

Ask HN: How do you wake up? - aadilrazvi

I have trouble waking up in the mornings and maintaining a sleep schedule. What do you do to sleep and wake up at the right times?
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alok-g
I used to be like that. What came to help is an Android app [1, 2] asks math
questions to snooze or disable. Figuring simple ones like 9 + 4 = ? is enough
to activate the brain into waking life.

Several surprises came to me with this:

(a) How hard it is to figure a simple one like 13 + 6 = ? when half-way
asleep!

(b) Improvements in my mental math speed! My brain has started arriving at the
answers without consciously calculating. Thankfully the app allows increasing
the math difficulty levels. I am now at the level of 67 + 54 = ? LOL!

(c) After having used this for several months with a consistent wake up time,
it is not painful to wake anymore, even without the alarm. I never knew I
could get there.

[1]
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.alarmclock...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.alarmclock.xtreme.free)

[2] I am in no way associated with the above app. Plus, I am sure there would
be many with the same feature.

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ElongatedTowel
My problem with sleep in general is that I need about 8 hours to function and
to get the most out of exercise and studies, but I have a much easier time
getting up if I'm sleeping only 6 hours or even less. Haven't found a solution
to that.

But if I allow myself to get up after 6 hours of sleep a combination of having
drank too much before going to bed and not closing the blinds works best. I
know that sleeping in perfect darkness is supposed to be a good thing. But
getting up in the darkness doesn't work so well for me. The need to pee is a
strong motivator as well.

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Bjuukia
I avoid eating past 5pm. I wake up without an alarm around 7 to 7:30 in the
morning, 6:30 in the summer. I get up and cook a big breakfast (my biggest
meal of the day). This is the only thing that helped me get good sleep and
wake up easily and refreshed. I have tried all the advice in the comments on
this page, and more, but nothing helped. I used to sleep so deeply as if in a
coma, and it took hours to fully wake up even though I could tell I was awake.

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edwhitesell
The only thing that works for me is to always wake up at the same time, every
day (no snooze, no "5 more minutes"). Regardless of whether I went to bed
early or was up until 3am. Of course, it does mean you need to listen to your
body and actually go to sleep early when you need it.

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penguinlinux
if you have trouble waking up put your alarm and don't snooze it, just wake
up. Drink a full glass of water and jump on the shower, a cold morning shower
will wake you up.

~~~
onedev
What if after the shower you just feel like going back to sleep?

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olgeni
A good "UPS Beep" ringtone never fails.

