Do you sometimes wake up tired? I know I do.
It’s usually comes hand in hand with not being in a good mood. No motivation. No energy. And the day hasn’t even started yet.
Making a coffee doesn’t help. At least not for me.
Having a shower doesn’t help. Not even if it’s a cold one.
There is not really a point in going to work if you are in that kinda mood. If you are low on energy you will probably get distracted easily.
If you have no motivation you are more likely to procrastinate. And if you are tired your brain just doesn’t work as well.
So if you happen to wake up tired here is a great way to still having a productive day.
Check your Energy level
I woke up this morning at 4am. And I was super tired. Not because I woke up at 4am but because I had slept for 6 hours or less for the past 3 days in a row. I’m not sure what’s going on. But I knew one thing for sure. I was extremely tired.
If this happens to you the first step is to check your overall energy level. Your tiredness level. Your mood. How do you feel overall? Give it a rating from 0 – 10. What’s your score?
My score this morning was 3 out of 10. Not very good at all.
I know that every time my rating is 5 or less there is no point to even getting started with my work. Unless I manage to get at least above 5 my day usually is pretty unproductive.
I’m not able to stay focused. I get distracted very easily. And I feel bad at the end of the day because I did not do what I had set myself to get done.
So when I rated myself at 3/10 this morning I decided that before doing anything else it’s important to lift that number.
Get your heart pumping
About a year ago or so I used to do some regular fitness training. A boot camp type of thing. Two or three times a week. At 6am in the morning.
Back then I was not an early riser. Getting out of bed at 5.40am was the hardest thing in the world. Doing the training at 6am sometimes felt impossible.
However, there is an important lesson I learned. Funny enough I would wake up tired. Go to training. And afterwards I would feel energised. Ready to takle the day. Motivated to get stuff done. And most of all… looking forward to my breakfast!
So if your overall energy level score is below a certain level do some exercise. Get the heart going. Start pumping some more blood through your system. Give your cells some more oxygen.
After waking up tired this morning I went for a 30 min run. I did some sprints in between for 30 – 60 seconds at a time. This gets your heart rate even higher and really gets the system going.
Did it work. Yes. After I had a shower I rated my energy level again. It was 6 out of 10.
I know. You might say “That’s still not great”. And you’d be right. But it’s much better than 3 out of 10. In fact it’s double that.
Ideally you would want to get a good sleep and not wake up tired in the first place. So this is just the second best solution to the problem.
The main important thing to keep in mind is this. At 3 out of 10 your day is probably not going to be very effective. At 6 out of 10 you can at least think fairly clear. Get a decent amount of stuff done. And not feel bad at the end of the day that you didn’t get anything done.
At least that’s what’s important to me. How about you?