarm goes off.
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