A few months ago I saw Mark Verstegen speak about his 2014 book 'Every Day is Game Day' and its four-component system for performance. One of those components is recovery, and he made a suggestion that we've all heard many times before, but that for whatever reason really resonated with me on that day. That suggestion was to stick to a regular sleep/wake schedule. We've all woken up in the middle of a dream and found ourselves feeling as if we would have been better off without any sleep at all. He suggested that by sticking to a predictable schedule, the body would accommodate to a particular cycle and autoregulate to ensure that the body was in a period of lighter sleep when it was time to wake up. I looked for some science to back this specific claim up, couldn't find any, then decided to try it anyway.

At the time I had just completed a contract with a schedule that allowed me great freedom to choose when to get up, which I based on my daughter's decidedly erratic routine. When she woke up, I got up. This created a great deal of variability, variability that I knew I would not have when I returned to a new contract. Perhaps this is what gave me the mindset to return home and try it out. Since then I have set my alarm for a given time, earlier than my daughter would ever wake, and made an effort to go to bed at about the same time each night. It has been almost magical. I wouldn't say that I feel that much more energetic by the late afternoons, but I feel much better when I awake in the mornings. Frequently I have been waking up between 5 and 20 minutes before my alarm goes off feeling alert, as if I have just had that elusive perfect nap where you wake uber-refreshed.

Some tips:

Like many therapists, on my current contract I 'clopen', working late one night and early the next morning. I get up and go to bed at the same time anyway. This means that I regularly train after work until 8:30 one night and before work at 9:15 the next morning. It's less than ideal, but I have found it to be a worthwhile trade off.
Avoid the TV and the computer before bed. There's science here, but suffice to say that the type of light emitted makes your brain more alert--not ideal for falling asleep.
I've found that I can use this to my advantage. I get up, go straight to the computer and read or check the email I didn't the night before (or watch an educational DVD. Typically for study I strongly prefer books, but upon waking videos are a nice semi-passive way to start the day).
Have something that you feel compelled to do planned for when you wake up. I'm getting up earlier than I need to 5 days each week. On those days getting out of bed is helped greatly by having something I want to or need to get done ready for me.

There are lots of components to getting good sleep, but for people who aren't waking up feeling refreshed, this may help a great deal.

I have also found that sleeping in an apostrophe can help.

The best thing I did for my mornings.