I'm So Not A Morning Person — But These 4 Tips Help Me Feel Less Groggy In The A.M.

Instead, I'm setting a more realistic goal for myself: get my day started with minimal grogginess. Luckily, I'm a health editor, so I get to pick the brains of sleep and energy experts for a living. Over the past few years, I've gathered little crumbs from our conversations to help in my pursuit of less painful mornings. And today, I'm sharing four tips that have actually helped me wake up on (or at least, closer to) the right side of the bed:

If you don't use a sleep tracker, you can also measure your chronotype the old-fashioned way. The next time you have a few days when you don't have to wake up at a certain time, see what time your body naturally gets tired and wakes up when you don't set an alarm. (Going camping is a great way to discover your natural rhythm too.)

If there's one thing working with sleep experts has taught me, it's that spending eight hours in bed is not the same as getting eight hours of good sleep. People might think they're spending enough time snoozing every night but actually clock very little time in deeper sleep stages (where the most rest and recovery happens). Shallow sleep translates to sleepy mornings, so I've learned to prioritize sleep quality above all else.

From the first few nights I took it, the combination of magnesium bisglycinate, jujube, and PharmaGABA® helped me clock more time in deep sleep stages and wake up feeling noticeably more well-rested (and this was at the height of the pandemic, no less). The sleep aid is still part of my bedtime routine, and I appreciate that, unlike hormonal options like melatonin, it's safe to take nightly and doesn't leave me waking up in a fog.*

I've tried a few sunrise-mimicking alarm clocks to wake myself up gradually, but since I'm a deep sleeper and I sleep with an eye mask on, they haven't quite worked for me. I have my eye on these expert-approved alarm clocks for heavy sleepers next.

This summer, I'm working my way up to taking cold showers in the morning for a little extra jolt of energy. Sleep doctor Michael Breus, Ph.D., convinced me when he said that just a minute of cold exposure in the morning can be enough to wake you up and support your inflammatory response1 and mood 2at the same time.

While I'm still not a ray of sunshine in the mornings, I'm not a storm cloud either thanks to these small tweaks. I hope they help you, too, feel a little more like yourself from the moment you wake up.