This weekend, the clocks fall back in an attempt to realign our day with the latent sunrise. It’s the seasonal signifier of the darker winter mornings ahead, when you’ll likely find it increasingly difficult to rise and shine without natural light. “Your body wants to move with the sun,” explains sleep expert and neurologist Christopher Winter, M.D., of our inclinations to hit the snooze button as we near the end of the year. Being a morning person in the dark is difficult, making behaviors that might have overcome a genetic predisposition to sleep in (it’s true, we’re not all born early risers) more difficult to maintain—who really wants to head to the gym before the sun is up? But, according to Winter, a few simple steps (and devices) can turn even the latest sleepers into chipper dawn defiers: “The biggest thing you can do is try to re-create the sun in your life.”
For this, Winter looks to light boxes, which replicate the blue and green wavelengths in daylight that signal our circadian rhythms to stay alert. Among his favorite devices is Philips’s Wake-Up Light, a circular alarm clock that re-enacts a miniature sunrise in your bedroom before setting off an audible alarm. “That’s the natural way you’re meant to wake up.” (Those on the go will find bright solace in Sphere Gadget Technologies’s slim, portable Lightphoria). Once up and moving, filling your field of vision with the sunny wavelengths via daylight-replicating lightbulbs or slipping on Re-Timer’s light-therapy glasses, which serves a similar function, will cause you to mentally and emotionally drag your feet less during predawn tasks. Beyond that, preparing a stimulating cup of coffee and scheduling a morning workout are surefire ways to jolt you out of winter grogginess.
But no good morning starts without a decent night of sleep. For this, light, or rather, lack thereof, is just as important. When winding down for the evening, the blue and green wavelengths you crave when you wake up should be eliminated. “You want to create a moody, dimly lit environment where you can see and get stuff done, but aren’t assaulted with light.” When in doubt, says Winter, ask yourself, “What would Barry White do?” For this reason, electronics, which emit sunlike brightness, should be omitted from use at least an hour before bed, whenever possible (this will also allow your mind to naturally calm down). Once in bed, urban dwellers will find that a sleep mask or thick curtains will keep synthetic light from disrupting REM cycles.
If you have miraculously avoided the impulse to hibernate with the 5:00 p.m. sunset and find yourself wide awake late, you can trick yourself into being ready for bed by cooling your body temperature. “At night your cortisol drops,” says Winter, a process that triggers a mirrored descent in body temperature. A similar reaction can be facilitated via taking a hot bath or drinking a warm glass of herbal tea or milk. “The [internal] cooling that happens after will be a natural trigger for sleepiness.” Maintain the feeling until morning by turning down the temperature of your room to the “mid 60s or colder,” finding warmth in layers of blankets rather than clothing. “If you get hot in flannel pajamas in the middle of the night, you’ve got nowhere to go,” reasons Winter.
Then, to ensure the deepest sleep possible, create a quiet and hydrated space. Investing in a white-noise machine will keep even the loudest snorer from stirring your slumber, while a humidifier like Dyson’s minimal bacteria-killing version will stave off the moisture-sucking side effects of seasonal radiators. Simply put, “Sleep works better when you’re well hydrated. Everything does.” The rest is mental. “People who imagine themselves sleeping deeper, for example, descending into a deep, warm, dark ocean, actually show deeper sleep in studies than those who don’t do those [kinds of exercises].” Here’s to self-actualizing a concealer-free morning.
The post How to Be an Early Riser in the Dark: Winter Advice From a Sleep Expert appeared first on Vogue.
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