Help me sleep better and wake up earlier!

February 13, 2009 1:45 PM

I am in need of advice for waking up early

So I really really want to be able to wake up earlier. I've discovered that waking up well before I need to, doing things around the house, and then taking a slow time getting ready for work makes me feel great during the day - but I can't do it all the time.

Some nights I fall asleep on the couch at like 10 or 11, wake up an hour before my alarm feeling great. Other nights I'm in my bed by 9:30 and wake up with my alarm exhausted. These are just two extremes. As far as I know it has nothing to do with couch/bed.

I'm not sure what causes this discrepancy, but I want to fix it. I want to be able to wake up early. Any advice would be helpful.

Me regimen so far: TV and computer go off between 9 and 10 - no more staring at light bulbs; no coffee after 4 or 5pm; in bed between 10 and 11 (possibly reading); alarm goes off at 7 currently, but I don't _have to_ get up until 8:15 to shower and scramble to work.

posted by phrakture to health & fitness (21 comments total)

I would think you need to establish a firm routine and stick to it. Pick couch or bed (bed) and do it every night. Try it for a week or two and see if you don't get results.
posted by jckll at 1:46 PM on February 13

I've started a similar routine recently in that I'll get up earlier, watch an episode of a TV show and/or do small tasks around the house, and essentially take what used to be a mad-dash 30 minute get ready for work into a 2 hour wake-up session. It has improved my daily work life a lot and I don't want to give it up.

I'm in the same boat as you though, some days I'll explode out of bed and others it will take every bit of mental strength to force myself awake. I just assumed that I'd need a while to get used to the change in schedule. It has been long enough that I feel like I should have acclimatized and I can't find a pattern to the on/off days.

TMI I'm sure, but it makes me feel better to know I'm not the only person having this issue. Hopefully you'll feel better to knowing that as well.

One thing you didn't touch on that I have been considering is the size of my evening meal. The less dinner I eat the easier it seems for me to wake up the subsequent morning.
posted by Gainesvillain at 1:55 PM on February 13

See the thread about sleeptracker which shows up in the related questions. While the product might or might not work, it is a legitimate concept. People feel much more well rested when woken up at the end of a REM sleep period. REM period usually started 60 min after falling asleep and lasts 30 mins, this cycle is repeated but REM sleep starts to get longer at the expense of non-REM sleep. If you could time your sleep to wake up a multiple of 90 minutes after falling asleep, you might hit the end of a REM period. But really, sleep cycles are not very exact and you probably need an EEG to tell.
posted by Brennus at 2:00 PM on February 13

For the past five years, I've gotten up consistently at 4 in the morning to get ready for my early morning job. This was definitely not easy for me, as I was never a morning person before taking this job. A few things that have helped me:

* Invest in a really high-quality coffee maker, one with a timer. Knowing that the brew starts percolating at 4 gives me something to look forward to. Same concept: have good breakfast food on hand, stuff that you really love.
* Find something that you (a) absolutely love to read and (b) never allow yourself to - trashy fiction, comic books, whatever - and make that thing exclusive to mornings. In my case, I read while in the bathtub, which is another "get out of bed" treat.
* Fall asleep to music. New age, Chopin nocturnes, whatever works for you. But use the same thing as much as possible, thus instructing your psyche, "hey, dude, time to calm down." Invest in comfy headphones for that purpose.
* Put the alarm clock on the far side of the room, so that you have to get out of bed to turn it off.
* Understand that you're going to have off days. Even after doing this for five years, I still feel like crap 1-2 days a week, for at least the first part of the morning.
posted by jbickers at 2:03 PM on February 13 [3 favorites has favorites]

Have a reason to get up. Have some indulgence that you only allow yourself in the mornings. Perhaps a delicious food item, or a really interesting book that you ONLY read in the mornings. Have sex or masturbate only in the morning (unless you're a guy, in which case you'll probably fall back asleep). Whatever it is, make it something you consistently look forward to, and that you can ONLY do in the morning.
posted by desjardins at 2:04 PM on February 13

@Brennus the problem I have with that is that we, as humans, should be able to get a decent night's sleep without the need of technology. We've been sleeping for thousands of years. It is primarily artificial light which screws us up, I know, but we should still be able to sleep fine without some wonky electro-gizmo.
posted by phrakture at 2:08 PM on February 13

I agree with Phrak... if I'm going to avoid caffeine to help me get to sleep I don't want to abuse it to wake-up. The less technology and chemicals I use as crutches for the most basic functions of life the better imo.
posted by Gainesvillain at 2:11 PM on February 13

I wonder if even 4-5pm is too late for coffee. Caffeine keeps me awake even if I drink it after 3pm.

Like others, I've had good success with rituals. My tea and toast in the morning gets me out of bed. At night, I've occasionally gotten into a warm milk + cookies + book habit. That's not exactly healthy, I know, but oh what a treat and it totally gets me to shut down the computer and -relax-.
posted by wyzewoman at 2:12 PM on February 13 [1 favorite has favorites]

Echoing others in that a regular bedtime, with a going-to-bed routine, helps with the waking up. (I avoid coffee etc after 2pm because otherwise falling asleep is hard. )

I find it useful to have something audible happen five or ten minutes before my alarm clock. Currently it's our forced-air heating system, but anything that gives my subconscious a nudge is a big help.

One thing I find absolutely essential is never to use the snooze button. Set the alarm for when I have to get up, and get up when it goes off.
posted by anadem at 2:14 PM on February 13 [1 favorite has favorites]

I keep hearing varying things regarding caffeine intake. I assumed "no caffeine after I leave work" was good enough, but some people say they quit after lunch time.

I'm trying to run through my memory to see if on those "good days" caffeine intake changed. I think it may be somewhat related, as I tend to have the easiest time waking up on Mondays. However, that could be related to sleeping in on Sundays... hmmm.
posted by phrakture at 2:19 PM on February 13

I keep hearing varying things regarding caffeine intake. I assumed "no caffeine after I leave work" was good enough, but some people say they quit after lunch time.

I'm trying to run through my memory to see if on those "good days" caffeine intake changed. I think it may be somewhat related, as I tend to have the easiest time waking up on Mondays. However, that could be related to sleeping in on Sundays... hmmm.

I was recently trying to solve the same problem as you- oh god, how I would love to be a morning person!- and I read somewhere that you shouldn't drink coffee after noon. this surprised me but also made me pay more attention and sure enough, I finally noticed that on the same days I had a coffee to stay awake during my 1:00 pm class, I didn't feel tired enough for sleeping by 11. So now I'm trying to cut back a lot.

I love iced coffee, so I make a pot at night and stick it in the fridge so it's ready for me in the AM. Ahhhh. :-)

I'm afraid I can't help you with the rest, though. I suck at getting up. Good luck.
posted by lblair at 3:09 PM on February 13

Start out by improving your sleeping habits. Go to bed at a regular time, don't use your bed for anything but sleeping, wake up at a regular time. Eat a large breakfast right when you get up, every day. Don't exercise or do any brisk activity for like 2 hours before bedtime, don't drink any caffeine during the 7 hours before sleeping.

That's all pretty obvious stuff. Another thing you can add to your list is to get a wake up light, also known as a dawn simulator. Your body is built to wake up with the morning, via light coming through your eyelids. A wake up light will slowly brighten over a 1 hour period to full brightness at the time that you set. I have always had problems with sleeping and the wake up light makes me "wake up" before my alarm goes off! Of course this only works if I'm being pretty good about my other sleeping habits, but it helps me to get up at a regular time, which in turn, helps everything else. Another thing to consider is that you need your sleeping area to be completely dark at night--not even little LEDs or anything like that--especially any blue or green light at night will mess you up. You want red before bed, and blue-shifted in the morning. Many wake up lights also double as light boxes to give you light therapy, which is good as well, and can help your sleep, even if you don't have SAD (which you probably don't).

I have a link to a place that overviews wake up lights.
posted by brenton at 3:22 PM on February 13

For me, it's all about light exposure first thing in the morning. I use a lightbox for this, and once I have a bit of time to adjust to a schedule, I can regularly get up at any time I need to with no effort at all.

Yes, it's a gizmo, but one designed to substitute for the sun, which modern people are probably not being exposed to in a "normal" way. Using the sun itself would probably work too--just going out for 30-minute walks every morning, for example--but you have to have the discipline to keep that up every single day, and eventually I would always break the habit. The lightbox thing is a little too easy to be worth avoiding (plus, you seem to get a bit of an instant serotonin boost from it, so I guess has a bit of a "hook" that way also).

Other things like sleep hygiene are helpful (I do stay off caffeine entirely, because I value sleep more), but very much secondary to setting my circadian rhythm this way. With perfect hygiene and my circadian rhythm out of whack I would get nowhere, but with my clock in line I'll fall asleep anyway even if I'm up watching TV, doing whatever it is you aren't supposed to do in bed, etc.
posted by dixie flatline at 3:22 PM on February 13

I recommend having something to look forward to in the morning. That works really well for me, although I'm not sure how to arrange that every morning.
posted by cockeyed at 3:33 PM on February 13

Also, from my observations of my own sleep pattern, it seems that when you're getting enough sleep regularly, something like the SleepTracker watch becomes less and less necessary. The last hour or two before waking you're moving between REM and the very lightest stages of sleep, and it seems pretty much OK to wake up at any point during this. It's only being awakened during the deeper stages that come earlier in the night that's really uncomfortable. If you're still in those stages by morning, you just haven't gotten enough sleep yet.
posted by dixie flatline at 3:37 PM on February 13

Oops, I didn't link to my page like I said I would: here it is.
posted by brenton at 3:51 PM on February 13

Everyone's different, but I find that I feel much more groggy if I go back to sleep for more than 30 minutes after I initially wake up. Taking a week off from coffee now and then helps me too.
posted by ejoey at 3:58 PM on February 13

Seconding dixie flatline with light exposure.

I have a sleep disorder and the best advice I got from seeing a certified sleep specialist is to get as much light as possible first thing in the morning. I have to get up before the sun is actually up over the horizon in the morning and he recommended that I turn on ALL of the lights in my apartment.

I can't even begin to describe the difference between doing so and turning on only the lights I *needed* as I had done before. It's not a cognitive difference, I don't actually consciously notice that there's more light, but man, my body certainly can tell.

Since I started doing this, I've been waking up closer to my work-time even on my days off and have been less groggy in the mornings than I've ever been in my entire life.

I don't use a lightbox, I just use regular ol' incandescent bulbs. Lots of 'em.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 5:08 PM on February 13

Some things that have helped me (most mentioned previously, but I'll add my vote):

-Waking up to natural light, or a simulacrum thereof. The reptilian part of your brain can be your ally.

-Loving breakfast. When I lived in the Bay Area and had constant access to amazing fruit and high-quality coffee, this was easier. I would go to sleep thinking of my ruby red grapefruit or fresh blackberry smoothie that was going to be there for me in the morning.

-Turn off the computer or the TV earlier and switch to reading. Even if you're watching or reading something easily digestible, there's something about staring at a screen that is not soothing. Perhaps it has to do with the quality of the light. They can over-stimulate you more than you would imagine. More so if you are watching 24 or playing WOW.

-Love your bed. Have the comfiest mattress and great pillows. Love your bedroom. Scented candles, if you're into that. Nice lighting. Clean, not cluttered.

-Don't use your bed for anything other than sleep and sex (which is not to say that you shouldn't sleep and have sex in places other than your bed). Maybe do your bedtime reading in an armchair.

-There are some specific yoga poses (shivasana, e.g.) that can help relax and calm you. I can't remember other names but you can probably find some tips online.


Hope this helps!
posted by foxy_hedgehog at 3:50 AM on February 14

I have one of these alarm clocks, with three separate alarms: the nature sounds go off at 5:58, the radio goes off at 6:00, and the beeping alarm goes off at 6:10 (which is usually right after the weather report). It's helped a lot, though I still hate mornings and still can't drink caffeine after lunch or use the computer after 8:30pm if I want to be able to go to sleep by 11pm.

we, as humans, should be able to get a decent night's sleep without the need of technology
well, yes, that would be lovely, but we no longer live in a world where we can take 12 hours of darkness-time off every day.
posted by shiny blue object at 11:51 AM on February 14

This week I'm cutting out caffeine at noon and going to look into getting a "wake up light" dohickey. I like in a basement-y apartment - one of those that used to be street-level until the raised the streets - so now my neck is about ground level in my apartment :)

Thanks to all who contributed, you guys are awesome
posted by phrakture at 1:32 PM on February 16