It’s hard to explain the cloudy-headed feeling you get when you first wake up. Even after being good and getting a decent night’s sleep, you wake up feeling confused and incapable of doing the simplest of tasks. It’s like your brain hasn’t quite caught on that you are done with sleeping and it’s time for other things.
You might have tried everything to improve your sleep: drank a soothing cup of camomile tea, turned the blue light off on all the devices you could find, or even done a thorough internet search for the perfect mattress in a box in Australia. But still you wake up every morning feeling like you have been on a 72-hour long-haul flight. This is what they call sleep inertia.
Usually from waking in the middle of deep sleep, sleep inertia does not last for long, on average less than 15 minutes, but some can suffer the effects for up to 4 hours. And during this time, there is a decrease in mental performance, so you’ll need to wake up fully before completing taxing activities.
How to get out of this fog and start your day
A study at the Centre for Sleep Research tested various ways to reduce the impacts of sleep inertia and to improve brain function on waking. Among the methods analysed, there were the effects of caffeine on increasing alertness, light in changing sleep patterns, and allowing your body to wake up naturally. However, these methods may not work for everyone. It can be dependent on the level of sleep inertia you experience and your type of lifestyle. Allowing yourself to wake up without an alarm clock may be impossible for some, and while a coffee in the morning can help revive you from its effects, it may not beat sleep inertia for good.
This may make it seem like there’s really nothing you can do. But since sleep deprivation has been noted to worsen the effects of sleep inertia, for your average slow waker, it may help to focus on improving sleep quality and quantity.
How to improve your sleep
In our busy modern lives, it is quite common for us to sacrifice our sleep time, but it isn’t just the time spent sleeping that is beneficial. It is also the time when we allow our bodies to wind down and prepare for sleep. In fact, time is incredibly important.
Dedicate time on your sleep patterns
One step in improving your sleep is setting a sleep schedule that can help your body work out the clear distinction between awake time and sleep time. Try to stick to a bedtime as much as possible. While staying up late can be good for one’s social life, do it too often, and you’ll find it increasingly harder to sleep.
Dedicate time to quieten your mind
Setting a routine provides valuable time for ourselves to enter into a peaceful state before bed. Find a stress-free task to concentrate on, like reading or knitting, and try to put aside the worries of the day. And really try to focus on these tasks. Multitasking can become a habit; you are half watching tv while your brain is working out to-do lists and mentally preparing for tomorrow, but shut this off. Practising meditation can further help with blocking out these thoughts. Your mind needs to be ready for sleep.
Time is valuable these days. When you next feel in the depth of morning grogginess, wait for it to wash over you and give yourself time to function properly. It may seem like a lot to commit to in your busy schedule, but better sleep makes for a better you, so really, it’s a win-win situation.
