Why You Struggle To Get Up In The Morning

If you're struggling to get out of bed in the morning, or you wake up thinking "oh god, I have to do this all over again" – I'm going to tell you something important:

Don't listen to your brain for at least the first 10-15 minutes of the day.

There's a term for this (sleep inertia, which happens for around 10 to 60 mins each morning), but basically your primitive brain is at its loudest first thing in the morning. And it's extremely unhelpful and VERY convincing.

You know those mornings where getting up to exercise seemed like a brilliant idea the night before? Then the alarm goes off, and your brain is like "absolutely not."

Or even just wanting to get up for coffee and quiet time before the kids wake up? Your brain screams, "NO, we must sleep instead."

Here's what I tell my clients to say to their brains:

"OK brain, I know you're really convincing right now. But we're getting up anyway. And if this ruins our day? If we hate how we feel after the exercise or hate having alone time? I promise I'll listen to you tomorrow and we'll try something different."

Your primitive brain is just doing its job – trying to keep you comfortable and safe. But your prefrontal cortex (your planning brain) made that decision last night for a reason.

I also recommend making a Plan B if you need it:

If you get woken up more than once in the night by your kids, or you're awake for more than 30 minutes, then yes – change your alarm, skip it that day and try again tomorrow.

You don’t have to push through, but you can build trust in yourself.

But on the mornings when you just had normal sleep, and your brain is fighting you.

Get up anyway.

Your primitive brain will adjust.