Written by Edite
27 Oct 2016
You are in for a ride, my friend. It’s going downwards from here. You thought this was dark? Wait till you (not) see what’s happening soon! My sense of humor might be too dark even for this part of the year, but the reality is ruthless as well – on Sunday night we’ll adjust to the “winter time” and there’s some good news – you can be prepared with some sugestions on waking up easy during winter, Sweden style.
1. You snooze, you loose – energy.
It’s that time of the year when wanting to be woken up by a ray of sunshine through the window might never be met, unless you prefer waking up at around midday. Falling in and out of sleep is not only risking with your classmates’ patience, but an unhealthy decision to make – turns out that the snooze button on your phone does more harm than thought.
Not snoozing is extremely important for people who don’t have the same hours devoted for sleep every day or experience problems with falling asleep. Furthermore, science has actually shown improvements in productivity and energy level during the whole day if the rise & shine routine is exercised.
Tip: leave the phone at the other side of the room and only put one alarm for that extra pressure to wake up. Keep consistent and be patient!
2. Lights, lights, lights everywhere
It’s not only red houses, wooden chairs and colour white that dominates the Scandinavian design. Light elements have always been part of the survival method in the dark north, but Swedes have still managed to bring it to very next level.
Cafés, streets, offices and schools – almost all benefit from the thorough planning of lighting. The importance of light in Swedish design is immense, even if a lot of it is slightly dimmed – that source of light is highly important when coping with long and dark winter months, brings warmth and lets you keep working after 3pm in late November.
Tip: put a dim night lamp next to your bed as something to help you waking up. Tip for professionals: buy a wake-up light and get a new understanding of morning light!
3. The smell of coffee
If you’re in Sweden now, it most probably means that starting doing anything, like ANYTHING productive at all requires caffeinated brain. The smell of coffee is almost as important as the taste, so getting one while still in bed – that’s a proof that mornings can be magical.
Surveying friends, the importance of early coffee and distance to it play major roles in morning routines and tired students are ready to brew it in a specifically located coffee pot by the bed just after waking up or have “coffee shifts” with their partners or flatmates when delivering coffee in bed.
Tip: THINK about coffee when trying to get out of the bed and as an addition, exercise your imaginative skills. If this doesn’t work and you find yourself missing lessons with coffee stains on your shirt from coffee spilled while running, write down mobile brewer in your Christmas present wishlist and never miss a coffee again.
4. Why not use apps?
Sleep playing a major role in our overall health is not news and with technology catching up with hard facts as well, more and more great apps that help to track and improve the sleep cycle are popping up. In Sweden, Sleep Cycle has been the App Store leader in for a while now and not without a reason – it tracks your sleep through the microphone and wakes you up in the moment you sleeping the latest, depending on the time when you actually need to wake up. Not only that – the emphasis on the alarm signals is definitely a feature worth a download!
Tip: Don’t fear technology and instead – let it help you act more like this in the mornings:
*Cover photo by Pontus Hammarström
