I've found sleepyti.me to work for me. After a while of paying attention to sleeping for a preset duration instead of waking up at a preset time it became kind of automatic, and nowadays I wake up before the alarm (often just a minute or a half before) but I still set it out of habit.
Waking up early, 10 tips that worked for me
61–70 of 121 posts
Re: Waking up early, 10 tips that worked for me
#62I stopped using an alarm clock about a year ago, and it's been one of the most positive, life-altering changes I've experienced. I'm not tired when I wake up, and I have consistent energy through the day. It was a surprisingly easy transition after doing two things: leaving the blinds open so I get lots of natural sunlight in the morning, and eating breakfast within half an hour of waking up. It's somewhat scary at f…
Eating after waking up is a key for me. I have colleagues who have company breakfasts when I'm already thinking about lunch...I don't see how they can wait until 3 or 4 hours after waking up before they eat.
Re: Waking up early, 10 tips that worked for me
#63The most important step is to get up. It's the best approach when sane-me wakes up first, but usually a totally different personality wakes up first. It can justify almost anything in its effort to stay in bed. Kinda creepy actually, it's what I'd imagine having a multiple personality disorder is like. It's not even a voice , I am not "me" when I wake up :-)
One neat app I've discovered lately that helps me with this tremendously is Sleep as Android[1]. It has a "CAPTCHA" mode for alarms, where you have to do some additional task to wake up. It has a few choices for the task, but the most amazing one is QR Code scanning. You "teach" the phone a QR code of your choice, and when the alarm goes off you have to scan the code to turn it off. The use case is printing a QR code…
That's pretty cool.
My low-tech version is putting the alarm clock on the other side of the room :-)
Re: Waking up early, 10 tips that worked for me
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
My uncensored opinion is that the original article is garbage. Waking up early isn't about what you do in the morning, its about what you do the night before (or fail to do.) Forcing yourself to wake up early for the sake of waking up early is destructive as it means your body has not gotten enough sleep yet. Your going to either have impeded judgement capability, diminished work energy or both. A lot of people prete…
3. Don't do drugs. Most importantly, do not consume caffeine. No coffee, no tea!
I don't know if "do not consume caffeine" is more important than "do not do cocaine", but otherwise I'd agree. That said, I personally care more about my Coke fix than I do about any impact to my sleep schedule.
Re: Waking up early, 10 tips that worked for me
#65I stopped using an alarm clock about a year ago, and it's been one of the most positive, life-altering changes I've experienced. I'm not tired when I wake up, and I have consistent energy through the day. It was a surprisingly easy transition after doing two things: leaving the blinds open so I get lots of natural sunlight in the morning, and eating breakfast within half an hour of waking up. It's somewhat scary at f…
Heartily second everything there. I stopped using an alarm clock for workdays many years ago. Waking up naturally is the best ending to sleep. The time is pretty stable, except roughly once a week, I'll remain asleep 30 to 60 minutes longer. If that happens, it was necessary, and waking up earlier to a blaring alarm would have left me zombied for the day. I do have a job where the arrival time is flexible; anytime up to about 10:30 is okay and my boss does the same. That is by design not luck, I wouldn't take a job where that was not true.
So yes, kill the alarm. (I will use it for an early flight or medical appointment, things that can't give way by an hour, but absolutely not for the daily commute.) It really does create stress.
Re: Waking up early, 10 tips that worked for me
#6659. Don't eat in the 2 hours before bedtime. If you do, your body will initially use its energy to digest your meal instead of to nourish your body. This one is big - simple change, drastic results.
yes but contrary advice says that a small snack is ok because hunger pangs disrupt your sleep.
Re: Waking up early, 10 tips that worked for me
#67Become a farmer and sleep at 8 and wake up at 5. Not modern zombie clown.
As a grain farmer, it is rare to see much happen around this farm before 11AM. Except, perhaps, repair some downed equipment. You pretty much always need the morning sunshine to dry up the fields from the overnight dew before they are ready to be worked in again.
what is a farmer doing posting in HN?
Re: Waking up early, 10 tips that worked for me
#68It took me a month of living with withdrawal symptoms and headaches to get over the addiction. Let me just point out that this is totally not normal. I drink 10-15 (20-oz) cups of coffee a week, in addition to caffeinated sodas, and when I'd go off caffeine for a few weeks (as I used to do regularly), I'd have 2-3 days of feeling depressed from normal, and a very mild but persistent headache over the first 1-2 days o…
I agree. I deliberately stop drinking coffee for a month or two once in a while (just to prove myself that I can), and it never takes more than 2-3 days to completely withdraw from the physical effects.
Last time I did the "get off coffee to show myself that I can" thing, I was able to avoid the terrible headaches by pushing the "first sip" time back a bit each day, then reducing the amount. Initially about 11AM was the headache onset time, but after I moved my first sip back each day for a week, I found that I didn't get the headache onset till about 3PM. Then I reduced down the dose over the next week, which more motivated by the annoyance of mentally tracking "when can I (do I have to) have my coffee today". The two stages separated the task of having my brain produce its own wake-up/alertness state from dealing with the other withdrawal symptoms; and it turned what was a comforting morning ritual into a chore taking up time and attention.
Re: Waking up early, 10 tips that worked for me
#69I figured out how much water to drink right before bed so that I wake up naturally 7.5-8 hours later. There's no ignoring a full bladder, and once I'm out of bed I'm up for the day.
Re: Waking up early, 10 tips that worked for me
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
My uncensored opinion is that the original article is garbage. Waking up early isn't about what you do in the morning, its about what you do the night before (or fail to do.) Forcing yourself to wake up early for the sake of waking up early is destructive as it means your body has not gotten enough sleep yet. Your going to either have impeded judgement capability, diminished work energy or both. A lot of people prete…
3. Don't do drugs. Most importantly, do not consume caffeine. No coffee, no tea!
No tea? How dare you.