An important part of feeling great after you get a decent night’s sleep, is waking up energized and ready to face the day. There are many ways to help start your day off right. Here are a few suggestions:

If you need to use a night light, use one that has a warm-toned red or amber hue. Lights with a red hue have longer, less stimulating wavelengths than blue light, so it won’t keep you awake like normal night lights can. Also look for low-glare LEDs.

Leave your curtains, shades or blinds open at bedtime, or open them as soon as you wake up. “Daylight penetrates eyelids to reach the retina, triggering the production of the energizing hormone serotonin,” explains Joan Roberts, Ph.D., chairwoman of the natural sciences department at Fordham University in NYC.

There are dawn mimicking alarm clocks that have low-energy light-emitting diode (LED) bulbs. These are programmed to grow progressively brighter as your wake time nears.

Matthew Tanteri, adjunct professor at Parsons New School for design in NYC says that “Up-light wall sconces direct light up so it reflects down from the ceiling, similar to the way the sky reflects sunlight.” 

Obviously the environment and the light in the morning has a powerful effect on the way we wake up. Place your bed in a position where it faces a window. If you have a view to the outside world when you first wake, it can help cue your brain that it’s time to get up. 

Using pale colors for linens, wood, walls and flooring can make for a brighter environment in the mornings. These colors reflect more light than dark colors.

Using a variety of ways to enhance your sleeping and waking environment can help provide an easier morning transition. Waking refreshed gives you a chance to be wakeful throughout the day and may give you a better chance of a restful night’s sleep.

The National Sleep Federation (NSF), an independent non-profit organization, has been annually collecting statistics on how people sleep. The results of its 2002 Sleep in America poll show what may be a trend toward less sleep. Fewer adults appear to be getting eight or more hours of sleep each night compared to the previous year (38 % versus 30%). Overall, 24%reported that they got less than the minimum amount of sleep they believed they needed to not feel sleepy the next day. NSF’s 2003 poll showed that almost half of all adults surveyed (48% of adults fifty-five to eighty four years old) report having one or more symptoms of insomnia at least a few nights per week.

Outwitting Insomnia, by Ellen Mohr Catalano, 2004. p.viii