Reality bites hard on (week)days you’ve to wake up early. It’s when responsibilities creep in like clingy exes—it’s not exactly what you’d ask for at 7 a.m. But you know what bites harder? An unimpressed client that’s had enough of your “I’m sorry, it was sooo traffic in EDSA. Good morning!”
So here you go: five tips to get you out of bed on days you don’t give a damn about morning exercise.
#1 Draw the curtains.
Before you sleep, make sure you draw the curtains in anticipation of tomorrow’s sunshine. Light signals the brain to wake up. This is because the human body is most responsive to early morning sunlight. Light regulates the body clock by making you surrender to the earth’s 24-hour rhythm—therefore, the beat of your work week. More importantly, natural light doesn’t just blind you irritable—it’s good for your overall waking and sleeping habits.
#2 Keep a manual alarm clock that wants you to work it first.
Don’t have a window? Get quirky clocks, and put them by your bedside instead. Among others, a water clock where you can actually grow a plant—watering and all—can make you look forward to better days. This mechanism serves up a cup of conscience, reminding you that you need to feed this little one at the right time of day.
#3 Have your most hated song get you to shower.
In this age of smart phone alarm clocks, we also recommend turning to your phone to get you going. Make a loud song your morning alarm. But here’s the catch—don’t pick the song you like. Imagine the amount of dopamine waking you up after being able to shut up (insert name of artist here) after all those hits.
#4 Download this alarm app that wakes you up to how you look like.
Let’s say you’re a music phile and you genuinely see the good in every song. (Ugh.) How about snapping up a selfie? A new app called Snap Me Up wants you to take photos of how you woke up like this before you can turn it off. What’s going to wake you up is not how long the alarm has been running, but how you look like before it goes off.
#5 Take a really cold shower.
Okay, so we actually got you out of bed—how do we really wake you up? Step inside the shower and turn your knob to cold. The real power of the cold shower is positively affecting moods. Molecular biologist Nikolai Shevchuk published a 2007 study where he found evidence that cold water can help treat depression symptoms by keeping happy neurotransmitters in mood-regulating areas of the brain. In short: you’ll hate the world less when you take a shower, and get to that morning meeting on time, if not earlier.
Photos from Remodelaholic, Quirks, and Brit+Co.