Causes of bad sleep or tiredness:

• Stress and/or anxiety

• A room that is too cold or hot

Therefore, you should make sure that your room temperature is approximately 65 degrees Fahrenheit (18.3 degrees Celsius).

• Uncomfortable beds

One of the biggest causes of insomnia are uncomfortable beds. Sleeping on a quality mattress promotes comfort, proper spinal alignment and quality sleep.

Natural latex mattresses have shown to improve people's health massively over the years, as they are known for being dust-mite free, breathable, sustainable and much more. If you are looking to improve the quality of your sleep, we recommend testing latex mattresses, latex pillows and latex mattress toppers.

• Excessive consumption of alcohol

Although alcohol may be sleep-inducing, it messes with your REM (Rapid Eye Movement) stages, when you are at the deepest level of sleep. In other words, you may very well fall asleep but the lack of quality of the sleep won’t make it worth it.

Drinking alcohol can disrupt sleep as well as making you snore, since the substance contributes to a muscle relaxation in the throat muscles, making it more likely to vibrate throughout the night.

Melatonin and alcohol: A lot of people still believe that mixing medications with alcohol is ok but that affirmation is false and melatonin supplements are no exeption, as all negative impacts of alcohol in sleep will still apply.

Q&A

Before moving onto the tips about how to wake up in a good mood, let's answer some common questions related to this topic.

Why do I sleep so much? Or why am I sleeping so much all of a sudden?

R: Sleeping too much is not good for our health and can actually be a medical disorder. Some factors that might cause this to happen are sleep apnea and depression. When someone is feeling depressed, they get into a bad mood and feel unmotivated. This feeling and thoughts make people feel exausted and wanting to sleep.

Why does coffee make me sleepy?

R: Once it kicks in, caffeine gives you a lot of energy. However, there is bad news for coffee lovers: once the caffeine wears off, your body may experience a buildup of adenosine that hits you all at once, making you feel sleepy.

How do I know if I have insomnia?

R: You might suffer from insomnias if you struggle a lot to fall asleep, wake up during the night, feel tired throughout the day or find it hard to concentrate.

How to wake up in a good mood

• It's breakfast time! Enjoy your first meal of the day as it deserves.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, as it gives you the best and biggest energy boost. When we start the day, our body needs to be nourished and although there are a lot of people that just can't eat right when they wake up (either because it doesn't feel good or because they don't feel woken up), it is important to eat something even if it is light or small.

Do you want to know how to wake up when tired? A ginger shot is an effective quick way to get those energy and vitamin levels up. It might seem a little unpleasant for some people, but it definitely makes you wake yourself up.

If this is not something for you, you can try another energy boost drink such as a protein smoothie, matcha tea, coffee, etc. Click here to find recipes for the best high protein breakfasts, including vegan recipes.

“Breakfast shall be savoured and appreciated, for it is holy and just plain fantastic”

• Go to bed early

Doing so has many benefits, such as less stress. Why? Because even though you still have a lot to do before going to sleep, working at night might not be good for your concentration and sleep quality. Instead, get yourself some rest and finish your work early in the next morning when your brain feels fresh and productive.

Having these good habits also make you look and feel better, since you feel like you're doing something good for yourself.

• Turn off your electronics before you go to bed

• Have a morning stretch routine

Starting the day relaxed and organized is what motives you, so you don't need to have a workout motivation because once you start it and understand the feeeling that you get, it will all compensate.

Even if you don't feel like doing a real workout or go for a run, morning stretches are super easy, fast and valuable to do. It helps your body and mind relax, relieves tension from sleeping the night before, improves blood circulation and much more.

Check this 15-minute youtube video for a guided morning strech at home.

Similarly, cardio exercises are good for your sleep in the long run as even though your heartbeat may be pounding faster while exercising, if done properly, your resting heart rate will lower naturally, which in turn benefits your quality of sleep.

• Read a book

Reading in the morning and in general has many effects such as stress reduction, better communication skills, improves intelligence focus and memory.

A book that we advice you to read with the theme of being in a good mood is called "Feeling good: The new mood therapy". This book gives explanations of the principles of cognitive behavioral therapy, as well as showing ways to improve a person's mood and life by identifying and eliminating common cognitive distortions and methods to improve communication skills, for example.

Being in a good mood is all about being present and being in the now. Another interesting spiritual book that we would like to suggest is "The Power of Now" from Eckard Tolle. This book is about teaching you to be present in the moment and appreciate what is around you, regardless of the circumstances you might be facing at any moment, so it is highly recommended for everyone to read it.

• Stay hydrated

We love good habits and there is no better thing than consuming enough water each day. Being hydrated can literally calm your nerves and it seems that no matter what happens, the solution is almost always drinking water- Are you having stress? Drink water. Do you feel sick? Drink water. Are you having a headache? Drink water.

Therefore, it is no wonder that drinking water also puts you in a better mood and if you are not the biggest fan of drinking regular water, add some lemon or orange to it and it will make all the difference.

The general recommendation is 8 to 10 glasses of water, equivalent to 1,5 to 2 litres a day. Keep drinking water during the day, even if you’re not that thirsty at the moment (but don’t overdo it either).

Alarm Clock Tips

First, if you are a person that takes time to wake up and move out of bed, set your alarm 15 minutes before you were planing. This will give you time enough to get some energy and won't make you feel stressed again about the fact that you stayed in bed for too long, although it isn't good to lay down in bed woken up for more than some minutes.

When you wake up in the morning, try to jump out of the bed as soon as the alarm goes off. This is because your body and mind are at odds with each other when you wake up. Don’t think about doing it, just do it. Associate the alarm with jumping out of a bed. Moreover, if you wake up and stay in bed for long, it’ll be that much more tempting to fall asleep again, if you’re at least sitting up, like people who are awake usually do, your senses will react accordingly.

This is also a great tip for how to stay awake, as the energy which you started the day with, will stay throughout the day.

Lastly, if you haven’t done so already, a good tip is to find the perfect alarm sound for you. It can be a song or a phone jingle, but find a tune that can wake you up hundreds of times without ever irritating you. You can also use some sounds to fall asleep to.

Nature sounds such as birds, for example, are one of the best sounds to fall asleep to, as they are calm and relaxing. It is definitely recommended to play around with the songs and find what suits you best. Switching it up every month or so to keep things different is also a good tip.

Try this app called Nature sounds alarm clock and see if it helps you make today great :)

The 90-minute rule

The 90-minute rule states that we typically sleep in cycles. You might recall a time where you woke up in the morning, still early and figuring you could sleep another 40 minutes only to wake up groggier than before. Here is why:
Roughly an hour is spent on normal regular sleep (including the time you need to go to sleep in the first place), followed by some 20 minutes of REM sleep (Rapid Eye Movement, in which dreams are most likely to occur) and finally a short period of non-REM sleep. This would make up one cycle, which is then repeated.

Therefore, you would get 1.30 hours, 3 hours, 4.30 hours, 6 hours, 7.30 hours and 9 hours. What this means is that it’s technically better to sleep 7.30 hours instead of 8, or 8.30 hours since that would break the cycle, and you’d end up fighting sleep inertia. If you wake up in the middle of the night, chances are you just got out of a cycle. This is normal as the phase in between your completed cycle and your next one is a moment of light sleep which can be easily disturbed by cold, some noises or your bladder demanding attention.

In short, next time you naturally wake up in the morning, if you don’t intend on sleeping another 90 minutes it’s better to just get up then. You can spend the gained wake time in the morning to do something instead, such as a morning stretch or preparing a nice salad with cherry tomatoes and feta. What about a smoothie, or a nice, smooth porridge and take the time to enjoy it?

Sleep inertia

What is it?

This feeling is characterized by a certain period of time from when you wake up and feel sleepiness and poor cognitive performance. It's an inevitable part of your sleep cycle as you transition from sleep to wakefulness, sometimes caused by the interruption of your cycle (90-minute rule) and it can also occur after a nap.

Some sleep inertia symptoms are:

• Grogginess
• A desire to fall back asleep
• Impaired cognitive ability
• Impaired visual attention
• Impaired spatial memory
• Confusion
• Slowness

Causes of sleep inertia

Higher levels of delta waves: Electrical waves that you might feel in the brain, linked to deep sleep. People with sleep inertia have higher levels of delta waves and also fewer beta waves, which are associated with wakefulness.

Slower brain reactivation: ResearchTrusted Source suggests that the reactivation of certain parts of the brain after waking up may be slower and affect executive function.

Slow blood flow in the brain: Which makes it hard for the brain’s blood flow to speed up after waking.

Treatments

• Drinking coffee or coffee alternatives, since it helps with shaking off some of the effects of sleep inertia.
• Getting more light exposure, to speed the process of being allert.
• Having a sleep schedule, in order to give your body a rythm.

To summarize:

It’s all about the small things. While negative motivation, in the style of “If I don’t get up now I will be late for work” may work fine, over the long run it’s not really nice to get up every single day like that. So what you’d want at the end of the day is to look forward to the day instead of dreading it! Just remember it’s nothing more than scheduling a “me” time to start the day, so don’t get too distracted if it’s not the weekend.

• A good day starts with a good breakfast.
• Be on good terms with your alarm.
• Keeping to good routines and schedules will lead to good habits.
• Get synchronised with your sleeping cycles thanks to the 90-minute rule.

Don't forget: you can do this!