10 Things You Can Do To Be More Awake 

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It is getting challenging to get a night of good sleep, and even if you do, there is sometimes a feeling that you are not entirely awake as you should be. Getting a consistent good sleep can be the easiest and best thing to help you be more awake. However, sometimes there are times when you can’t have a good sleep, and your sleep pattern gets disrupted to make you feel tired while you work to recover.

Also, there are times when you need to stay up even if you haven’t slept well for various reasons that you may face and those that couldn’t be avoided. When these things happen, you might want to know some ways that help you be more awake to continue the day to get through what you need to do until you get the time to rest and sleep properly. There are various ways to be more awake, some that allow you to stay awake for longer. 

The most effective method to explore before looking for ways to be more awake would be to organise your sleeping pattern. Although it can be challenging, getting good sleep can be the best way to reinvigorate yourself when you feel unenergised and sleepy. Therefore, you should attempt to first reflect on your sleeping situation, particularly the hours you sleep to the recommended hours of sleep between 7 to 9 hours. If you are interested in learning about ways to manage your time so you can plan your sleep better, find out more here.

Waking up after sleeping the recommended hours can make you wake up more energised. If you are not getting the recommended hours of sleep, you can identify some strategies that could help you, such as using time reinforcement is a big one. You can create a specific time to go to sleep, and when you wake up, you can use alarms to help you do this more easily. Also, you can find a sleeping posture that works best for you, such as sleeping on your back and even changing your bed or pillows. 

One of the critical things to do when revising how you sleep would be to implement the changes you made and be consistent with them, such as if you choose to sleep at 10 pm, you should go to sleep at this time even if you have things left to do. If you are in a situation where you can’t make these changes and time to get good sleep, you can try exploring other options to be more awake. However, it would be best to try to find ways to accommodate good sleep as this is one healthy method that would help you long term. 

If you are in a situation where you can’t take the time to improve your sleep, you can try taking a nap. Napping is essentially short sleep and can be very beneficial for you, especially if you are sleep-deprived or tired. By taking a nap, you can feel more awake and recharged. It is a great way to stay alert and can help improve memory, performance, and learning. After all, if you are sleepy and exhausted, it can become harder to focus and even do things in general. 

If you need to take a nap, it is recommended you only take between 5 to 30 minutes of nap and only once per day. You can use an alarm to wake up in time and don’t exceed the recommended time. Also, it would help if you took a nap early in the day, so it doesn’t disrupt your sleep, such as around midday and early afternoon can be a good time.  

If you take part in activities that can strain your eyes, such as work requiring you to stare at a screen or colours, that can harm your eyes. It would help if you gave your eyes some break by closing your eyes for a few minutes or try blinking more often when you work. You can even turn your favourite music and take some time to rest. So often, when we work with a screen or need to stare at something, we don’t blink enough, and you can dry your eyes pretty quickly, which can make you sleepy.

When you feel that you are still sleepy from waking up or getting tired when you need to stay up longer, try waking up your mind by changing your activity. You can try starting a conversation with someone, and you might feel that you are beginning to feel more awake. Talking with someone can be an excellent simulator, and who knows that it could do wonders for you to bring out various expressions such as laughter that can increase your intake of oxygen and energise you.

When you are tired or have just woken up, one of the hardest things to do can be getting up, and it becomes easier to stay in bed or sit around. You can get a tempting tendency to remain in that position. Therefore, the first thing you should do to be more awake would be to get up, and it can become a cue for you that it is time for you to wake up. 

It can even assist you when you are just feeling tired or getting sleepy, possibly at work or something. Take the chance to stand up if you have been sitting down for a long time without much movement. Try going for a short walk and changing your pace from sitting for a long time. Start to move around after getting up, and that allows you to be more awake, helping your body send oxygen to different parts of your body such as the brain and muscles, and become more energised.

There are numerous benefits to taking baths, and helping you be more awake is one of those benefits. Taking baths can be great for you, and what’s more, there are many types of baths you can take in which some of them can have different benefits to each other. In particular, hot and warm baths can help you feel refreshed through your body sweating from the high temperature. 

Also, warm baths are great for you to take before sleeping. When you step out of the bath, your body temperature starts to drop pretty quickly, which induces sleep, which can be helpful if you are aiming to get good sleep. In comparison, a cold bath lowers your body temperature to give a similar effect as the hot and warm baths to induce sleep. However, in terms of helping you be more awake, the cold bath can be fabulous in making you feel great, vitalised, and more awake by encouraging the hormones that work to give you these feelings. If you want to find out more about taking a bath and their benefits, you can check here.

What we eat can impact us variously, it can be supportive by giving us amazing benefits, but the other side of the coin is that it could also cause inconvenience. You can feel weak and lose energy quite quickly, depending on what you eat. The negative impacts can differ depending on other factors that might be present near us when eating. 

Therefore, you can find out about some food and create strategies to get the benefits you desire and adjust as your needs change. For instance, you can decide to eat more frequent meals but in smaller amounts or have small healthy snacks such as celery sticks spread out through the day so you can keep your blood sugar levels more stable for the day. Low blood sugar can make you tired and even impair your mind.

Also, when you are fatigued, you can get hungry, and even more than usual as your hunger level becomes fuzzy. Being tired can make you crave more sugary and high-carb food, giving you energy and making you feel full quickly. However, the downside is that this can be short-term as carb-heavy foods can get burned quite fast and leave you feeling out of energy.

It is essential to reflect on what you have been eating if you feel more tired often and change your diet to healthier food that helps you be more awake, providing you with sufficient energy that lasts.

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If you feel that you are having a bad sleep often or out of energy quickly, you can try exercising. There are many kinds of benefits you can get by exercising, such as it can help you feel more refreshed, increase your stamina, reduce tiredness, and improve your quality of sleep, leaving you feeling more awake. If you start exercising, you should gradually begin to have better moods, sleep and feel stronger.

Starting to exercise doesn’t mean you need to do hardcore exercises. Even going for a short walk can wake your body up. You can go at your pace and begin by implementing simple exercises or what you can considering the accessibility, such as if you have a park nearby, you can go for a walk or run. The important things to do can be examining your body reaction and be consistent, adapting your exercises for the benefits you need. 

Generally, exercises should help you sleep better, but some people might feel that exercising at night can impact their sleeping patterns. Just note that what others may have felt and experienced can have been different for you. It might be good to check what effects you get whenever you start something new and implement a new activity to your routine, including exercising. You can try to do 20 to 30 minutes of exercise daily as this is a recommended duration for you to start to get good benefits.

Read More: Why Having Good Posture Can Be Important: Their Benefits

You should let sunlight in and turn on lights as soon as possible after waking up or feeling fatigued because your body can take signals from the environmental factors, including light cues. For instance, sunshine can signal your body that it is daytime and bright lights that it isn’t the time to sleep yet letting you be more awake. 

You can still be sleepy when you waked up in a dark room and exhausted working in dim light. Therefore, you should get exposed to sunshine or bright lights. Even light bulbs can imitate natural sunlight and allow you to stay awake for longer, called LED bulbs. However, it would be best if you were careful not to let the lights disturb your circadian rhythm and disrupt your sleep by being exposed to lights at the wrong time. 

If you feel tired and sleepy, you might have been drinking coffee or energy drinks, caffeine often throughout the day to go through the day. Although these stimulants can be helping you, they might be preventing you from a more natural way to feel more awake and energised. Not appropriately intaking caffeine can cause sleeping problems, preventing you from efficiently recharging during your sleep. 

Caffeine, especially energy drinks that can have differing amounts of caffeine, could range from 1 to 5 cups for each drink using a coffee cup as measurement. Taking high doses of caffeine can be very unhealthy and harmful. Therefore, it might be better to stay away from the energy drinks and if you really require some caffeine, try to take a limited amount such as 1 to 2 cups early in the day to reduce the risk of sleep disturbance. 

If you want to stay away from caffeine altogether, drinking water is a great choice. Being dehydrated can cause you to feel more tired and sleepy, especially when you haven’t had a good sleep because your body is working harder. The extra water intake can benefit your body, and staying hydrated itself helps you be less tired. 

Sometimes, you are in a situation where you can’t fix your sleeping pattern even though sleeping is one of the best ways to be more awake and be revitalised. There are numerous ways that you can do to be more awake, which can help you to go through the day until, hopefully, you have the time and chance to get a good sleep. 

These 10 general things try to promote healthy ways to be more awake. They suggest some positive changes you can make to your lifestyle, such as taking naps or short breaks, exercising, changing the way you work, and thinking more about what you consume or drink.