Good "wake me up" in the morning, besides coffee

Grapefruit juice. If the white is too strong, try red/pink.

Best wake-up stuff I've found.


Paul

Go for a walk/run/jog/sprint or hit the gym and follow up with a nice breakfast.

Green tea is quite good, not as good as coffee though, but it is supposed to have other health benefits.

Ok so I will give you a weird but healthy wake up:

8 ounce glass of water with juice of half a lemon.....then for breakfast...are you ready?

Water from 1 young coconut, 2 bananas and a cup of frozen blueberries blended in a blender. Seriously good wake up stuff. Lots of anti-oxidents. Coconut water great brain food. Seriously, takes like 4 minutes to put it together.

See...told ya it was weird....lol

Try exercising your body: stretching, push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups, 5-10 minutes first thing in the morning. Works well for me. The hardest part is getting up from bed. After that, you're good to go.

After a good night's sleep I always need a nap. After my nap I'm fine.

Seriously, as said above a nice walk will do the trick. I do it and I carry my Droid with me. Make calls, answer emails, read and post on the WF and even type a couple of pages in my notepad on the droid. If I don't feel like typing I speak into the recorder and transcribe later.

The walk wakes me up and I don't miss out on work.

Or sometimes I just talk to people and enjoy the sights as I walk.

Either way, I'm invigorated for hours both mentally and physically from the walk.

Sometimes I get so far away from home base that I end up working in a Starbucks or Micky Dee's until it's time to come home. Then I just hop on the bus or train and keep on working with the droid until I get back home.

I find that being away from the "office" and still being able to accomplish some work keeps me awake also.

And orange juice.

George Wright

It wont stain if after drinking you immediately swish some water in your mouth and spit

Alternatively Running is great for waking you up. Do 4 or 5 k

Motivation will get you up and awake quicker than anything. If you have something worth getting up for then you will bounce out of bed. It's like Christmas Day when you are a kid. You can be up at 4am bright and bouncy ready to unwrap those presents.

Find something worth waking up for.

Try a caffeeine tablet, that will perk you up faster than a surprise down below from the missus(or Mr.?)

Chris

Yoga.

Seriously. I could be wrong, but the thought of getting up and going for a run (as waker-upper as that may well be) probably doesn't sound too appealing to most folks -- don't know about the OP.

If you're someone for whom that idea sounds pretty blurgh, you could build up to that (if you wanted to go running or cycling or whatever), by getting up and going for a walk as a couple of commenters have offered. Just build up to it little by little.

Alternatively, you could just do some yoga. You don't need to leave your home, you can do it in your PJs, you can do it all year round (rain, hail, or shine), you can follow it with a brisk walk or run or ride if the weather's nice, it's usually fairly low-impact (unless you're stooooopid and try some kind of zany headstand manoeuvre unsupervised and before you're ready for it), and it will keep you supple and feeling and looking younger for longer (Hey! That last bit sounds like an ad for Loreal! :p)

I'd recommend some non-strenuous yoga to start with. Just simple stuff that you can do at home to stretch and get some proper breathing going on (as Wendy suggested). That'll wake you up and actually give you a nice little energy boost to get you through the morning. No, you won't feel like you can leap tall buildings in a single bound, but you will have a bit of spring in your step.

There a kajillion books and videos on Amazon and in your local bookstores about yoga (or possibly even pilates -- NOT the same, but could also be worth looking into. Or even Tai Chi for that matter) with as many different "flavours" as you could care to imagine. Just go browsing until you find something that sounds right for you.

There are two books I like. Well, I should rephrase that...

There are two books, which if I ignore all the garbage they talk about regarding supernatural phenomena masquerading in general parlance as fact when it's actually unsubstantiated (not-even) psuedo-science, contain exercises that I have found personally beneficial:


* The Five Tibetans
It's a bit woo-woo at the beginning, talking about chakras and kundalini and all that crap, but the actual exercises (just 5 of 'em -- with a bonus 6th one to either control sexual urges if you're celibate or power up your libido if you're sexually active! Not sure how that contradiction is supposed to work!)

However, the 5 basic exercises are good. Disregard all the other nonsense. You'll be surprised how simple they are, how you can basically do them anywhere anytime, and how surprisingly hard it is to get to 21 "reps" of each of them (if you're new to yoga).


* The Secret of Seamm Jasani
Again, a little bit woo-woo in places. And the author certainly has a pretty high opinion of himself and his awesomeness. Nevertheles, this is a nicely laid out set of exercises that a kind of tai chi-ish and yoga-ish combination.

It very gentle and low impact and it has a "program" that builds up slowly from just a handful of exercises each day, adding a few more into the "framework" each week, until you're doing the full routine, which will take you around 40mins.


But like I said, there are soooooo many books and DVDs out there, you're bound to find something you like.

Start off slow and build up as you feel more confident and you feel your flexibility and strength increasing, and top it off with one of those concoctions suggested by Kenwrites (I'll be trying it!), and you'll be good to go!

Best of luck with it,
TheNightOwl


P.S. Personally, I'd knock back a coffee after all that, too!

Exercise is your best bet.

Play the song "hostile" by Pantera and play it loud. It works wonders.

breathing exercises for me

I drink tea and works pretty good

Yes I know American's don't drink tea but I was not born in US

EDIT: Don't go looking for tea in Walmart Trust me, you won't find it

green tea!

Go to the gym and get the adrenaline pumping. No better way.

Nothing wakes me up like a shower.

I used to try and go to the gym at 7am every morning but I'd come home at about 8:30am absolutely knackered, covered in sweat and just want to relax for the day as I'd done something 'good' for the day.

Massage parlors do the trick for me when it's not coffee.

RoD

Walk the dog, mug of tea in hand.

Play with daughter at mach10.

Check stats.

All 3 of them tend to wake me up.

Exercise. Spend $50 on a kettlebell and you can do a workout at home or in the back yard. You'll feel great.

Check you stats - does it for me, every time! If they're good - I'm pumped! If they're bad... motivated to make them better. Works well here in NZ as most traffic comes during our night!

Methylcobalamin B12