Dua when waking up

When. On waking, before anything else — the first sentence of the day.

The other half. This is the morning half of a pair. The evening half, said on lying down, is bismika Allāhumma amūtu wa aḥyā — "in Your name, O Allah, I die and I live." Read together they make one statement across the night: sleep entered in His name, waking received as a return. Neither is complete without knowing the other exists.

The words. Aḥyānā baʿda mā amātanā — "gave us life after having caused us to die." The verb is not softened. Sleep is called a death here, and the Qur'an supports the reading directly: Allah takes the souls at death and takes them in sleep as well, holding one and releasing the other (az-Zumar 39:42). Wa ilayhi an-nushūr — "and to Him is the resurrection". The last clause is the one that changes the scale. Having called sleep a small death and waking a small return, the sentence names the large one, and the small event is placed under it. Every morning rehearses the thing it points to.

Practical. It is short enough to say before opening your eyes, which is close to its purpose — the value is in it being first, before the day's first thought arrives. There is no count, and nothing else is required before it.