First thing in the morning

Normally, what do you do first thing in the morning?

You: Drink coffee?

Me: No, before that?

You: Exercise ?

Me: Really? 😜 hehe no, before that?

You: Brush my teeth 😴

Me: Nooo, before that?🤭

You: Open my eyes? 🤨

Me: hehe, slightly after that?

Let me tell you what would you do first thing in the morning, even before you realize you woke up, is you search for your mobile which is either under your pillow or next to the pillow and unlock (doing all these with the eyes closed).

You: Huh ?

Okay, what next?

Me: Check for notifications and any important calls.

Then?

Straight to Whatsapp or Instagram and check for any messages and then head to the stories/status calculating the time you can be in bed until you're late 😾.

What? Early in the morning? Being such unproductive?🤔

No that's not me.

Me: Seriously? 😶May be you forgot or you did not notice. Just think over.

You: Ok, may be I did that once or twice, but what's the big deal? It's just a matter of few minutes right?🤔

Let me tell you what's the big deal about this.

When you are waking up from the sleep, the brain needs almost 30 minutes to come to its original functioning capacity. This period of 30 minutes is called sleep inertia.

During this sleep inertia period, it is advised not to take any important decisions or hit the road but to simply do the regular chores.

But when we see mobile as First thing in the morning, we are over-stimulating a sleeping brain.

How? right after we unlock the mobile and starting looking at it, the information processing begins which in turn results in stimulation of the brain which is in sleep inertia condition.

You may ask, "So what? it is good to awake early right? What's the problem in it?

For this we need to answer for the question why Sleep inertia is needed.

Brain normally functions in two states, one is task state(being active and productive) the other is fog state(unfocused and day dreaming). When the brain is working in its capacity, it will be able to switch between these states so easily.

But right after waking from sleep, it will not be able to switch from fog state to task state for at least 25 minutes.

What happens when you try to stimulate the brain abruptly is that it directly goes to Task state without any inertia time (which helps in regeneration and coordination of brain cells).

This might affect your whole day by influencing your thought process, physical and mental coordination and the switch between two brain states.

What will happen when it is continued for longer time is still under study with very few and scary conclusions like "we may exhibit reduced decision making capability"

But whatever is the result of this study, let's not encourage us to get there.

You: You are asking us so many questions, what do you do first thing in the morning?

Me: Hmmmm, I do this crap of seeing the phone as First thing in the morning every FREAKING day!!!!

At a point, I noticed myself doing this and did a little read on it.

Then I found all these scary things 🤥

But there's no point in just being scared, we should do something about it right?

So what shall we do and what I am planning to do?

1. Keep the phone atleast at a distance of 2-3 minutes from our reach.

2. Immediately get up from the bed soon after you wake, do some chores and then come to phone (relatively better right?)

We might find excuses, like I want my phone for checking Time, Alarming etc., but we know these can be easily sorted out with alternatives.

We have so many beautiful things to see as first thing in the morning, why to stick with the phone?

While we have the whole day to cling with it🥴

Makes sense right?

Let's make our days better.

Comment your views on it, and how are you planning to avoid this in future.

Anbudan 💕

Divya Bharathi.

For further reading: Sleep Inertia- Current Insights published in Nature of Science and Sleep Journal, 2019.