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Ask HN: How do you wake up?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you wake up?

#61

Post by zeckalpha »

dasil003 wrote: post #11
neuromanta wrote: post #7

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'm going to sleep right now so I can try this in 7 hours.

It has been 7 hours. Results?

Re: Ask HN: How do you wake up?

#62

Post by Ixiaus »

neuromanta wrote: post #7

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…

When I had a job this was pretty much my exact routine - started at 6AM every morning. Just replace the workout with meditation... I'd go to the Gym and/or Bikram Yoga w/ the girl after work during the week.

Somatomax has also been invaluable for my sleep and clear operating mind the next day...

Now, without the job, I typically getup at 7AM (sometimes a bit later), shower, catchup on email and Hacker News then start my personal project.

Re: Ask HN: How do you wake up?

#63

Post by Mankhool »

The cat needs an insulin injection every morning before she is allowed to have breakfast. She crawls up onto my chest and paws me in the face until I wake up (no joke). When she first started doing this - years ago - I would keep my eyes shut and pretend I was asleep, but to no avail. The moment she knows that I'm conscious, she starts meowing, jumps off the bed and heads for the kitchen.

Re: Ask HN: How do you wake up?

#64

Post by avinashv »

I have always had a lot of trouble getting up in the morning, and when I started working at a company where I'm expected to put in normal hours, I changed my wake-up routine quite drastically.

I use my computer as an alarm clock. This has a few benefits:

(1) It's on the other side of the room. After 10 years of having a clock/phone by my head and hitting snooze (I'm capable of snoozing easily for 1 hour) or, worse, off, having to actually get out of bed to turn off the alarm is enough to wake me up past the point of getting back into bed.

(2) I have a different alarm noise every day. I found myself getting conditioned to whatever sound my clock/phone was using, and especially with snooze, after hearing that 30-odd times a week, I'd just sleep through alarms. A different sound each day is excellent. Highly recommended.

(3) I keep a small bottle of water on my desk, which I drink right after turning off the alarm. I once (and only once) tried this when my alarm was by my bed and soaked an iPod in a groggy swat to snooze my alarm. I find that the water makes me feel much better. The first week or so without this, I walked around like a zombie until I got to work, but simply drinking the water makes me feel better. There's probably some logical biological explanation to this.

I'm still not really a morning person--I miss my sleep schedule from college--but it's the most effective solution I've found to waking up at 7am.

The easy solution is obviously just sleeping early, but I find myself unable to sleep before midnight at the earliest.

Re: Ask HN: How do you wake up?

#65

Post by Sigma7 »

avinashv wrote: post #64

I have always had a lot of trouble getting up in the morning, and when I started working at a company where I'm expected to put in normal hours, I changed my wake-up routine quite drastically. I use my computer as an alarm clock. This has a few benefits: (1) It's on the other side of the room. After 10 years of having a clock/phone by my head and hitting snooze (I'm capable of snoozing easily for 1 hour) or, worse, o…

The "sleeping early" solution requires a few tricks, the most recent of which claims that you shouldn't eat between 12-16 hours from when you need to wake up.

Of course, the real reason you can't sleep early is because the most "interesting" stuff is done just before you fall asleep. You need to move the interesting stuff to the morning, even if it means watching a silly children's cartoon; when I stopped watching said cartoon, my wakeup time drifted to beyond 8am, since I was only barely interested in going to school.

Re: Ask HN: How do you wake up?

#66

Post by aik »

tptacek wrote: post #58
yellowbkpk wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can also hit the volume buttons on the side to snooze it.

Just having an unbounded number of alarms puts it ahead of any other alarm I've had. I have alarms set for 7:01, 7:10, 7:20, and 7:45 (when I finally have to be on my feet to get the kids out the door to school).

I have a Palm Centro and I just have to tap the screen anywhere to snooze. To turn it off then requires a second tap to a specific button on the screen. Best I've used.

Re: Ask HN: How do you wake up?

#68

Post by Travis »

Fun trick my dad taught me. It's inconsistent, but when it works, it's pretty cool.

Before bed (when you're done reading and ready to flip out the light), close your eyes and visualize a clock (old kind, with the arms). Picture it at the current time, then slowly rotate the dial until it's your wakeup time. Repeat a few times. Something is pretty cool about literally setting your wakeup alarm, and waking up within a few minutes of that time.

Also it's a good time to meditate / focus / relax before bed, which is probably the most helpful part of it.

Re: Ask HN: How do you wake up?

#69

Post by codyrobbins »

dimarco wrote: post #48
tptacek wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't the iPhone alarm kick ass though? It's the best alarm clock I've ever had.

You have no idea how many times I've turned my blackberry alarm off and thought I had hit snooze. the iPhone alarm is a thousand time nicer with 2 different mechanisms, touch snooze and slide off.

My only complaint about the iPhone alarm is that I really, really wish it had a setting for how many minutes ’snooze’ is. When I hit snooze I always want to sleep for another half hour, not nine minutes.
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