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Is waking up great? Or is it a drag?
Finding the balance between getting enough sleep and getting up on time is harder than it should for some people. Over the years, I have run across several solutions that claimed to work (and they did for a brief spell) but after a while, gradually ceased to be effective. This is not to say that the other methods are off; the one described here may work for you, or another process elsewhere might provide your answer. Sometimes, different people require different approaches to arrive at the same result –In this case, the end goal is waking up on time.
To wake up on time everyday, you need to follow some simple steps, and have a process that makes those simple steps very effective. If you have an effective process for waking up, but you don’t follow the simple rules, then the problem never gets solved.
- Determine how much sleep is needed
- Get the needed amount of sleep
- Apply the effective process for waking up
Going To Sleep
First, determine how many minimum hours of sleep you require a day. Research has shown that a person gets their best hour of sleep during the fifth hour, so you are probably on the right track if you pick a number of hours in excess of five. Next, simply tack on thirty minutes to that number.
Now that you know how many hours you typically require each night, determine what time you want to get up, and make sure that you go to sleep at the time that guarantees the number of sleep hours earlier determined by you. This way at least you should be on track to waking up at the supposed time.
Assuming you typically have trouble responding to the alarm clock the first time it goes off in the morning, set your alarm clock thirty minutes earlier (this utilizes the thirty minutes we added at the beginning). Once the wake-up time has been entered, set the clock’s snooze value to an interval of anywhere between 3-10 minutes.
The Waking Up Debacle
In the morning, once the alarm clock goes off, that is your first warning that your sleep should be wrapping up. Hit the snooze button and rest in bed or drift again to sleep. Every time it goes off after that within the next thirty minutes, all you just have to do is get up, or hit the sleep button. Hopefully with each ringing repetition it becomes blatantly clear that you should get used to the idea that it is time to wake up. Based on your calculations, you should already have had enough sleep anyways. Next, do your favorite stretches, get your blood circulating, and hit the shower.
Finally, this is a guideline, so experiment and modify the suggestion to fit your specific need. Some of the many pundits out there assert that the snooze button is a bad idea. I don’t think they are entirely correct. If they were, clock companies will not continue to manufacture alarm clocks with a snooze button; which means that the snooze concept is relevant enough to continue to exist. It’s a tool – if it works for you, use it wisely.
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