Waking Up in the Morning
/If you were completely without external constraints on when you needed to wake up – what would your preferred awakening be like?
Most of us would respond that we prefer to just wake up on our own with a gradual transition from sleep to wakefulness…feeling rested and ready for the day ahead.
I sleep fairly easily and could probably achieve this as long as I
- Go to sleep about the same time every night and
- Get up when I first awaken in the morning rather than dozing.
Those are two pretty significant provisos and require discipline that sometime is not possible. The most likely nonconformities are – I stay up later if I am in the middle of something at bedtime and I sometimes decide to go back to sleep in the morning…sleeping longer and waking up with a headache if it goes on too long. If I am not at home, my sleep is different….not quite as sound because I am more wary or a bit uncomfortable; that doesn’t necessarily mean I need to sleep longer, it just may interfere with my biological clock that would normally wake me up.
So – almost everyone, including me, will try various other methods of waking up.
The loud, harsh alarm clock is dreaded but common. It does wake you up. The big negative is that it is jarring. Discipline is required to not hit the snooze button to recover from the shock. Whatever advantage finishing the sleep cycle might provide is completely gone too. It isn’t too bad if it is really just the backup plan and you are really already awake because it is your normal time to get up.
There are better sounding alarm clocks that play music or nature sounds. They too wake you up unless you are a very sound sleeper or the volume is turned too low. Again – they work best if you are really already awake and you avoid the snooze feature. Remember – the snooze feature will not allow you to get any quality sleep since it is too short; it’s only function is recovery from the shock of waking up which you want to avoid anyway by waking up at a consistent time each day.
Setting a timer – say 8 hours – from whenever you go to bed is another technique. I tend to be at my best with about 7.5 hours actually in bed. I’ve found that being in bed for over 8 hours actually makes me feel ill! My timer has a harsh beep so it has a lot of similarities to the alarm clock. I only use this option when I am traveling across time zones and know that my biological clock will be unreliable.
Of course – it helps to have the sun rising when you awaken. I’ve had an east facing window in my bedroom for the past 20 or so years and like the early light. It isn’t there in the winter time when I get up but it helps for a greater part of the year. I’ve considered what it would be like to gradually change my bedtime so that I would always get up at dawn. There is an app that would provide an alarm relative to sunrise….but I haven’t tried it yet.
There are also alarm clocks that start with light to wake you up…simulating a sunrise. Most of them have noise that eventually kicks in if the light does not do the trick. That would seem like the gentlest approach to waking up at a consistent time. Most of them are pretty expensive so a simple timer that turns on the lights in your bedroom may be something to try first!
While we are on the subject of waking up….think about what is driving the time and way you awaken. The determining factor has changed over time for me:
- 40 years ago – being at work or school by a particular time
- 20 years ago –picking my daughter up by a certain time in the afternoon required an early wake up time/start at work
- 10 years ago – leaving home early enough to avoid a lot of traffic for the morning commute to work
- Now – recognizing that I am a morning person
