Doctor Explains Why Our Most Common Morning Habits Just Keep Us Tired

Updated September 8, 2021

While it's often hard to enjoy myself at a party where I don't know anybody, I can still find myself lucking into an interesting conversation under those circumstances every now and then.

And usually, that's because I'm talking to somebody who either has an interesting job or a lot of experience living in a place I've never been. After all, anyone with that level of experience usually has some fascinating insider information that can definitely come in handy in our lives.

And lately, it seems that TikTok has no shortage that insider information as bartenders, flight attendants and physical therapists are all out here serving us some trade secrets we can really use.

Although it may be hard to hear in this case, that's particularly true for one video where a doctor is letting us know how to start our days better.

Back in June, a U.K.-based doctor named Karan Raj posted a TikTok warning us about the three habits that are likely to make us more tired in the morning.

TikTok | @dr.karanr

And unfortunately, it's all stuff that so many of us really enjoy doing.

So, if you aren't the kind of person who hears their alarm and leaps immediately out of bed then Dr Karan Raj's morning advice may be just what you need to feel more energised and alert in the mornings!

Pressing the snooze button is a bad idea!

TikTok | @dr.karanr

The first habit holding us back is apparently hitting the snooze button when our alarms go off because we're basically convincing our bodies that they're in for more sleep.

But while we know that we mean about five extra minutes of rest, our bodies and the sleep chemicals they produce think we're in it for the long haul. So as Raj says here, that leaves us feeling tired for four more hours than we need to.

Apparently, we're also not doing ourselves any favors by checking our phones as soon as we wake up.

TikTok | @dr.karanr

In Raj's words, "When you wake up in the morning, your brain gradually increases your alertness."

But when we immediately go for our phones, our brains skip a couple of stages of alertness that leaves us feeling on edge, but not necessarily any less tired than when we started.

This sensation of "feeling on edge" is due to us missing out on "the theta and alpha brain wave."

TikTok | @dr.karanr

Raj explains that when you wake up, and your brain increases in "alertness," it goes "from delta to theta to alpha brain wave. [However,] Looking at your phone skips the theta and alpha brain wave, putting you on edge."

He goes into more detail about this in the full video, but it sounds like a kind of "wired" feeling that we can get when we try to fix our exhaustion with too much caffeine.

Speaking of caffeine, it turns out that we should be waiting a little longer before we have our coffee.

TikTok | @dr.karanr

And while the other habits he's gone through have made us more tired because we've underestimated the effects of seemingly small behaviors, there's actually the opposite problem at work here.

It turns out that when we drink coffee between 8 am and 9 am, we're trying to perk ourselves up during a time in which the body is already producing peak levels of the "alarm" hormone cortisol.

This means that the caffeine we're trying to use isn't as effective during that time because our bodies are already trying to perk us up on their own.

TikTok | @dr.karanr

Therefore, Raj recommends holding off on that first cup of coffee until your body's natural "alarm" hormone levels dip. According to Raj's graph of an average person's cortisol levels, this occurs around the midday mark.

So as Raj lays out in his video, we should stop snoozing, stop checking our phone first thing, and hold off on that that first cup of coffee!

And while some of these tips can seem counter-intuitive and make mornings seem like more of a drag on the surface, we may not find them so bad once we actually start feeling genuinely refreshed upon waking up.

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