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Sidenote: Mega annoyance. Why does the iPhone not wake for an alarm. I think pretty much every other phone in existance has nailed this?
First alarm: iPod plugged into a stereo playing something pleasant. (7.20am) Second alarm: iPhone alarm 40 minutes later. I now mega-loathe the "Harp" alarm tone. (8.00am) Third alarm: Girlfriend kicking me out of bed between 5-10 minutes later. (~8.10am) Works like a charm every time.
I'll hear it randomly in public in the middle of the day and immediately get a rush of adrenalin -- "oh fuck I'm waking up 6 hours late aaaahhh!!!" -- and it will take me at least 15 minutes to calm down fully. For hours afterward my ears will parse any plausible input into phantom ringing (that happens randomly by itself too).
I've learned (and adapted) to the fact that I just can't get any reasonable work done in the first 3 hours or so of the day. I can ingest massive amounts of caffeine, go run a marathon, or whatever, but my brain just needs a few hours to get up to speed.
You might find that, like myself, you function much better in the evening and night. Even though I keep a normal daylight schedule for work reasons, I long to fall back to my natural rythmn: rise at 4pm, and sleep at 7 or 8am.
I even tried the experiment where you stay up until you are tired, then repeat. It was terrible. After a week I could not sleep at all. I'd get tired when the sun set, as we are supposed to. But despite being tired, no sleep came.
Through much pain, I discovered that the major source of my sleeplessness was a lack of social contact. Now this varies immensely by individual. But the moral of the story is that every sleep problem is unique. Your solution is not my solution. And mine is not yours (I don't have a good one btw).
I'll guess that sleep researchers already know this. Best of luck hacker news!
Try to get used to waking up always the same time. Every time I wake up early in the morning, I kiss my girlfriend, then get up, and after the bathroom I do some workout. Nothing serius, just to make myself fresher. And then, for about an hour, I work on my private project(s), until my girlfriend gots up too (she's a little sleepy :) ). Then have breakfast (ALWAYS have a substantial breakfast), and then I go to work…
I don't have any problems getting out of bed.
Go to bed and wake up at the same time every night/day. Also, avoid using 'snooze' and taking naps. If you're not used to it, then you really have to be determined at first, but there's definitely a noticeable difference after a week or two. If you're consistent, your alarm will become obsolete.
no naps? booooo
First alarm: iPod plugged into a stereo playing something pleasant. (7.20am) Second alarm: iPhone alarm 40 minutes later. I now mega-loathe the "Harp" alarm tone. (8.00am) Third alarm: Girlfriend kicking me out of bed between 5-10 minutes later. (~8.10am) Works like a charm every time.
After ~6 months of using my call phone as my alarm clock, I now have a strong pavlovian conditioning to several of the Verizon ringtones, especially "rings" I'll hear it randomly in public in the middle of the day and immediately get a rush of adrenalin -- "oh fuck I'm waking up 6 hours late aaaahhh!!! " -- and it will take me at least 15 minutes to calm down fully. For hours afterward my ears will parse any plausibl…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You might find that, like myself, you function much better in the evening and night. Even though I keep a normal daylight schedule for work reasons, I long to fall back to my natural rythmn: rise at 4pm, and sleep at 7 or 8am.
For a long time I thought I followed the same schedule. Since I'm in grad school, I decided to experiment with that. I found that I was not a night person after all. Rather, anxiety and thinking about a given problem kept me up indefinitely. I even tried the experiment where you stay up until you are tired, then repeat. It was terrible. After a week I could not sleep at all. I'd get tired when the sun set, as we are…
The first was to work nights. I'd get up at 15:30, "breakfast" at 17:00, socialise from 18:00 to 20:00, then go to work. I'd eat my last meal at 07:00 (bacon eaggs and toast are an interesting "last meal of the day") and go to bed at 09:00.
The second was to sleep every other night, sleeping for 12 hours when I sis sleep at all. The night I stayed up I'd catch a cat nap at about 03:00 for 20 minutes. This was effectively a 48 hour day.
The third and most interesting was to stick to a 28 hour day with 8 hours sleep. This gives a 6 day week, and I'd drift in and out of phase with normal people. That really suited me, and I wish I could do it more.