Thursday, June 26, 2014

Waking Up: One Do and One Don't Do

A few of the new habits that I've formally adopted for myself are making the bed, (which I've already blogged about) and never hitting the snooze button.  I used to hit the snooze once or twice on the morning I had to wake up early, but no longer.

There is some new research that is hitting the mainstreams the last few months that hitting the snooze button actually allows you to start to fall back into early sleep.  This is the worst type of sleep to be awakened from.  So when your first alarm goes off, it's waking you up, hitting snooze thinking it will allow you to slowly wake up is actually doing the opposite and making you even more groggy.  The Trouble with Snoozing.

What I really found interesting was the fact that even 45 min later after waking,  the brains cognition  isn't fully awake!  Seems crazy, but it takes almost 2 hours to allow cognition to fully wake up.  So don't make any important decisions within 2 hours of waking.

The original reason I gave up the snooze button was something to do with discipline and will power.  Hitting the snooze button was a conscience decision to allow procrastination and energy leaks in life. I heard it on a podcast or paper or something and for some reason decided it was worth doing.  I can say I'm glad I quit hitting the snooze button.  I do feel more in charge of my mornings.  N=1.


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