The Gen XY Lifestyle
4 ways you can wake up feeling awesome
Your mindset, thoughts and motivation in the morning tend to have an impact on the rest of your day. If you wake up feeling terrible, chances are you would end up having a pretty terrible day. If you wake up feeling awesome, you’ll set yourself up for having an awesome day.
If being able to wake up feeling awesome sounds good to you, we have four effective tips to make that happen.
1. Get enough sleep
This one sounds logical and simple enough – we need to get enough rest, about seven to eight hours each night – to wake up feeling awesome.
In practice, many of us are not able to clock in sufficient sleep. In fact, market research company, YouGov, estimates that an alarming 44% of Singaporean adults don’t get at least seven hours of sleep each night.
To get the best quality of rest each night, we need the following ingredients – a comfortable sleep environment, which includes a cool room, comfortable pillows, the right mattress, and a regular bed-time routine, which means leaving your phone out of reach, avoiding spicy and sugary foods or a large dinner, and limiting your intake of alcohol and caffeine.
2. Avoid the “snooze” button at all cost!
“Just five more minutes, mom, please.”
You may recognise this phrase from your early schooling years, bargaining for more sleep each and every morning. For some, the temptation to stay in bed, regardless of how well-rested you may be, is irresistible.
However, the effects of doing so can be detrimental to how the rest of your day turns out. By snoozing, you are actively trying to return into the sleep cycle, before forcing yourself out of it again prematurely. This will confuse your body clock, and bring about an effect known as “sleep inertia”, a state of reduced alertness, for up to four hours into your morning.
Help yourself avoid this by putting your alarm clock (which often happens to be your phone) out of reach. This will force you to get out of bed to stop the alarm, and hopefully allows you to make a conscious decision to not get back into bed.
Another thing you can consider is setting your alarm at the appropriate time, rather than too early or too late. While setting it earlier than required gives you the buffer to snooze, you might be setting yourself up for failure.
Similarly, you may be heading towards failure by setting your alarm just in time. Instead of going to bed half an hour earlier, you may choose to wake up just in time. The problem with this is that if just one thing doesn’t go to plan, you may end up being late for work and have to take on unnecessary anxiety and stress.
3. Make your bed, and set other healthy morning routines
A routine before you sleep helps set up a good night’s sleep, so why shouldn’t a routine in the morning help you kickstart your day?
Many experts agree that making your bed first thing in the morning allows you to immediately complete the first task of your day. This positive affirmation sets you up for a productive day ahead.
Some other morning routines you could consider adopting include a short workout at home to get the blood pumping, followed by a hearty breakfast.
The benefits of consuming your largest meal during breakfast have been widely discussed. It curbs your hunger pangs after seven to eight hours of fasting (while sleeping), and the calories you consume can be worked off as fuel during the entire day.
4. Get a leg-up on the next day, the night before
To enjoy an awesome morning, you should complete the heavy lifting and have your schedule laid out for you the night before.
This means laying out your clothes, packing your bag, preparing a healthy breakfast and anything else that you have to worry about in the morning. By reducing this stress in the morning, you’re already on your way to a brighter and more positive day.
You should also turn in early enough such that seven to eight hours of sleep still leaves you with a good cushion to eat your breakfast, catch up on news, respond to emails and think about your longer-term plans in the morning.
This helps to maximise your productivity and steer you towards achieving your goals not only for the day itself, but for your future.
On the other hand, NOT doing certain things the night before also plays a big part in giving you a leg-up the next day. This includes avoiding excessive alcohol consumption and intense work-outs right before you sleep, as they can disrupt your sleep cycle.
An awesome day extends beyond your morning
Have an awesome day every day by starting your morning right, and continue to do the right things for your mind and body throughout the entire day. Leverage on AIA Vitality, a health and wellness programme designed to provide you additional motivation, in the form of rewards and challenges, for getting active and making healthy choices.
Participate in weekly challenges and team challenges with your friends, to earn more rewards and make healthy living social and fun. Take online nutrition assessments to understand your body, and eat healthier and enjoy up to 20% cashback on HealthyFoodTM items at Cold Storage, Jasons and Market Place stores. Reduce your stress with benefits such as discounts on gym membership and travel.
Tackle your biggest stresses in life
For many, financial commitments and money-related issues can manifest into sleepless nights. Some of the biggest stresses in your life may include supporting your child through a good education, enjoying a fruitful retirement or wanting to leave a legacy behind for your loved ones. Be Life Confident by tackling these stresses head on.
AIA Smart Wealth Builder, a savings plan, offers a simple solution for you to prepare for these common financial goals. Choose how much and for how long you want to save, with flexible premium payment terms of 5, 10, 15 or 20 years. Continue receiving coverage against death, total and permanent disability and terminal illness throughout your policy, as well as benefit from potentially higher returns with guaranteed and non-guaranteed bonus components.
What’s more, your premiums will be guaranteed after the 15th policy year, which means that the amount your have paid in premiums is fully secured, regardless of how the market performs.
This article was contributed by AIA Singapore.
