It is hard to admit, but it’s difficult to be a high school student and a morning person! With so much homework and extracurricular activities, it is hard for students to sleep early and to wake up early, especially during winter! Here, I will be giving out some tips that can help us change our routines and become morning people!

1. Start by moving your bedtime earlier by just 15 minutes at a time. This change might seem insignificant, but it does have a long-term effect! Just sleeping a little bit earlier each day can shift your sleeping schedule, allowing you to wake up more refreshed in the morning because you got enough sleep the night before!

2. Some experts say that going to bed too full or too hungry may keep you awake. The same applies to drinking: drinking too much before bed can keep you up, as you would need to use the bathroom more frequently. In addition, caffeine and alcohol have been shown to disrupt sleep, which can make it harder for us to get out of bed in the morning.

3. Temperature, noise, light, and comfort can also impact your ability to sleep well. A cool, quiet room has been shown to be an effective sleep environment. Sleeping in a comfortable room can better our sleeping quality, which makes it easier for us have a good night sleep!

4. “Inverted snooze” is the idea that we “snooze” out of bed for nine minutes–get up and start your day lightly by doing something that helps you to be more awake. Inverted snoozing claims to ease the pain of waking up by telling yourself you only have to stick it out for nine minutes. By the time the alarm goes off again, you should be awake and alert enough to start your day rather than still being grumpy in bed and (likely) hitting snooze again.

5. If you naturally wake within minutes of your alarm, it can be tempting to close your eyes and relish a few more minutes of rest. However, it is better to just get out of bed. When you wake spontaneously, you’re likely in a light sleep stage, explained Dr. Nathaniel Watson. Going back to sleep could send you into a deeper sleep stage, making it harder to wake up.

6. You can also try apps to help you wake up! For example, Wake ‘N Shake forces you to shake your phone in order to turn off the alarm, and Better Me shares your status to Facebook every time you hit snooze. There are also apps like Sleep Cycle that use motion sensors to monitor your movement and determine the best time to wake you within a preset time window, so you can wake up more naturally!

7. The sun is the best thing to wake us up, as the light represents the morning, but nowadays we have blinds to block out the light. Fortunately, there are gradual light-up alarm clocks that promise to lull you out of sleep less painfully than your standard alarm. You can also turn on the flashlight on your phone when your alarm rings, because adjusting to bright lights before waking up is always better than being blinded upon opening your eyes!

8. Psychologist Patricia Adson thinks that instead of snoozing, you can use the extra time in the morning to reward yourself. For example, read a favorite newspaper, listen to a few minutes of the morning news, exercise, or meditate. Dr. Adson suggested selecting an activity that means something to you. “Later, notice how you feel about yourself when you have given yourself the time to get a good start on the day.” The dopamine inspires us to do it again because we get a reward the first time. Eventually, we will be morning people, as we enjoy the feeling of receiving a reward!

9. We’re wired to have peak alertness around mid-morning. According to Dr. David Marks, “Early morning exercise can help boost the morning energy surge, as you will have elevated body temperature and elevated adrenaline levels for several hours after you exercise.” Not only that, research has shown that exercising before breakfast burns more fat calories and results in more weight loss than exercising after breakfast, said Burr Leonard, the founder of Bar Method. Along with being a morning person, you can be a skinny person too!

10. Dr. Marks suggested that keeping the television volumes low in the evenings can lull you into sleep mode. This helps you associate the evening with slowing down so that you can mentally prepare your mind for sleep. “It’s hard to do this if at 9 p.m. your house is just as loud and bright as it is at 4 p.m.,” said Dr. Marks.

Here are ten tips that can help you get better at waking up early! I hope they can help you to get yourself out of bed during the freezing winter!