Secret Brain Powers - How to Wake Up Rested

Today my eyes opened on their own, with no alarm. I felt awake and rested.

For the last couple of months I wasn’t using my alarm to wake up because my boyfriend doesn’t like to be woken up earlier than his set time. So I just slept a little longer than my body needed which wasn’t that bad at all :).

Today things were different – I had an early class to teach but couldn’t bring myself to leave the house without doing my own yoga practice first. Which meant that I needed to be up before my boyfriend without waking him up. And there I was wide awake at 6am! No alarm, awake on time and full of energy! My internal alarm did its job! And yours can do the same, if you want.

Every time I use this technique, it works better than the Swiss clock. The secret is in the INTENTION, you need to set it and fall asleep with it. My intention today was to wake up at 6am in a good happy mood. It would give me about 6.5 hours of sound sleep. At 5:55AM my eyes opened. The power of the internal alarm clock – quiet, effective, sharp!

Besides its efficiency, there are some other benefits of waking up on your own at your natural awakening point. A few days ago I read an article that scientifically explains why our internal alarm is a lot better than the regular one. It talked about different stages of sleep – as you might remember from your biology or anatomy course, we all go through several cycles of Light sleep, Deep sleep, REM sleep, and Wakefulness. When we wake up on our own, it usually happens as the brain enters or exits REM sleep while transitioning out of or into Light sleep. This is the most natural time to wake up that will leave you feeling more refreshed and never groggy. However, when we get woken up by an alarm it doesn’t always go off at the “right” time. Unfortunately, often it goes off during the Deep sleep stage, which are the worst to be woken up from, we are likely to feel less rested and groggy. Have you ever felt beat up with a foggy head even though you slept over 8 hours? Well, someone or something must have done a bad job guessing when to wake you up on that day.

Your brain knows a lot better when to wake you up compared to a small piece of plastic… Here is how you can start training your brain to use the internal alarm:

Set a clear intention. Actually, you need two: Time when you want to wake up and State that you want to wake up in. The first one is simple – just have a clear number in your head. For the second, you need to clearly imagine the way you want to feel when you open your eyes. For example, I planned to be full of energy for the busy day and in a happy mood. You rule your own universe, so your energy level and mood are definitely under your control!
Trust yourself! The more important it is for you to wake up at a set time, the more likely it will happen. If you have even the slightest thought that it is ok to sleep until 8AM even though you want your internal alarm to go off at 7AM, it won’t work! Waking up at a set time has to be important. Try it on the weekend when you have something exciting planned in the morning. Don’t set the real alarm, use only your internal one. Have the excitement about the next day fill you up before you go to sleep and set a clear intention. It will take some trust between you and your brain for your internal alarm to start working perfectly. You have to completely trust your brain to send a correct signal at the right time. And believe me, this trust is worth obtaining because there is no mechanism more reliable and perfect than the human brain. Use it!
Taking it to the next level. When you become friends with your internal alarm and it starts working properly, it is time to start using it during week days. Who wouldn’t want to wake up rested, increase concentration and stay focused throughout the entire day? It will take another level of trust between you and your brain to turn off the real alarm during a work week since the potential consequences of sleeping in are a little more dire. In the beginning try to wake up on your own 5 minutes before the actual alarm goes off. Set a clear time intention and imagine what you can do in those extra 10 mins if you wake up before the real alarm goes off. Whether it is not rushing through your tea/breakfast, 10 mins of sun salutations, getting your hair done, whatever you usually don’t have the time to do but would love to have during your morning routine.

Hope you get a chance to experiment with your powerful brain and I am off to my exciting happy day!

Nadya