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Are you the kind of person that wakes up and always seems to feel tired?
Sometimes you got eight hours’ sleep, sometimes twelves hours, sometimes 5 hours, but never
mind how well you think you slept you always wake up feeling slightly groggy.
Don’t worry, you’re not alone.
Let’s now attempt to put things right for you.
While waking up for you is nothing special, a lot of things happen to your body when you
awaken in the morning.
For instance, your heart rate will get faster and your breathing will become quicker.
Your blood flow will increase and your brain will start producing different kinds of brainwaves.
Your liver and kidneys during the night were in sleep mode, but when you awake they go
back to waking mode.
You basically rev up for the day and when you open those eyes of yours the lots of external
stimuli will flood your blood.
During the night when you were in sleep mode you will have experienced something called
REM, or rapid eye movement.
Most people have about five of these periods during sleep, interspaced with non-REM sleep.
If you want to know what REM looks like, just watch your dog’s eyes flickering when it
is enjoying some ZZZs.
It’s during these rapid eye movements when you dream, and you are in what we call deep
sleep.
If you’ve ever woken up in the middle of a dream, you woke up during REM.
This is important for today’s show, because the experts say we need this deep sleep.
Sometimes you might take a pill to sleep, and while you may think you’ve gotten a
good night’s sleep, the drugs may have affected how much real deep sleep you got.
Let’s say you didn’t get down with enough REM.
You’ll likely know this because you wake up tired and feel mightily irritable throughout
the day.
If this keeps happening you’ll get more irritable, and not getting enough sleep over
a long period of time can actually affect your health because when we sleep our bodies
go into repair mode.
When we are sleeping we are charging, and if you want to wake up feeling super-charged
then you have to get enough sleep.
Dreaming is important too, it’s like allowing your thoughts to spill out.
It’s kind of psychological cleansing.
So, we are told that the average adult should be getting seven to nine hours of good sleep
per night.
Many of you now will be thinking, hmm, that’s not me.
Some of you will get that much sleep but still wake up tired.
Now we are going to tell you how you can wake up feeling better.
First of all, watch what you eat.
You shouldn’t eat a lot before you sleep, and if you’ve snacked on a bunch of processed
carbs before bedtime you blood sugar levels are going to be high and this can prevent
you from having a good night’s sleep.
You should have plenty of water, though, and we suggest you keep water near your bed.
If you wake up dehydrated it might not matter how many hours you got and you might still
feel sluggish.
Being dehydrated can slow you down.
Another thing is to exercise.
We are not asking you to start doing 5 mile runs every evening, but just move about a
bit in the day.
Exercise can oxygenate your blood and in turn this provides nutrients to your brain and
heart.
If you are someone who is very lazy don’t think you’ll sleep better because you’re
so good at not moving.
That’s not the case at all.
We shouldn’t have to tell you this, but during the night turn off the alerts on your
phone.
You might think that you don’t hear those beeps, but each beep might upset those deep
sleep cycles your body so much enjoys.
It’s really not hard to turn off those alerts, so start doing it now.
Another thing you might not have heard about is not hitting that snooze button.
Small increments of sleep do nothing for you at all.
It’s that good sleep you want.
If you enter into a new sleep cycle and then disrupt it after a 10-minute snooze you are
basically ruining that cycle.
Your body doesn’t like this.
The experts tell us there is something called the 90-minute technique, which means setting
your alarm 90 minutes before you really want to get up.
It’s like a long snooze.
During those 90 minutes you’ll enter into a REM period and that’s good for you.
You could not press the snooze button at all, but some people think it’s good to have
that early wake up call.
When you wake up the first thing you want to do is stretch.
We mean put some effort into this, and not just do the arms in the air thing.
Some people do some easy yoga moves.
Why would you do this you might wonder?
The answer is because when you sleep you are in state of extreme relaxedness, which isn’t
far from paralysis.
The word for this state is atony.
You need to come out of this to feel fresh, but most people just saunter around in the
morning.
It’s been proven that doing a few easy exercises in the morning stimulates your brain and endorphins
start rushing in.
This will make you feel happier and give you energy.
On top of this, hit that cold water as soon as possible.
In hot countries a cold shower might be the thing to do in the morning, but that might
not be possible when it’s cold outside.
Nonetheless, wherever you are you should splash cold water on your face first thing, not hot
water.
Some experts say that you should keep a spray bottle next to your bed and spray yourself
the moment you wake up.
It’s a short, sharp shock and will get you going.
It might sound silly, but try it and then tell us what you think.
As for eating in the morning, well, these days a lot of people like to skip breakfast
and fast, but there is research that tells us breakfast will give you energy in the morning
and will provide you with energy throughout the day.
But if you look online you’ll find a lot of people seem to cope with the day better
not eating breakfast while others need their breakfast.
We guess you should try both and see what works for you.
If you do eat something, though, don’t go for sugary stuff.
If you do, your blood sugar will spike, and then it will drop.
You don’t need this kind of hit as the comedown will slow you down.
As for caffeine, some studies have shown that a lot of caffeine can wear a person out later
in the day.
We are not saying don’t drink coffee, but experiment with how you feel drinking certain
amounts of it.
Coffee before bed is a no no.
Most people might think that a coffee a few hours before bed is ok, but the stuff has
a half-life of 5 to 8 hours.
Make sure your last coffee is a long time before you plan to sleep.
Believe it or not some studies have shown that if the sun is out then stick your head
out of the window and get some.
We found a study called “Vitalizing effects of being outdoors and in nature.”
It said participants felt refreshed just looking at nature, so open those curtains in the morning
ASAP.
If you get some sun on your face that is good because sunlight can increase serotonin levels.
Another thing you should do is some mental accounting first thing.
It’s simple.
Tell yourself what you might find difficult in the day and how you might address that.
It’s a literal weight off your mind.
Now comes the good part, because then you should think of at least one thing you are
looking forward to in the day.
People generally don’t do this, but they should.
It sets the day for you.
Be clean.
What we mean by this is don’t go to bed feeling sweaty or dirty, it could affect how
well you sleep.
In many Asian countries people always shower before bed, but it’s not the same in other
countries.
Make sure you go to sleep in a clean and comfortable bed and when you wake up make sure you make
that bed.
Making the bed is like preparing for the day ahead.
It shows you are ready to face the day.
On top of this, try to wake up at the same time each day so you maintain your circadian
rhythm.
If you’ve never heard of that, it’s your sleep/wake cycle.
The National Sleep Foundation tells us this about it, “The more you pay attention to
your body and notice feelings of alertness and drowsiness, and the more time you spend
developing good sleep hygiene habits, the better your slumber will be and the better
you'll feel.”
Your body just loves consistency and it will pay you back for it.
Before you sleep it’s best not to play games or do anything that might stress you out.
For the hour before bedtime try and do something very relaxing, such as reading a book or just
relaxing on the sofa.
You shouldn’t really be looking at screens right before bedtime because the lights can
disrupt the production of melatonin in the brain and this chemical helps you sleep.
We shouldn’t have to tell you this one, but go to the bathroom before you sleep.
Your bladder can fill up in the night and the feeling might wake you up even if you
don’t go to the bathroom.
You might not feel like you need to urinate, but you’d be surprised how often you can
squeeze some out.
Always hit the bowl before bed is our advice.
Don’t hang out in the bedroom before bedtime as much as is possible.
We know you might like to do this, but your brain should be associating that place with
one thing and that’s sleeping.
If your bedroom is your castle you will subconsciously be more energized in that place and it will
be harder to sleep there.
As for drinking alcohol, many of you will know that it can help you sleep.
Still, it’s said booze can interrupt REM sleep and do other bad things such as give
you nightmares.
As the booze can relax throat muscles it can also bring on a bout of snoring, which is
not good for sleep.
We are sure some of you can attest to the annoyingness of sleeping next to a drunk person.
Booze in the system almost always fills the bladder, too, so a trip to the bathroom might
be needed during a drunken sleep.
Smoking is also not good for sleep because nicotine increases heart rate and alertness.
If you are super-addicted your body might also crave a smoke during the night and wake
you up.
If you are not willing to give up, we suggest at least trying not to smoke an hour before
you go to bed.
Colors might be important, too.
That’s at least to one study we found undertaken by Travel Lodge.
It found that certain colors produced better sleep and so that’s why you might find hotel
rooms often being painted or decorated in the same colors.
The study found that blue, yellow and green were the best colors for sleep while the worst
colors were purple and brown.
Why?
One expert said this, “The color blue is associated with feelings of calm which, when
picked up by your ganglion cells and relayed to your brain, helps reduce blood pressure
and heart rate, all of which help you receive a solid night’s sleep.”
So there you go, paint the bedroom blue, don’t drink booze, don’t smoke, don’t eat too
much, and when you wake up do so with purpose and move around a lot, wash that face and
open those windows.
And our last, probably best tip for getting a good night’s rest?
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Are you one of those people who has been able to wake up feeling rested?
Have you used any of these techniques or do you have one of your own?
Tell us in the comments.
Also, be sure to check out our other video I Slept 3 Hours A Day For A Week And This
Is What Happened.
Thanks for watching, and as always, don’t forget to like, share and subscribe.
See you next time.