5 Ways to Have Your Most Productive Morning
What to do: Pull on extra layers.
What it does: Turning up the heat makes it hard to stay sleepy. Body temperature naturally tends to drop when we’re in the deepest part of our sleep cycle, which is two hours before we wake up, says Rafael Pelayo, MD, a sleep specialist at the Stanford University Sleep Medicine Center. That’s why those hours of sleep right before the alarm goes off tend to be the most cozy.
How it makes you more productive: Your body will feel literally warmed-up and ready to go, and your mind will follow.
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What to do: Shift your sleep schedule to match your circadian rhythms. It sounds like your alarm is currently jerking you out of low-wave sleep, putting you in a state of “sleep-drunkenness,” Pelayo says. He recommends locking in a wake-up time (use an app like Sleep Cycle to find out when you sleep the lightest) and going to bed at least 7 hours earlier. If you’re having trouble drifting off, he says, it’s better for your brain if you make up for lost time by taking an afternoon catnap rather than sleeping late in the morning. (Implementing your routine may require a conversation with your boss.)
What it does: While we’re all generally on the same time schedule (i.e., asleep in the dark, and bustling around in the light of day), our internal clocks vary by minutes to hours. For example, you might feel more energized after waking up at 6:15 a.m. than at 6:30 a.m.
How it makes you more productive: You’ll do your best work when you’re naturally more alert. When schools pushed back start times from 7:15 to 8:40 a.m. to partially accommodate the circadian rhythms of teenagers (who tend to be three hours behind), they found that students’ grades and test scores drastically improved.
What to do: Deep squats (at least 20 of them).
What it does: Activating the large muscles in the thighs and butt quickly gets blood flowing to the brain, says John Ratey, MD, a Harvard associate professor and the author of Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, reinvigorating it with oxygen, nutrients (like glucose) and performance-boosting chemicals. This move is still uncomplicated enough to do with a toothbrush in your hand.
How it makes you more productive: It activates your brain and turns on the cells you’ll need for creative thinking, says Ratey (and brushing, of course, freshens your breath).
What to do: Eat a bowl of oatmeal (or whole-grain toast with peanut butter, which is apparently the preferred breakfast of nutritionists).
What it does: Any kind of food fuels the brain, but the complex carbs in whole grains have a low glycemic index and are absorbed slowly, keeping blood sugar levels stable and energy levels consistent. That’s why they could be considered the breakfast of (Jeopardy!) champions.
How it makes you more productive: Studies have shown that breakfast eaters are more alert, have sharper recall and improved cognitive performance than those who don’t eat breakfast. One example: Schoolkids who eat something in the morning seem to perform better on tests. The effects are strongest if the meal is eaten within an hour of waking—which means we’re talking about breakfast, not brunch.
What to do: Pre-program your coffee maker.
What it does: Caffeine works by temporarily blocking the action of a natural, sleep-inducing brain chemical called adenosine, explains Allison T. Siebern, PhD, a sleep specialist at Stanford Sleep Medicine Center. It essentially buys you hours of awake time.
How it makes you more productive: A strong cup of coffee can boost both mental alertness and physical performance by up to 30 percent within 15 to 30 minutes. You might notice the effects even sooner: The aroma of coffee beans alone can alter the activity of genes in the brain to reduce the stress of sleep deprivation, found Korean researchers working with exhausted rodents.
