Getting up in the early morning with bags under your eyes and a long day ahead is hard for almost everyone. For some, a cup of coffee gets them out the door awake and ready to complete their day. But what about the people who don’t like coffee? What strategies do they take advantage of to wake them up? For six days, I experimented with some better known and unknown wake-up strategies to see which would be the most successful.

Banana
For my first strategy on how to wake up, I tried eating a banana. I went downstairs at 6:50 a.m., after about seven hours of sleep, and munched on a banana. At first, I felt no significant difference, as it felt like all I did was eat breakfast! After about 30 minutes or so, I felt more awake than I usually do, and as the day progressed, I still didn’t feel tired. “Rich in potassium and B vitamins, bananas help slow down digestion and can keep blood sugar levels stable,” said Kim Stinson-Burt, a dietitian at Nutritionally Your Best. Altogether, the banana trick was helpful, as it woke me up in the morning and kept me going throughout the day.

Showering
A lesser-known trick to waking up in the morning is the “shower trick.” This trick states that during your shower in the morning, start fluctuating the water temperature. First, make the water cold for 30 seconds, then hot for 30 seconds, and finish with another 30 seconds of cold water. For me, this trick was somewhat helpful because after my shower I felt very awake, even though I only got another seven hours of sleep. For about 30 minutes, I felt wide awake and energetic, but when I got to school, I lost this energy and felt tired again. This trick seems it’d be helpful if you had an early morning and just wanted to wake up to get out the door. However, if you want to feel awake and energetic for the rest of the day, I suggest finding another habit.

Alarm placement
A common way of waking up in the morning is hearing the loud ring of your alarm clock. In the early morning, when you aren’t feeling like getting up and out of bed, it’s way too easy to hit the snooze button and sleep for an extra ten minutes. A trick to stop hitting the snooze button is to put the clock on the other side of the room, so you have to get out of bed to turn it off. For me, this trick wasn’t so effective. First of all, I was very annoyed when I was forced to get out of bed right away, as I usually wake up and look at my phone for a few minutes to fully get me up. As well as annoying me, it wasn’t an effective strategy of waking myself up, even with eight hours of sleep.

Sunlight
Another trick I used was to wake up to sunlight, not an alarm. I used this trick on a day where I had nothing to do in the morning, since I couldn’t rely on the sun to wake me up at a specific time, being the only real negative I saw with this wake up strategy. The sunlight beaming into my eyes in the morning really did wake me up. Along with being wide awake when I woke up, I didn’t struggle with fatigue throughout the day either. A major benefit for waking up with sunlight is it vastly improves your sleep for the next night. “The light helps to regulate your biological clock and keep it on track,” said Virgil D. Wooten, writer for the health section at How Stuff Works. Not only did the sunlight keep me awake and energetic throughout the day, it also improved my sleep for the next night.

Making Your Bed
The next strategy I used was making my bed when I woke up. This was also confusing to me, as it didn’t help wake me up at all. Waking up and making my bed again annoyed me. After making my bed, I went on with my normal morning routine, but I didn’t feel any new effect after making my bed. This strategy reminded me a lot of putting my alarm on the other side of the room, as it not only annoyed me, but it also didn’t wake me up.

Exercise
My final way of waking up in the morning was to get up and exercise. After about seven hours of sleep, I got out of bed right away to do some exercise. I exercised for about five minutes before jumping into the shower. At first, I still was very tired, not only from lack of sleep, but also from moving around so early. This strategy proved to be very effective though, as I felt wide awake when I got out of the shower and didn’t get tired throughout the day. “In general it gets your heart pumping a little more. It kick starts all your bodily systems,” said gym teacher Tracy Gray. One downfall to this strategy was I had to wake up earlier to complete this exercise, and for the exercise to be more effective, you have to do more and wake up earlier.

Altogether, a few of these wake up strategies proved to be very effective; some just annoyed me and made me want to go back to bed. My favorites were the banana, exercise and sunlight. These strategies worked not only in the morning to wake me up, but also helped me stay focused and awake throughout the day. On the other hand, the alarm trick and bed making technique didn’t help wake me up at all. If I were to incorporate one of these strategies into my morning routine, I’d definitely use the banana strategy.