Four Ways To Beat Morning Grogginess

If you feel like "waking up is the hardest thing I do all day" then you're not alone. The experience has been termed "sleep inertia" and while it's a normal part of the sleep-wake experience, it can be frustrating to wake up feeling tired .

Much of the research on sleep inertia focuses on reducing the risk of performance impairment and we are yet to find clear empirical evidence to support the use of any one single reactive countermeasure.

The most promising evidence is for the use of caffeine : taken before a short nap of less than 30 minutes, it has been shown to reduce the effects of sleep inertia. While this is helpful if you need to recover after a rest during the day, heading back to bed for a nap just after waking up isn't very practical for most of us.

So here are some more practical tips that you can use to help you get out of bed.

Get an alarm clock

If you're struggling to get out of bed in the morning the first thing to ask is, where is your smart phone? Do you keep it next to the bed as an alarm clock? Make getting an old fashioned alarm clock your priority.

The mere presence of the phone near you as you sleep reduces sleep quality - if it's nearby, it's too hard to resist . It's not just through disruptive notifications (putting it on silent isn't good enough). Having the phone next to you as you sleep can induce anticipatory anxiety and increase emotional arousal . Just knowing it's there will keep you at a level of alertness that is not conducive to falling off into a deep sleep.

There's an additional benefit to keeping the phone out of your room: you are less likely to check it first thing in the morning. There are many reasons to avoid this habit, one of the most compelling centres around the problem of micro-dosing ourselves with dopamine before we even get enough motivation to get out of the bed.

Dopamine plays a central role in motivation and craving . It peaks and troughs throughout our day, dopamine dips are functional because we feel discomfort and that propels us to seek relief. Think cave men and women needing the motivation to leave the safety of the cave to find food, water or a mate. Leaving the cave was high risk, and the push from our dopamine drop discomfort would have been essential to get us up and out.

We forget how much of our brain still works in these ancient ways. Humans still rely on the same system to get out of bed. When we reach for a smartphone, we're met with rapid, bite-sized dopamine hits - notifications, beautiful people, likes, novel information. These micro-stimuli may blunt the natural dip in dopamine, circumventing the discomfort we need to motivate us to get moving. Instead of experiencing a rise in drive, we feel artificially satisfied, making it easier to stay curled up under the warm covers.

Don't hit snooze

You've got the devices out of your bedroom - but now you need to work on your relationship with your alarm clock. Don't hit snooze.

Hitting snooze increases the likelihood of dropping back into a deep sleep phase and will induce regular sleep disruptions and unwanted sleep stage transitions. These all increase the impact of sleep inertia and reduce vigour .

If you really struggle to avoid the seductive snooze button, there are alarm clocks available that usually come with wheels that will take themselves out of your reach. A bit of movement to help get you out of bed as a bonus.

Or, think about getting an alarm clock that opens your curtains to let in the morning light. Brief bright light exposure has been shown to improve alertness and energy

Remember when your parents pulled the covers off the bed?

Anyone who had older siblings, or a parent or caregiver involved in getting them out of bed when you were an adolescent will have experienced having the cover pulled off the bed as a last ditch effort to move you along. It turns out that there may have been some wisdom to this method.

Cooling the extremities immediately after waking up is a promising way to accelerate recovery from sleep inerita . And while we are staying old school, if all else fails, wash your face.

Maybe you need to stay in bed?

Most importantly of all, maybe you are just tired and need to stay in bed. That's not a moral failing or a collapse of your will power. You might just actually need more rest.

If you're someone who is genuinely sleep deprived or living with an energy sapping illness or a life event that's taking all your resources, maybe you need to make space for staying in bed. Critical disability scholar Ellen Samuels writes about "crip time" . Sometimes illness or disability change our relationship with time and we need to go at a different pace. Samuels and other scholars reflect on the paradox of needing to slow down in order to keep up .

So sometimes the problem is the expectation that we force our minds and bodies into unrealistic performances of competency and productivity - and sometimes it's going to have to be okay to not get out of bed.

Trudy Meehan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.