5 Ways to Become a Morning Person

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Making that first step to get out of bed in the morning is a struggle that most people know all too well. It's that decision to finally hit the alarm button and start the day that seems so difficult to overcome, but here are a few tips to make the most out of the morning by getting up early and having a better perspective of one's day.

1. Understand your "social clock" and your body clock. Huffington Post reports that our bodies are often ruled by two clocks—one natural clock called the body clock and the other, what Dr. Till Roenneberg of the Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, Germany, calls the "social clock", which is often represented by the alarm clock and the outside forces that control our lives, such as work and responsibilities. Try to get them in sync with each other. If your body clock tells you to sleep at 10 p.m., do so and avoid activity, especially on electronics, as the blue light reduces melatonin and increases serotonin, therefore making it more difficult to fall asleep.

2. Keep a positive outlook even the night before. Don't get yourself down by telling yourself, "I have to wake up in six hours." Instead, rephrase and say, "I'm thankful to have six hours of rest tonight. Maybe tomorrow will be better." Entrepreneur recommends consciously deciding your intentions for the following day, every night. This is much like mindful meditation, as you're mindfully creating a positive expectation for the following day.

3. Carve out an hour of your day and allot it for restful sleep. Health experts recommend at least seven hours of restful sleep, and you have to make the time to get enough sleep. Cancel your nighttime plans, you don't have to binge-watch Netflix every night anyway. "We typically overestimate how much available time we have and take on projects that we have no business committing to," Atlanta-based psychiatrist Dr. Tracey Marks told Real Simple. "For the sake of decompressing your day, assume you have one less hour in the evenings (to be set aside for a wind-down period) and say no to things that infringe on that time."

4. Let the light come into the bedroom. Get rid of all the dark, heavy drapes. It's the same concept as not having electronics an hour before bed. Letting the sunlight into the room will help increase your serotonin and wake up quicker.

5. Put the alarm clock as far from the bed as possible. If all else fails, place the alarm clock at the farthest distance from your bed, so you're forced to get up in the morning. The combination of movement and light exposure will definitely wake you up.

Bonus tip: Drink a glass of water before bed to keep hydrated and reduce fatigue due to dehydration at night. This feeling of fatigue will only make you want to stay in bed longer in the morning.