There’s plenty of advice and products on the market to help you fall asleep and get the optimal night’s rest. What we don’t think about as often is the best way to wake up. Are there things we can do first thing in the morning to start the day off right?
In this Q&A, Mariana Figueiro, PhD, Director of the Light and Health Research Center at Mount Sinai and Mount Sinai Endowed Professor of Light and Health Research at the Population Health Science and Policy Department at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, provides some time tested tips on how to start your day off right, beginning with why you should consider avoiding the snooze button on your alarm and why raising the shades is critical.
What’s the most important part of waking up well?
The key is to keep a regular schedule. That means getting up and going to bed at the same time every day, being so consistent that you don’t need an alarm clock because your body knows when it’s time to wake up. And it also means getting up right away—without hitting the snooze button. You never sleep as well after your alarm goes off. It’s better to set the alarm for the time you really need to get up, rather than allotting 10-15 minutes for the snooze button. This way, you get a little bit more sleep—and can be better quality sleep.
Mariana Figueiro, PhD, Director of the Light and Health Research Center at Mount Sinai. Click here to learn more about the Center.
What’s the best time to go to bed and wake up?
There isn’t a single best time for everyone. We’re all very different. Some people are larks and some people are owls. I like to go to bed early and wake up early. But others prefer to go to bed late and wake up late. The best scenario is if you can set your life schedule to match your internal clock. You can adjust to a schedule that’s contrary to your nature, but it’s always going to be an effort.
What if you establish a regular schedule, but then stay up later one night?
The ideal approach is to keep the same schedule even on the weekends, but we know that it’s probably not going to happen because you often do different things over the weekend than during the week. If you have to wake up the morning after a late night because it’s a workday, you just have to slug it out and maybe increase your caffeine intake. That’s why Mondays are so hard. But if you don’t have to get up, you should forget the alarm and let yourself wake up naturally. If you’ve been keeping a regular schedule, you should be okay with going back to sleeping at your regular time the following night. One night of getting to bed late and sleeping late shouldn’t throw you off.
How does the body know when to go to sleep and when to wake up?
There are basically two processes for sleep. One is driven by the sleep homeostatic also known as sleep pressure. When you wake up in the morning, you aren’t feeling any sleep pressure because you just finished sleeping. But that sleep pressure builds with time awake, and after being awake for 15 or more hours, you will have a lot of sleep pressure. While you sleep, especially during deep sleep, you dissipate the sleep pressure. If you get a good night’s sleep, by the time you wake up, your sleep pressure goes back to zero. The other process is driven by the circadian clock. Your biological clock tells you to stay awake during the day and asleep at night. At bedtime, your sleep pressure is high and your biological clock switches from sending you an alerting signal to sending you a sleeping signal. That’s how you fall asleep. If these two processes are misaligned, you will not fall asleep or maintain sleep as easily.
Do sleep patterns change as you get older?
As you get older, you don’t sleep as deeply, so you don’t get rid of as much sleep pressure at night. You also have a much more fragmented sleep at night. That means when you get out of bed in the morning, you’re already a little tired. And you stay a little tired.
What about taking a nap?
Some older people who don’t have a fixed schedule take a nap in the afternoon. Napping dissipates some of the sleep pressure, which is helpful right after the nap. But it also makes it harder to fall asleep at night because you have only been accumulating sleep pressure for a few hours instead of all day. Having less sleep pressure means that even if your biological clock tells you to go to sleep, you don’t feel the pressure to do so. That makes it harder to fall asleep at night, which means you don’t get as good nighttime rest and you wake up not fully rested. It’s a cycle. If you really have to take a nap, don’t nap for more than 20 minutes; that way, you don’t dissipate as much sleep pressure, so you should still be able to fall asleep at night.
What can I do when I wake up, to get a good start to the day?
When you get up, you should go right to your window and pull up your shades or open your curtains. If you don’t have much daylight in your bedroom, then go to a well daylit room. Daylight can help you wake up naturally and reduce sleepiness. It’s great if you can get into the habit of taking your morning cup of coffee outside. I’ve often recommended getting a puppy, because then you’re forced to go outdoors every morning at the same time.
What about a dawn simulator?
If you have to get up when it’s still dark out, a dawn simulator can help because you won’t wake up in a dark room. That’s a light that slowly ramps up. Some of these devices are combined with an alarm clock; they start making the room a little lighter before the alarm goes off, and then they continue to brighten the room after you’re awake.
What about a “light box” for seasonal affective disorder (SAD)? Do they do the same thing?
SAD lights are effective, especially for treating seasonal affective disorder (SAD) but they are too bright and people tend to find them uncomfortable to look at. And if you don’t get the light at the back of the eye, you don’t get its benefit. Also, SAD lights generally don’t slowly ramp up, so they are not ideal for using to help you wake up. They are more appropriate to be used after you wake up.
Does exercise help get your morning off to the right start?
I often tell people to go for a walk outside for a half hour or so first thing in the morning. That way, you’re getting light (at least in summer months) and you’re exercising. Just exercising, without the daylight, doesn’t have as much, if any, effect on your biological clock. But it can help get you moving and it might help you wake up.
Does it matter what kind of alarm you use?
Not really, as long as it doesn’t have such a harsh sound that you wake up startled. But that’s more of a psychological issue than a physiological one. Physiologically, it doesn’t matter what kind of alarm you use. But psychologically, you don’t want something that’s going to be jarring and upsetting.
You mentioned drinking a morning cup of coffee. How does caffeine help you wake up?
Adenosine is a sleep promoter and accumulates with time awake. Caffeine blocks the adenosine receptors in the brain. When caffeine blocks those receptors, it fools the brain into being awake and alert.