Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with waking

How can I wake up faster?

Solomon — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 08:06:47 -0800

How can I get going faster in the morning? What tips and/or tricks do you use to get you up, bright and awake early in the morning?

I've tried coffee (which makes no difference), showering in showers of various temperatures (which is unpleasant if cold), leaving the curtains open (which just keeps me awake because of street lights) and various different alarm clocks. My current MO is to turn the computer on and sit in front of it for a while, which seems to help. I think it must be the light from the monitor hitting my eyes that wakes me.

I haven't tried exercise, because I don't have enough spatial awareness to do anything that involved. I also once updated my Facebook status without realising it.

I have no problem getting to sleep whatsoever. I know I need at least 8 hours a night, so I go to bed at a relevant time, and always have crazy vivid dreams. It's just the next morning that's the problem. I also have the problem in a milder form after napping. It seems that the longer I'm asleep, the groggier I am when I wake.

Any thoughts?

Heart racing/pounding upon waking up.

desjardins — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 13:07:15 -0800

Heart racing/pounding upon waking up. This happens in the morning and also when I take naps. Relevant info: female, 34, no tobacco, moderate drinker, slightly underweight, no chronic physical issues. Blood pressure is usually on the low end of normal range. I almost always get 7-8 uninterrupted hours sleep/night and have no trouble falling asleep or waking up.

I am taking Lamictal, Zoloft, and Klonopin for anxiety/depression. Klonopin slows down the racing heart, but I dislike taking it in the morning because it makes me drowsy. I can't pinpoint when this started, but it seems like a few months ago. I do have panic attacks, but the racing heart has never been a symptom before. Besides, most of my panic is related to social phobia, so it doesn't make sense that I would feel that immediately upon waking. Note that this happens while I'm still lying down - I'm not getting up too fast.

I called my psychiatrist; he doesn't think it's related to the medication, and doesn't have any solid ideas. I got a pretty thorough workup in the hospital in July (was there for neurological stuff, not heart related, though they did do an EKG) and got a clean bill of health. Where should I go from here?

Why isn't the process of waking from sleep pleasant for most?

wackybrit — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 17:14:26 -0800

Why isn't the process of waking up quick and pleasant for most? In asking for anecdotal evidence about waking up, most people I know say it's not a particularly pleasant experience. They just "have" to do it - this is even if they get the right amount of sleep. Only a few say they find it "easy" to get up consistently.

But why is waking an unpleasant experience? Shouldn't it be good, from an evolutionary point of view, for all humans to wake up briskly, full of beans, and ready to go? (Historically to have gone hunting, to escape predators, etc - nowadays, simply to go to work and earn money for survival).

Essential things like reproduction, urination, defecation, and even going to sleep have a real sense of urgency or pleasure about them - why not the process of waking up? Is there anthropological evidence for certain populaces to find it easier to get up than others, etc? Is it just modern Western culture that makes it hard for us to get up? Any insights welcomed.

Waking up dehydrated

LSK — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:21:57 -0800

Waking up dehydrated, why? I tend to wake up dehydrated, even after a 1-2 hour nap. I can easily say that I drink enough daily, don't have diabetes, don't eat too much sodium, or anything like that which a Google search suggests. I keep water by my bedside, but it's still awkward. Why is this?

MacBook spontaneously waking with security settings changed?

lorimer — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 09:38:04 -0800

What would cause a MacBook to spontaneously wake from sleep (roughly every few weeks, at apparently random intervals), with all of its Bluetooth Sharing checkboxes checked, when it was put to sleep with them unchecked? This is second-hand from my mom, but here are the details I got by phone:

- Her MacBook's set to prompt for a password when it starts and when it wakes from sleep, so by spontaneous wakeup I mean that while the MacBook is in sleep (with its LED pulsing to indicate sleep), the screen suddenly lights up with the usual password prompt.

- It sleeps connected to AC but not to anything else (no network, no peripherals, bt off, Airport off).

- She's never used any bt device with this MacBook.

- Nobody else lives in her house, but the neighbors' houses are close, so I don't know whether any of her neighbors are physically within bt range (she REALLY wants to hear whether this could or couldn't be caused by someone else with a bt device trying to connect with her machine, and if so, whether that means anything in terms of nefarious file exchange possibilities).

- She doesn't have any third-party software that assumes or would be automatically checking for a bt device.

- She doesn't have any user-scheduled actions, alarms or other things that should be waking her machine from sleep.

- From what I gather her machine's very close to default setup in every way, w/ very little third-party sw and definitely nothing sketchy or unknown.

- Each time the machine wakes spontaneously, it seems to be in the same state it went to sleep in, except that when she goes and looks at the Network & bt preferences (since I advised her to uncheck all the "sharing" boxes in both), all three of the Bluetooth Sharing checkboxes ARE checked. She unchecks them and puts it back to sleep, and later it wakes normally.... until the next time this mysterious spontaneous-awakening happens and they're all checked again.

- Up until now she has not had "Require pairing for security" checked on the bt pane -- I just advised her to do that.

- This has happened several times over the last few months, not at the same time of day, but it's possible (not sure) they might have all been at the same interval after the MacBook was put to sleep. I think all have happened less than an hour after it was put to sleep.

Bedside Alarm with MP3 playback via SD Card

razzman — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 09:43:20 -0800

Hi, I want an alarm clock I can just plug an SD card into, select a tune and have it play as an alarm in the morning. I have tried a CD alarm clock and it doesn't work for me because I hear the CD mechanism start up and hit snooze. Also it's more difficult to burn a cd than transfer a track to SD. As you've probably gathered I'm having trouble waking up and as an experiment want to see if waking up to a favourite tune may help. I know of one which is called "the bug" but wonder if there are any others out there. I've done quite a few searches and haven't found anything else.
PS. I have a PDA but find it too easy for things to go wrong with the alarm and would prefer a dedicated bedside alarm.

How does thinking of dreams cause sleepiness?

daisyace — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 09:57:24 -0800

When I wake up, I lie in bed and think. Gradually, I get more awake until I'm ready to get up. But, if I think about the dreams I just had, I get overpoweringly sleepy again. Why is it that thinking about anything else helps me to continue gently waking up, but thinking about dreams puts me immediately and irresistibly back to sleep? Of course, if I start thinking about stressful things like work or things on my to-do list, it makes sense that I get more awake, but I've been experimenting with this, and I get more awake even if I think completely non-stressful thoughts, as long as they're not my dreams. Also, if I think about dreams later in the day, I don't get noticeably sleepy.

If my experience isn't just an oddity, I'm interested in what biological mechanisms or other principles could explain how thinking about dreams causes sleepiness.

Too depressed to get out of bed

wackybrit — Mon, 09 Jan 2006 15:06:31 -0800

What can I do to change my brain state on waking? There have been tons of cool questions here on AskMe about waking up and adjusting the body clock, but I don't want to adjust my body clock. I don't want to wake up at the same time every day and go to sleep at the same time every day.. it's just not possible. Besides, I have no problems getting to sleep at all.

The problem is that I wake up with an extremely thick-feeling head and being, perhaps, depressed. I am not depressed usually in waking life, but my brain feels like a different person on waking. I don't want to leave the bed. If I'm forced to (an urgent appointment, say) I'll be in a foul mood for five minutes, and then be fine. But the person I wake up as will rarely want to get up. The time is irrelevant, I can feel the same way after twelve hours of sleep. I routinely get nine to ten hours a night.

I think the problem is that my brain isn't "warmed up" enough on waking. It just feels so thick. Could I, perhaps, put some headphones on and blast some "brainwave changing" sounds or music through to clear the cobwebs away?

Waking up isn't my problem, I tend to wake up after eight or nine hours naturally anyway.. Simply getting my brain into the state where I'll actually get OUT of bed is the problem. What can I do to change my brain state so that I'll feel like getting out of bed? I enjoy my work, I have a (I think) great life, and I'm usually pretty happy most of the day.. so I find this routine feeling rather hard to describe.

Toddler no longer able to sleep on his own

gfrobe — Sun, 18 Dec 2005 14:21:42 -0800

Help us get our 20 month old to sleep on his own again. Our son never had a problem sleeping in his crib and hardly ever cried when we would put him to bed. A few weeks ago he had an ear infection and ended up coming in our bed for the night. I then went out of town for a week during which time my wife said he was crying a lot at night and just wouldn't settle so again, he ended up in our bed another two or three nights. Now, he can't bear to be in his crib on his own at all. For the past week and a half he's been waking up in the night and will scream uncontrollably until we go in, at which point he calms down. As soon as we leave the room, the screaming starts again. We thought he just needed to get back into his routine and that it would take a few nights but it's now been a week and half and there's been no improvement at all. We've avoided bringing him back into our bed but the nights have been hell. We try not to let him cry for more than 10-15 minutes each time before going in to calm him down but this pattern of going in, followed by screaming and crying as soon as we leave will last for hours every night with us going back and forth about 10-15 times per night.

We've tried staying in the room until he falls to sleep but he seems to wake up a few minutes later, realize we're not there and the whole thing starts all over again. It's like he's reverted to a newborn in his sleeping habits.

We follow the same routine every night as we did before i.e. milk,brush teeth, quiet time with book, etc.

How should we be handling this? Whatever we're doing, it's obviously not working and we're just so tired that tonight we've resigned ourselves to taking him in our bed just so we can get some sleep. We talked about letting him cry it out but don't think this is the right thing to do, especially if he may be through some separation anxiety brought on by my going away for a week.

If anyone has gone through this and has any suggestions I'd appreciate it. We're really at our wits end here. Thanks.

How can I wake up on time?

Newbornstranger — Mon, 26 Sep 2005 04:19:34 -0800

This is the second time I've turned off my alarm clock without consciously knowing it, and promptly returned to sleep. How can I wake up on time? My alarm clock is already obnoxiously loud, and across the room.

Personal Alarm Clock

Cassford — Thu, 07 Apr 2005 13:28:23 -0800

I have to get up earlier in the morning than my bedmates. How do I wake myself up without also disturbing my spouse and our light-sleeping 7-month-old daughter? Sleeping with headphones connected to a clock radio alarm is a bad idea. I toss and turn and it just seems so lame.

Internal Clocks

vacapinta — Wed, 24 Nov 2004 12:50:41 -0800

Somewhat related to grumblebee's question below but not really: I have an uncanny sense of time. I never wake up to an alarm because I spontaneously wake up a minute or two before it goes off and reach out and shut it off. Also, If asked to guess the time after not having looked at a clock for a day, I am usually within 10 minutes or so. Firstly, what exactly is the "internal clock" and how does it differ among people? Secondly, is my behavior typical or is it at an extreme?