It took about a decade to undo the conditioning I gained in college and grad school to wake up every day at noon. Now, ten years later in my early 40s, I’m able to wake up at 10 am.
Some people have different sleep phases, sounds like you have a good understanding of yours. Has it butt up against employment issues in the past?
First thing in the morning I chug a tall glass of water. Somehow that’s actually made a healthy difference.
First thing I do in the morning is dread life itself and my parents choice to have me, then I wish i would die for 5 min, and then I take a glass of water. Also works
Same without the water
Does it work?
It doesn’t, and apparently neither do I
Any general effects you’ve noticed?
Not the previous commenter but I do the same thing and I find it makes me feel less foggy in the first couple hours of waking up and helps me want to eat breakfast.
“helps me want to eat breakfast”
So my brother used to wake up and slam down like 20oz of water in the morning. He noticed it gave him a huge appetite for breakfast and all throughout the day. Ends up that this is an exersize that competitive eaters do. From my understanding, It stretches your stomach out, and the water drains out pretty quickly leaving it empty and ready for a big meal.
My skin doesn’t dry as easily. I no longer feel the need to lotion my hands all the time. Obviously, I drink water during the day but this was the change that started that.
Everything just felt healthier. I woke up more easily for my 6am start at work.
Before I started doing that, it sometimes felt like staying hydrated was constant catching up. Now, it’s more just maintaining.
Getting up when my alarm goes off.
I put the alarm on the other side of the bedroom and used one with metal bells. I did it for years and hated it but it worked. Now my phone tinkles next to me and I’m up. Except Saturdays.
I tried the alarm on the other side of the room thing and it consistently ruined my day. Put me in a frustrated and pissed off mood from the start. Now I just force myself to get out of bed immediately when the alarm goes off, no excuses and no snoozing allowed. It sucks, but I’m never late.
All bets are off on the weekend, alarms are only for a damn good reason.
I did something similar during Covid while working from home. I bought a pack of NFC tags and stuck one on the other side of my room. When my alarm went off I had to open the app on my phone to scan the tag to switch it off, worked well the majority of the time.
There’s an app that uses a QR code system for something similar that’s available for free for those interested.
QRAlarm
I did this too. Eventually I set the alarm for earlier so I could get out of bed to shut it off and still have time to get back to sleep.
After I walk the kids to school I just keep walking. Sometimes it’s ten minutes, sometimes it’s an hour. I come home with a clear head and ready to be productive.
“…sometimes it’s whole months. I take the battery out of the phone and just walk into the desert, ready to embrace the wilderness.”
“My longest walk was 20 years. When they finally found me, I was ferel. I had long given myself over to my new coyote bretheren.”
“All my flesh had turned to fur and my thoughts they surely were turned to instinct and obedience to God.”
“As I howled at the moon after burying deep my latest prey, I bumped into my kids gym teacher who reminded me to pick up my kids by 4.”
I have a set of stretches I’ve been doing every morning (or 95% of mornings) upon getting out of bed, for over 30 years. The only thing that’s different these days is that I have to go pee first.
Have been starting this type of routine too, to help with back problems.
I do 2 stretches & 20 bridges while in bed, then 90sec total of plank & side-planks (30s each side), shower, then 2 stretches per leg after.
In total, it’s less than 5mins, and it’s already made a significant difference for the pain.
This one’s more for the ones with ADHD but I keep a drink bottle and my ritalin next to my bed. When my alarm goes off I take the ritalin and chug the water (or something like juice if I really need the novelty). I don’t have much of a chance of falling back asleep and wasting my morning after that and it means I can actually spend the morning doing whatever I need to. We’re in autumn here in Aus so I keep a blanket by the bed that I throw over myself for the walk to the bathroom in the morning because I’m such a wimp about the cold. Also, not morning, but morning related: I leave my wallet and outfit I want to wear tomorrow in the bathroom over night so it’s there when I go to shower in the morning, and I’ll sometimes prepare breakfast the night before, which both make my mornings so much easier.
I really struggle with functioning at the same times as most other people (DSPS) and I’m bad with time management so any little things like that help vastly.My partner sets two alarms, one an hour earlier when they take the adhd medicine and go back to sleep. It has sped up their bed -> outside time significantly.
That’s what I do too. Works really well for me. Might add in the drinking more water part though, I could definitely use some more hydration in my life.
No one seems to have said it yet, but consistency. Waking up at the same time every day including weekends. Eventually, you just wake up early naturally. I get up at 5:30 am every day on the dot with zero alarm just because it’s when I wake up. And I’m never groggy, because I’ve adapted to it. It’s not early anymore it’s just when I wake up
I think the second half to this is that it can’t be a chore. You have to want to wake up. If you wake up and think about how much you hate being awake it will be all the harder
What time do you go to bed?
Between 9 and 10pm most nights
This is great, but wholly impractical for me sadly. I’ve tried to stagger my productive time accordingly.
what about winter
Winter is the same, although it can be noticeably more difficult to recover if your pattern gets disrupted for any reason. So for that I use a light that simulates sunrise
Love my current routine and it’s doing wonders for my health, both phisically and mentally (or at least I believe it is, it might be a placebo):
- waking up every day at the same time
- bathroom (toilet, teeth, washing face)
- glass of water with a multivitamin and omega-3 (I’m vegan and this is so much easier than finding food that has all that)
- playing with the cat (I have no coice in this, she says it must be so, it is, therefore, so)
- ~15min of yoga
- ~10min of meditation
And then it’s coffee and work time. I’ve been on this routine for about 2 years now and I feel amazing since starting with it.
So… What you’re saying is, I need a cat.
I certainly hope that’s a rhetorical question.
Best regards, The cat.
This sounds great! And yes; obviously we must bend the knee to all Cats, they are our overlords afterall! :D
I don’t know if it’s the best (what defines that?) but it’s what I do.
I wake up, my dog notices and jumps around in excitement. I greet him, pet him, then take my phone, do the daily NYT Mini Crossword and browse around for a few minutes while he lies down again, waiting patiently. I stand up, go pee, then I take my dog out for a walk. Afterwards I prepare my oatmeal, then prepare my dog’s food (it needs to soak a few minutes), go open all windows to get fresh air in, start the work computer and quickly check my mails, then we both eat our breakfast while I check my RSS feeds.
RSS <3
What’s RSS?
Really Simple Syndication, best way to read news and relevant articles that You are interested in. Without being bombarded with ads and tracking. https://rss.com/blog/how-do-rss-feeds-work/
I have my alarm clock require solving 5 arithmetic problems before it cancels (e.g (16*8 +10-6)/6) . It makes me alert way quicker and now I’m pretty quick at mental math.
Is that an android app? If so, could you name it?
I do the same thing, and one morning, I woke before my alarm and left my phone in the bedroom to take a shower. Learned that day that my wife doesn’t know PEMDAS.
I got a new phone sent to my work once, left my old one at work and didn’t turn the alarm off, my coworkers were more than a little annoyed!
Thank you
You need google play store to download it? There is no other way to? If I dont have google play store I just cant use it?
You appear to be able to download the apk from here: https://sleep.urbandroid.org/more/download/
Not sure it’ll run without play services though.
That’s cool! But I don’t like the o Privacy policy. It shares our data at least with google and facebook. https://sleep.urbandroid.org/privacy-policy/ And also, there’s no access to the code
https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/com.urbandroid.sleep/latest/#trackers
ok
that sounds insane hahah, probably mostly because im terrible at math…
Biggest one for me was swapping from setting the alarm as late as possible and then rushing to get out of the house, to setting it an hour earlier and using that to read, do a little qi gong and have a leisurely breakfast.
Absolutely agree. It’s counterintuitive, but waking up earlier than you need to and start your day slowly actually makes you feel more rested and calm (provided you’ve still slept sufficiently)
Sleeping later, instead of waking up early (not late, but 7 instead of 5:30) improved my health; sex every morning is the way we wake up (well, it’s the first thing I do, husband does like to wake earlier so he lets the dogs out and has coffee while I am sleeping still), for about 8 years now, that has been really great too.
So no alarm, wake later but not late, and sex.
So when do you sleep and wake up.
11 to 7. I try to wait until sleepy to go to bed so sometimes it’s 11:30 but I try to be in bed by 11 and usually can fall asleep pretty fast, not immediately but quickly.
One cup of coffee on the balcony every morning. Just sitting there, enjoying the atmosphere, watching people walk by (I live near a park), maybe meditating a bit.
Commuted to work by bicycle.
it’s a 10 minute ride.
flash forward 25 minute ride…just commuting
flash forward 45 minute ride…still just commuting
ended up at 1hr 25 minutes, then alternated with running in the winter & swimming on my lunch break in the summer (I was at a small university).
Turns out my brain is super gullible and is easily fooled by…my brain.
Wow, you got slower and slower. Usually people get better the more they do something.
/s
I’m glad it works for you, but I always hated getting to work very sweaty and then being smelly for the rest of the day when I biked.
Well, I had uniforms to change into, plus locker room facilities.
The point, really, was that you can fool yourself into getting a routine/exercise.
Real shower if you can, French shower if you can’t. Wet wipe the pits and butt, air dry, brush hair, deodorant, and some pleasant parfum. Bring a change of clothes.
Or you could just bike slowly and not get all nasty but who wants to do that.
As part of my fitness training earlier in my life, I got used to getting up early (somewhere between 5am and 6am). I’m nowhere near as fit as I used to be, but I still get up early.
