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Ask HN: how to become a morning person?

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Re: Ask HN: how to become a morning person?

#41

Post by Tycho »

gte910h wrote: post #14

I had issues with sleeping when others do for a long while. I do not anymore (although get out of sync again about 2x a year). 1. Caffeine and you: You have a certain sensitivity to this drug. You may also be misusing it. Generally speaking, it's a late morning, early afternoon only drug. Late morning is the only place it starts working as its an adenosine antagonist, and you don't start getting adenosine in any real…

I have a secret weapon: decaffeinated tea-bags (from Marks&Spencers).

I stick to the rules for caffeine consumption, except I can always go for decaf in the evening.

I've been using Flux on my computers, I think that also helps.

Finally I just set a timer now when I go to bed. Usually 7.5 hours sleep plus 12 minutes to fall asleep is perfect for me, so when that timer goes I actually feel like getting up. And also if I wake up earlier I never stress about what the time is because I know I'm still on the countdown.

Re: Ask HN: how to become a morning person?

#42

Post by X-Istence »

pg wrote: post #3

Getting lots of exercise makes it easier to fall asleep at night. The ultimate solution, however, is to have a small child.

My boss has a couple of children, and he is very much a night person. He'll be working on stuff till 2, and then be up again at 7 because of the kids. I'm sure that isn't healthy either, but that is when he is most productive.

I myself have found myself to be more productive at night as well. For some reason I am just able to get more work done, faster, and more efficiently and best of all with less distractions from "the real world".

Re: Ask HN: how to become a morning person?

#43

Post by ed209 »

pg wrote: post #3

Getting lots of exercise makes it easier to fall asleep at night. The ultimate solution, however, is to have a small child.

amen to that. the problem with the luxury of time is that you tend to piss it away on things you don't really need to do. having kids, or other time sensitive commitments really forces you to make the most out of the "spare" time you do have.

Re: Ask HN: how to become a morning person?

#44

Post by X-Istence »

fabiandesimone wrote: post #37

I just received my Wakemate a few days ago. My sleep has been improving ever since. I'm slowly starting to feel less groggy every morning therefor enjoying more my days. This, inevitably makes me be more productive during the day which in turn makes me spend more energy feeling more tired earlier, thus going to be at more reasonable hours. A good vicious cicle if you will. Also, I started swimming for about 45 minute…

When I still used to live with my parents we had a pool as well. Even if I went swimming an hour or two before bed I would just become more refreshed and more awake and still not go to sleep. For some reason swimming triggered my brain to wake up and start working on more new problems.

So this advice may not work for everyone.

Re: Ask HN: how to become a morning person?

#45

Post by rdl »

I've had to get up at absurd hours (0200 flights, 0400 boat trips an hour away, ops windows, etc.).

I've discovered a few tricks:

1) Never rely on the alarm clock if I'm going to bed less than an hour or two before wake-up time (it's easy to sleep through). I'm probably going to make a much more substantial alarm clock and "here's what happened while you were asleep" briefing system using a TV, computer controlled room lights, etc. Other good alarm clocks: a cat which is trained to expect food whenever you wake up, or a girlfriend (or boyfriend, whatever is desired) who is a morning person.

2) Make sure the "wake up, become functional" process is inherently streamlined; get clothes, bags, etc. all ready the night before.

3) Remove any willpower from the "wake up, begin getting ready" process; once you make it a decision, vs. automatic, it becomes easy to just hit snooze over and over, and makes the actual waking up process itself more stressful. I usually feel great 1-2 minutes after I wake up, and almost always feel great once I'm fully awake, in the shower, etc., but the first 5-10 seconds is not as good -- and that can drag out to hours if you stay in bed trying to decide if you should wake up or sleep longer.

Re: Ask HN: how to become a morning person?

#46

Post by jarin »

pg wrote: post #3

Getting lots of exercise makes it easier to fall asleep at night. The ultimate solution, however, is to have a small child.

Let me just preface this by saying that I think kids are great (and this is not taking into consideration the other benefits of having kids, like happiness and sense of purpose and things like that), but if your goal is not just to get up early for the sake of getting up early but to get up early in order to get things done, it seems like having a kid would not necessarily be a net benefit time-wise as the reason you need to get up early with a kid is to spend time taking care of them. Of course, I don't think having kids ever stopped anyone from taking over the world, so this may be an invalid point.

Re: Ask HN: how to become a morning person?

#47

Post by bad_user »

Having a wife that you need to drive to work every morning.

I get up at 7 a.m. ; sometimes even at 6:30 a.m. Even if I have periods of time in which I go to sleep at 2 a.m. I still have to get up at 7 a.m.

The golden rule in such a case -- don't sleep during the day; ever. If you worked late last night, and feeling tired, wait at least for 10 p.m. to go to sleep.

Re: Ask HN: how to become a morning person?

#48

Post by Mz »

When I've had to adjust my schedule quickly, it has helped to take melatonin in the evening about 30 minutes before I wanted to be asleep and co-q-10 in the morning to help me wake up. If I can arrange to do this for 3 days beforehand, it does wonders.

I used to have really serious insomnia and I took co-q-10 in the morning for several years to help adjust my brain chemistry in terms of the sleeping and waking cycle. At one time, I didn't tolerate melatonin very well. If I took it, I felt half asleep for up to three days. Co-q-10 is the co-enzyme for melatonin. Taking melatonin does not cause the body to produce more co-q-10 (which is made in the body in a complex multi-step process and is often deficient because of a bottleneck at one or more step). But taking co-q-10 does cause the body to produce a melatonin spike something like 12 hours later. So if you need to adjust your brain chemistry in terms of the waking and sleeping cycle, co-q-10 addresses both halves of the equation whereas melatonin only addresses one half of it. I routinely recommend it as a means to address such issues.

I actually found that for me it seemed like that spike came more like 14 hours later rather than 12 but my body doesn't work right to begin with. I no longer supplement with co-q-10 but took quite high doses of it at one time and took it consistently for several years. I have heard that a magnesium deficiency is one of the things that will cause a co-q-10 deficiency. So I think treating for underlying deficiencies can eventually help the body produce its own supply and stop needing the supplements. I've worked really hard on underlying health and I no longer need this as a supplement and sleep a lot better than I used to.

-- Michele, BioHacker (thanks to pumpmylemma for that term :-) )

Re: Ask HN: how to become a morning person?

#49

Post by lkozma »

gte910h wrote: post #14

I had issues with sleeping when others do for a long while. I do not anymore (although get out of sync again about 2x a year). 1. Caffeine and you: You have a certain sensitivity to this drug. You may also be misusing it. Generally speaking, it's a late morning, early afternoon only drug. Late morning is the only place it starts working as its an adenosine antagonist, and you don't start getting adenosine in any real…

All great points, I would add one more: forget the alarm clock. If you can afford a variation of 30 mins - 1hour in wake up time, get up when you wake up naturally. Access to natural sunlight in the morning is best. It's amazing how precisely wake-up times synchronize automatically, but I find the alarm clock really really harmful. See this for a strong opinion: http://www.supermemo.com/articles/sleep.htm
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