Switching off at the weekends is an integral part of keeping work-related stress at bay, but one of the hardest things to master is the ever-evasive lie-in. We give top tips on how to relax in the mornings – from mindfulness to TV beds to blackout blinds, we’ve got it covered.

Finally, the weekend is here. You stumble into bed on Friday night, all too aware of the throbbing in your feet and the ache behind your eyes. You’ve spent five days on the go and are in desperate need of sleep, which is exactly what you plan on doing for at least the next eight or nine hours.

But you discover that things aren’t quite going to go to plan when you find yourself wide awake at the crack of dawn. The last dregs of sleep are already a distant memory, the chirruping of birds a mocking reminder of the early hour. Oh well, may as well get up. “I’ll just read a few work emails”, you innocently think, “See if there’s been a response to the agenda I sent out at eleven o’clock last night. No harm in checking.”

Wrong.

Not being able to switch-off on the evenings and weekends can cause stress and nervous exhaustion, and in turn reduce productivity when you actually do return to work¹. In fact, it’s been estimated that work related stress costs the UK economy a whopping £6.5bn each year².

Frankie says “relax”

Not being able to lie-in in the mornings has to be one of the greatest ironies of the nine-to-five worker’s life. You struggle to wake up all week when your alarm goes off at 7:00am and dream of sinking your head back into your pillow for another hour or three, but at the weekend you’re miraculously wide awake and raring to go by 7:03am – no alarm needed.

When it comes to switching off from work, learning to relax first thing is one of best ways to start the weekend right. Whether that’s by lengthening your sleep or enjoying some chill time in bed before you get on with the day, we look at some of the best ways to do just that…

Create the ultimate chillout zone

For all those mornings on which you do wake up – head buzzing, birds tweeting, phone bleeping – tell yourself that just because you’re awake it doesn’t mean you need to get out of bed.

One way to make it easier to extend your lie-in is to turn your bedroom into the ultimate chillout zone. Stock a pile of magazines and newspapers by the bed, and have a quick tidy up the night before so you’re not waking up surrounded by mess. Buy a nice breakfast tray and coffee set to make an occasion of having breakfast in bed. And if you’re really taking this lying-in lark seriously, you could even consider investing in one of those TV beds you’ve always dreamed of but never dared purchase. With all the positive press around relaxing outside of working hours, now may just be the time to turn that dream into a reality with a TV bed frame that meets all your morning news needs.

Bring on the blackout blinds

Darkness is an essential requirement for enjoying a deep and restful sleep³. This is because darkness actually stimulates the production of melatonin, a hormone that sends a signal to the brain telling it that it’s time to rest⁴. On the opposite side of things, light encourages feelings of wakefulness and energy⁵ – you see where we’re going with this.

You might notice that you start to stir at sunrise, even when that falls at around four o’clock in the morning. This disruption to your sleep will undoubtedly hinder your chances of sleeping-in, as your body’s already receiving signals that sleep-time’s over. To combat this, blackout blinds work wonders and can be placed discretely under existing curtains, or used as a design feature in themselves. The artificial darkness will keep your melatonin production up, making that lie-in much more likely. If you don’t want to take the leap into full blackout territory – perhaps for fear of sleeping until noon –  you could always opt for an eye mask. That’s as long as you don’t mind looking a bit superhero-esque in your sleep.

Learn to practice mindfulness

Often the thing that stops us from falling back to sleep in the morning is our inability to turn off the random chatter in our brains. What time is Sarah and Bill’s dinner party tonight? What if I don’t fall back to sleep and end up exhausted when I wanted to feel refreshed? Have I paid the gas bill? Mindfulness allows us to focus on the here and now, instead of letting our minds run away with thoughts of things that may – or may not­ – happen in the future.

Next time you wake up at the crack of dawn feeling a far cry from rested, practice a few simple relaxation techniques, such as progressive muscle relaxation, to help you drift back off to sleep. This simple exercise, based on methodically tensing and then relaxing muscles and known as the ‘body scan’, is designed to focus the mind on the moment at hand, as well as physically relaxing your muscles. Practicing mindfulness is great for those who wake up thinking about work, too. Learn to live in the moment, and those lie-ins will soon become a natural part of your switching-off routine.

Powering down at the weekends is harder than it seems. We end the working week with grand plans to relax, and often find ourselves feeling fraught when we just can’t switch off. But follow our advice, and whether you invest in a TV bed frame, black-out blinds, or just a simple mindfulness app – you’ll soon unearth and conquer the lost art of lying in. The rest, we can assure you, will follow.

¹ http://www.worktolive.info/blog/bid/351410/stress-management-how-to-switch-off-job-stress-at-home
² http://recruitmentbuzz.co.uk/work-related-stress-costs-uk-economy-nearly-6-5bn-each-year/
³ http://sleep.mysplus.com/library/category2/article1.html
⁴ http://sleep.mysplus.com/library/category2/article1.html
⁵ http://sleep.mysplus.com/library/category2/article1.html