Top tips to help you rise and shine.

It is a well-documented fact that the world’s most successful entrepreneurs rise early enough to catch the proverbial worm. Apple’s Mr Tim Cook allegedly tells Siri to wake him up at 3.45am so that he can get an uninterrupted head-start on drowsy East Coasters. Twitter CEO Mr Jack Dorsey, on the other hand, gets up at 5.30am to meditate and then go jogging. The quiet solitude of the early morning allows these people to create a meaningful routine that prepares them psychologically, physically and emotionally for the day ahead.

The catch is: not all of us are particularly motivated first thing in the morning. Science has validated the existence of chronotypes,­ meaning that certain people have a genetic propensity to operate optimally only during certain hours of the day. A night owl cannot suddenly become a shiny morning person and vice versa. Having said that, there are ways to maximise your mornings ensuring greater productivity, health and emotional balance throughout the day. Here are a few of them.

If the commodification of mindfulness-based meditation has taught us anything, it’s that sitting in silence and observing your breath for 10 minutes is arguably the greatest – and, equally, most infuriatingly objectiveless – thing you can do each morning. A visualisation exercise performed first thing in the morning, when the unconscious mind is at its most receptive, is a simple and powerful alternative to “no thought” styles of meditation.

Picturing every step of the day ahead prepares you emotionally and psychologically for the less palatable event lined up in your schedule. Running through an anxiety-inducing meeting in your head and deliberately planting a successful resolution at the end of it will unconsciously impact the way in which you meet that very situation hours later. It is through this programming of the subconscious that seasoned practitioners find they can manifest the day they desire.

Finding the motivation to get up and hit the gym first thing in the morning may be challenging but there are bona fide payoffs to squeezing in a bit of cardio before your eggs Florentine. For example, training in the fasted state drastically boots fat oxidation, even when the workout itself isn’t quite as intense as it would be when you’re carbed to the hilt.

The absence of immediately available glucose means the body has to start burning through fat stores. As an added bonus, your metabolic rate stays elevated for an extended period of time, causing “afterburn”. You’re also more than likely to feel energised for the rest of the day. NB: If you’re hoping to beat your PB rather than drop a couple of pounds, you’re better off training in your lunch break or after work.

The arbitrary title of “the most important meal of the day” is up for grabs. Recent research shows that skipping breakfast isn’t quite as bad as we were led to believe. Having said that, even a small breakfast will kickstart your metabolism through a process known as thermogenesis.

One way to turbo-charge this process is by adding medium-chain triglyceride oil (MCT oil) to your coffee. These partially man-made fats are easily digested, providing an instant hit of energy and reducing stored body fat in the process. In addition to regulating weight and increasing lean muscle mass, a body of evidence suggests that MCTs, as found in coconut oil and (unsalted) grass-fed butter, can improve cognitive function and boost immunity, setting you up for the day.

If you get a solid eight hours of sleep and still wake up feeling like you’ve been dragged backwards through a hedge, then you might want to rethink your sleep schedule. Chances are your sleep cycle has been interrupted at an inconvenient stage (and, most likely, by the searing discord of an iPhone alarm).

Waking up in between cycles – and not when you’re lost in the depths of REM sleep – is central to waking up feeling refreshed. This can be achieved with some basic mathematics (or an online sleep calculator). In order to wake up raring to go at, say, seven in the morning, you’ll need to complete five or six 90-minute sleep cycles. This means you’ll need to be asleep by 9.46pm (unlikely) or, more realistically, 11.16pm. To find out how to get a better night’s sleep, read our tips here.

Showering first thing in the morning may sound like a condescendingly obvious tip but it’s the way in which you shower that will determine how alert you feel afterwards. Alternating between hot and ice-cold water will jump-start your circulation, your mind and your lymphatic system. Aim to spend at least 30 seconds at each end of the temperature spectrum and always finish on freezing-cold water. Just to make sure you’re fully awake, incorporate a product that contains peppermint oil which has been shown to boost mental clarity and increase blood flow.

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