So many comments about how to wake up early... the article is about depression, right? The author makes a distinction between lazy-trouble-getting-out-of-bed (which is what all the comments here are discussing, and, of course, something most of us experience) and the much more serious problem she's struggling with.
The comment system on HN discourages discussion of the article, because threads cannot be collapsed and so there is only space for 2 or 3 top-level comments to get much attention.
The top comment is often a poor quality one, expressing some controversial view that gets replies, starving the lower top-level comments of upvotes, and cementing its place at the top.
It would be better to collapse replies to all top-level comments, and allow people to expand the replies to the comments they find interesting.
I'm a fan of experimenting with voting systems, and as this never happens, i'm always disappointed. I think it would be great if the order of comments was always random and scores were never shown (I don't care what people think of other people's comments; how can an opinion have a score? the very idea is preposterous). It would encourage people reading more comments, and not being either fearful of losing points or posting comments just to get a higher score.
Worth noting, the score is intended to be an objective measure of correctness — well sourced, clear, and reasonable comments aught to add to the score, rudeness, questionable sourcing/factualness should not. Ideally.
The problem is, given the current strict comment ordering system & the fact that many (myself included) read comments top to bottom, a 15 in the top position for two hours may in fact be equal to a 3 that's farther below.
I hadn't thought about it when I started writing this, but I'd be curious what comment ordering results a points/time value function would produce. Although a fuzzy random ordering would still be needed to ensure that lower comments got enough viability. So maybe points/time/position-at-vote-time
PS: That said, collapsing comments to promote more equality between highly rated level 1 comments would be an excellent idea.
I am often guilty of this. Why? Maybe it has to do with the assumption that the comments on an article will provide me with more knowledge than reading the article itself.
The discussion here is more dynamic, from multiple parties, providing different views, sometimes correcting errors and filling in any omissions of the article, as opposed to the source piece which is static and written by a single, usually biased, individual.
More simply, most people are lazy and do not have the time to read each article. They also go to aggregation sites like HN or Reddit to get all their news in a single format, and temporarily navigating away from that format can be sort of uncomfortable, especially with the ads and whatnot on most linked articles.
Of course this is not a good habit; the articles should be read, at least before you comment on them. Commenting before reading only increases irrelevant noise and defeats the purpose of the news. Yet, the reasons for why people don't read articles, remain.
Maybe HN and Reddit could balance this by providing a preview of the link in the comments section? Some subreddits already have a bot which provides summary, but it really should be a feature of the aggregation site itself.
I agree with you, the article seems to be about depression. It starts like it is going to be about lazy troubled, but it suddenly turns into this matter.
To me it makes a lot of sense, because I didn't want to wake up when there was not hope for happiness. What the author says is that adding the duty of waking up early does not help when your life is already bad, it is only one more source of remorse.
Having dealt with a fairly serious depression (which resulted in a year of unemployment before I sought help from a psychiatrist), the two aren't entirely different. I found that establishing a routine wakeup time, especially when I shifted it to between 5am and 6am, was incredibly helpful in battling those "much more serious" problems that turned lazy mornings into nothing days.
Every depression is different, so this may not be true for others, but I'm one data point that learning to wake up early is an integral part of learning to deal with a serious depression.
I also was a bit surprised to realize all the comments here were completely missing the point of the actual article and only a response to the headline.
Coincidentally this very active discussion on another article is taking place and likely a good resource for anyone seeking a more relevant conversation with regards to depression:
Not advice, but some good news for those who struggle.
I always had problems getting up early. I hated it. It was a running joke amongst my friends, any time we had to take an early flight or set off early on a road trip, they had to drag me out of bed. And it wasn't laziness - I just felt awful, really sick, terrible, early in the morning. One day I met someone who told me she was exactly the same when she was younger, but that it gets easier. She was right.
Now, I can get up earlier than my friends. I'm
more of a morning person. I don't know what happened, but it changed quite suddenly, maybe in the space of a few months, sometime in my early 30s. Nowadays I get up early and hit the gym most days, which a younger me would simply have believed impossible.
I don't know if this applies to everyone, but I can tell you that none of my friends over 30 have the same difficulty I did when I was younger, but plenty of those in their 20s do.
I used to be a night owl - used to sleep in past 12pm. I switched over time.
Full time work shifted the pattern mostly. Weekends I still got up later.
Children who wake at 7am sharp was the final step. 8am feels like a lie in after years of a daily ritual of 7am rise. No matter if I go to bed at 10pm or 2am, there isn't compromise in the morning.
I guess one way of doing it is to give yourself no choice. Without children, I imagine an alarm in another room, perhaps next to a phone or computer where you need to press a button or it'll bill you for each 15 mins late. Unfortunately, these are things you can turn off.
It reminds me of one of the more beautiful pieces of cyberware available in the Shadowrun RPG: The little device hooked into your meatware that sends a harmless electric shock to your brain at a prescribed time (or some other event), immediately bringing you from a sleep state to a wakeful state. The company that invents that would be worth a lot of money.
I actually think I'm slowly getting there. I felt the same as you did, now I'm in my 30's I wake up before the alarm and I think "I could totally go for a run".
I haven't actually ran yet, but now that winter is over, I feel that I might do my first morning run ever, this week.
My totally unevidenced and probably wrong theory to explain this is that it's a balance between energy and exhaustion. Exhaustion always wins, but the boundless energy of youth means that it wins later, shifting one's diurnal cycle back.
For me, there were other factors, though. One is that I lost my FOMO; the thought that people might be having fun somewhere was no longer enough to pull me out of the house. Another was getting in better control of my mind; now I can put down an interesting book, quiet my thoughts, and go to bed when I'm tired.
A third was more experience with consequences. In my youth, the thought that I might feel shitty in the morning was a tiny, distant possibility. But experience has made that much more present to me when I decide to stay up late. Now I still do it, but it's not out of being heedless.
A fourth, possibly driven by the third, is that I've become pretty serious about the effect that light has on me. I make sure to get plenty of daylight, and I have an elaborate system for keeping my evenings dim.
I also suspect something metabolic; the shift for me accelerated a lot when I started running regularly. These days if I don't get enough exercise I feel distinctly uncomfortable, on edge. In my exercise-averse youth, I suspect I was always that kind of uncomfortable, enough to keep me up at night.
Summary: bodies are weird, minds are weird and made out of meat, and nobody gave me enough of either to do good A/B testing to feel like I know much about mine.
You know what made me more of a morning person? Parking my car in a school zone.
If I don't move it by 07:00, I'll get a $45 ticket. But parking the car there is great because I never have to spend time looking for parking (in Brooklyn, NYC).
Most people don't have a problem with getting out of bed, they have a problem of getting into it.
There is certainly some who have genuine medical problems and so who struggle. An order of magnitude just don't sleep enough though. Go to bed at 10 and it's easy to get up at 6, or whatever your actual sleep need is (it varies by individual and over time, right now mine is a hair under 8h I think).
Problem is I'm getting home from work 7-8pm. Housekeeping, food, then rest, and I need to let my mind decompress before going to bed. That takes me past midnight. The only people I've seen do this over decades are very type A and/or they finish every night with a few drinks of alcohol. I don't drink.
My routine is leaving for work at 7.00, getting home 19.15 or so, have a soup for dinner to avoid food time (pre made) and then about 2.5h of relaxing/hobbies, being in bed 22.00-6.35. I get showering and exercise in at work, apart from hobby exercise like sea swimming/walking that fits into those 2.5h.
Mostly I stick to this routine because I get a lot more stuff done with a full nights sleep, I am a lot less good even on 7h so by now I know not to even try to compromise on that.
I also don't drink, so that's not an option (and I think a lot unhealthier anyway).
No kids make this a lot easier than for people with families though.
This. Every other advice is just fighting a symptom not addressing the root cause.
We have all experience having really deep refreshing sleep at least once in our life. As well as fragmented or shallow sleep that makes us feel groggy in the morning. It's obvious which type is easier to wake up from the morning after
Very true in my case. Although the problem of me getting into bed early is the vicious circle that quickly happens when staying up late. You stay up late because you're working on something fun, which offsets your sleeping pattern. Next time you try to go to bed early you can't fall asleep due to having gone up much later in the morning.
But yeah, in general this is my problem, i should go to bed BUT there's always so much more you can do before going to bed.
I'll give it a shot. I've been getting out of bed at 4-5 am for the past 5 months when I have no need to other than to accomplish more personal stuff.
1. If you need to get up early for work, leave a good handle on it the night before. Like leave detailed notes on how to accomplish the next step or steps. Detailed enough that your first half hour to hour will be brainless peace and harmony.
2. Leave an exciting reveal for the morning. Say you finished building a cool new feature. Don't try it out until you wake up. I like to leave a 3D image or animation rendering overnight.
3. If possible change your schedule so that the early morning can just be full of fun stuff.
4. Plan to lay in bed for about an hour before you fall asleep. Incentivize it with a bedtime-only iPad or a pile of good books for bedtime only.
5. Lay out your clothes for the morning, the night before.
6. Do not get out of bed cold unless you find that invigorating. I bought 5 long-sleeve cotton shirts and sleep in those and some comfy pants and short socks. If I get hot, I use fewer blankets. I also keep a coat ready to put on.
7. Make breakfast or a cup of tea/water beforehand.
8. Make a fun routine. I bought a nice radio for early morning use. It picks up stations far away and I listen to it while I work.
9. Plan to take a nap later whenever needed. Schedule in the downtime.
10. Lay out a plan for your entire tomorrow. I do a mind map on paper. With this done the evening before, there should be nothing left to avoid thinking about in the morning, making it easier to consider getting out of bed.
Edit: And yes, it will change your life and people will wonder how you do it. Also I consider this practice a great burnout-prevention tool if you can keep work out of it (or out of the rest of your day).
6. This is terrible for sex and sensual cuddling. You need skin contact. I'd say have a bathrobe ready close to the heat source so that you can sleep naked, but don't suffer from cold when you get out of bed by getting inside its heat.
4. It's terrible advice if you have trouble getting asleep. You should be in bed only to sleep, otherwise you associate bedtime with being awake. Following this advice worked wonder in reducing the time it takes me to fall asleep.
9. Naps don't work for everybody, and can reduce sleep quality for the temporary gain of efficiency, so I've mixed feelings about it.
You seem to have scheduled your life well, but I wonder how you manage things that break the routine. Friends, exceptional crunches quickly break the good patterns and I find it difficult to come back to cruise mode after a lost night.
6. Opposite is true in my case. In fact going to bed late was causing more bickering in the morning, and my relationship with my SO was suffering from that. Plus she was always saying, "I wish we could get up earlier." Since I started going to bed earlier, she's able to do that more often. My own life plans accelerated too; I'm more an ambitious and energetic. Since late last year, I lost 80 pounds to reach a healthy BMI. Getting more specific, I received feedback that "physical affection between us is more frequent now and I wonder why?" Etc.
4. I had read about this too. However, it isn't true for me, or at least I associate my bed with general pleasantry and I sleep great. The biggest sleep aid I found back when I had insomnia was writing 1,000 words before bed every night, but I don't have that problem now.
9. Not sure what to say; I read a lot about naps and as a result I think it's OK to have mixed feelings about naps. If you don't want to nap, there are lots of alternatives depending on your schedule. Some people slow their schedule and get more done. Others meditate. I hope you take whatever steps necessary to maintain optimal cruise mode.
I'd like to emphasize the first point. For about six months, I woke up at 4am Monday of every other week to catch a plane to another city to start work at 9am till 6pm. I would not only get everything ready to pack in the morning, but I'd leave notes throughout the apartment listing what I needed to do before leaving, things like "take this or that item", "turn the power off", etc. I'd put the notes on door handles, to the toilet, main entry door and the only way I could forget something was if I had a stroke and couldn't read.
So as parent said, it was "brainless peace and harmony" all the way to the airport.
Similar, I had to get up just before 5 each Monday to drive to London, to spend some of the week working there.
It was easy when everything was easy... When my clothes were laid out, when the car was full of diesel, when even my coffee was ready, just needed to boil the kettle. On those days it was really simple to just get up shower dress and leave and before I knew it the 3 hour drive was over and I was getting on a tube to work ready for some London time. But if anything tiny thing was left to be done in the morning, that I would tell myself wouldn't take 2 minutes, it always seemed to take 20.
Hey awesome list! Do you feel like the additional work required on the front end is repaid by the productivity gains in the morning? Like one hour of added prep, two hours of morning work?
Thanks! First, I'm not as likely to do any planning or detailed planning when I wake up at say 7:30 and immediately need to get kids to school. It probably won't happen at all. So with that taken out of this equation, the rest takes me maybe 10 minutes to do. In the evening just laying in bed now puts me to sleep in about a half hour. And pre-sleep in-bed stuff is remarkably similar to my normal couch stuff anyway.
I can't give exact figures but even being conscious that early in the morning seems to be some sort of amazing life hack, like you are sitting there going "I did it. I did at least that much today." There is some holistic benefit outside of the spreadsheet, in other words.
But regarding planning in general, I know I have made some astounding productivity gains with planning. The first time a planning session saved me four hours of work off of a six hour estimate, I put away my hotshot coder/designer mentality, redoubled my planning efforts and started flow charting, mind mapping, etc much more frequently. I don't plan everything out with exactitude, but let's just say that while I used to laugh at those obsolete books on flow charting, now I pore through them to see if I've missed any tips. And I use them for all kinds of things, not just coding. A design agency asked for my template a while back and I made it available on the web for libreoffice users.
I'll echo and expand on point 6: sleep in warm clothes. Marcus Aurelius asked:
> is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?
The mental barrier of throwing off the warm covers can inspire a lot of time wasted snoozing in the morning.
It may take some adjustment, but wearing warmer pyjamas with a lighter blanket is one of the few things that can make the very act of getting out of bed easier.
I agree, warmth in the morning hours is the number one incentive to get out of bed for me.
I do a slight variation of the same concept: I've set the a/c timer to raise temperature to an almost tropical heat 20 minutes before alarm time.
I sleep under heavy covers and a somewhat low temperature, which is also part of the program.
The idea here is to sleep tucked in and warm like in winter, then wake up to a excessively warm but welcoming environment. If I remain in bed, I'll start sweating profusely and I'm forced out of my covers. So getting out of bed to me is actually inviting while undressing and getting into the shower is less painful.
The same way anyone gets good at anything - practice it. This may sound crazy but don't write it off. Go into bed during the day for 1 minute and don't fall asleep. Set an alarm and when it goes off, get out of bed. Repeat 5-10 times a day for a few weeks and getting out of bed when your alarm goes off will become habit.
Morning habits are important because when people wake up in the morning they are extremely tired which impairs their cognition and willpower, which often leads to bad decisions like the snooze button.
That's an interesting idea! I have definitely never heard that particular advice before, but it certainly sounds logical. I assume you've tried it. Has anyone else reading this?
1. Going to bed early. I switched to 9.00 PM instead of 12 midnight.
2. No TV/screens for the last hour to help with that.
3. When the alarm rang, no snoozes. Get up no matter how shit it feels. It gets better.
4. When I get up, no screens near the bed. That stuff just left me in bed with the phone.
Took me two weeks of work, but I started getting up earlier after that. Lasted for about half a year and then I went on vacation and it lasted partway through that. I've been working remote on a different timezone for the last month and that's gone and ruined it.
Having a dog gets me up every morning at the same time even having no need for an alarm clock. He gently paws at me until I do what I'm told. Up or down, good or bad, rain or shine that dog gets me to walk him 4 times a day. He has helped me make all kinds of new friends on our walks and brought immense happiness to my life. Does that count?
Having a dog always counts. I once read (somewhere?) a story about a woman who had many dogs over her lifetime. She felt that dogs give us pieces of their hearts every day but of course, when they leave us, they take great chunks of ours. The writer was hoping that, by the time she died, she might be lucky enough to have the kind heart of a dog.
For me, psyching myself up to wake up at a certain time and making a point to get to bed 8.5 hours before then does it. I'll set my alarm 15 minutes past the target time and I'll always beat it. I have no idea how this works or why it works or why I can do it when I'm not in a pattern of getting up at that time. I just basically convince myself that what I'm getting up for is actually very important (like say I have to make an early meeting) and it works. I'm very lucky for sure; YMMV but curious if anyone else does this.
Whenever I have something to do where someone else is relying on me to be some place at a certain (early) time or if I had a competition (long ago) etc I wake up well before my alarm totally awake and ready to go. Otherwise I can sleep forever. I guess adrenaline is a significant factor. When I was competing in individual sports I could barely sleep two hours before a big event.
On a pragmatic note: leave your phone(alarm) on the opposite side of your bedroom or in another room altogether. You will have to physically get up to shut it off and benefit from not using it(and more importantly, thinking about email, work, social network junk, etc...) right before bed and again when you wake up in the am.
That may work for some, but it doesn't work for me. I got the point where the alarm would go off, I'd roll out of bed, take two steps, slap the snooze button, two steps and roll back into bed. I learned the hard way that my alarm clock would simply give up after three hours (I must have been particularly tired that day).
The best alarm I had was an old cell phone (pre-smart phone days) where the alarm would start off nearly inaudible and slowly get louder over the next minute or so. The gentle nudge awake was much better than a sudden jolt of noise.
The only better alarm would be one that is arrhythmic in nature. That's the only type of noise I can't sleep through.
I think it's similar to procrastination: Have a good reason to get out of bed early. If you have to get out of bed early but really really don't want to, maybe it's not the getting up that is the problem.
I cheat- on work days, I have a big glass of water and a 200mg caffeine pill. I have an alarm go off one hour earlier than I need to, take the pill, drink the glass of water.
By the time my actual alarm goes off the caffeine has kicked in and I really have to get up and pee.
The best thing is to have something to do, like go to the gym or walk the dog.
Then find a kindred spirit who will provide you with a little peer pressure. The dog will be happy he got to poop, and your friend will be happy to see you at the gym.
One thing comes to mind: physical exhaustion. Much very often after a day of physical activity, I know the next morning I'll wake up sore, but not wishing to stay in bed.
I typically get up at 6am to start work for the day at 7am.
I use an alarm clock, my iPhone, set to the obnoxious "alarm" sound, and keep it on the desk across the room where the phone charges, next to it as a large glass of water. Alarm goes off, while it's still going off drink the water and look out the window at the light. I've been doing this for ~5 years and it works really well.
I was gifted a combo bedside lamp/alarm clock that lights up gradually a little before and starts chiming (in a variety of "natural" sounds) at the set time.
Thought it was pretty useless until I actually tried it for a week and realized it was a lot less jarring and stressful than an ordinary alarm clock.
I still tend to hit snooze and only get up on the second round, but by then I'm usually awake enough to enjoy real sunshine and looking forward to it.
Light tends to have a very positive effect on me in the mornings, so taking as much advantage of it as possible would be my advice.
1. Swing right leg over edge of bed. Continue extending until your foot is planted firmly on the floor.
2. Swing left leg towards the right so it dangles off the bed.
3. Plant right hand palm down on mattress.
4. Push down into the mattress with your right hand, lifting up your upper body while moving your left foot to join the right one firmly planted on the floor.
5. You should now be sitting upright on the edge of the bed.
A lot of advice posted so far is for people who can adapt to a new sleep schedule after a week or so, which I hear is normal, and seems like it was for me when I was young. However, if you revert back to your old schedule on the weekends and feel agitated and tired more and more during the work week, consider seeing a sleep specialist.
The day before lie down on your bed and practice standing up and starting your routine (brushing teeth).
When you wake up you shouldn't give yourself time to think because then you will start procrastinating, instead autopilot should kick in and before you know it you're brushing your teeth.
this anecdote might be only placebo, but once i started wearing compression pants to sleep it's been really easy to get out of bed. i'm guessing it keeps me warm so i no longer want to stay in the blanket's warmness in the morning
Compression clothing, from socks to tops are magic. I can definitely confirm that the compression socks I have, despite being very thin, keep my feet warmer than 100% wool socks with added bonus of preventing swellings after long walks/sitting.
If you're a coffee drinker prep the coffee pot the night before. It is nice to just get up and hit a button. If you're super lazy they have coffee pots with start timers on them, too.
I think there is no alternate to a good sleeping schedule. Make it a habit to going to sleep and waking up at the same time everyday. It works for me very well.
The "do it" part refers to the physical action of moving ones limbs and getting out of the bed after the alarm goes off. And the qualifier "just" refers to one doing exactly that (and only that). Whereas you have gone astray and tacked on smugness and homeopathy to this otherwise simple physical act. How is being a cultured sophisticate working out for you?
You offer "just do it" as a panacea - it admits of no other options. That implies it must always work. That's what makes it woo-woo like homeopathy.
Someone who needs to get out of bed and struggles with it, is not helped by someone saying "just get out of bed". That's not 'advice', It admits no reasons for being unable to get out of bed, when there clearly are reasons - otherwise the person would already be getting out of bed. It doesn't care about the person or the causes of their problems, or ways of working around them. It only serves to be dismissive and make the person saying it feel better. That's what makes it smug.
Phantasmagoric visions of smugness, homeopathy and, now, panacea notwithstanding - what this "someone who needs to get out of bed and struggles with it" can do (unless they are somatically inept) is just move their limbs and get out of the bed after the alarm goes off (one of the simplest physical acts there is) ... and, hey presto, problem solved! No "ways of working around" are required in the first place; furthermore, such "ways of working around" is an insult to human intelligence (when a simpler alternative, that always demonstrably works, exists it would be foolishness of the highest order to go around in circles based on vainglorious but spurious rationale).
I've always struggled with mornings. I've never had any problem working late, but I just always figured I was a night owl.
Maybe I still am, but this year I decided I needed to mix it up. I tried to get myself in bed before midnight, then up at 7 for the gym before work. The reason being the gym is much harder in the evening, as is work (if you have offers to go out, meetups, whatever). If I don't start until midday, it removes any options I get during the day for a lazy (/alcoholic) lunch, or for socialising in the evening, because I have to work or work out.
I was moderately successful at this, but I've had a breakthrough in the last 8 or 9 weeks by getting up at 5.50 for meditation and qigong at 6am, before leaving just after 7 for the gym. Not only has the meditation helped me immensely, but I'm feeling more alive during the day. And I can leave work (or not!) in the evening with zero guilt about not having done enough, knowing I can do whatever I want with my evening (be that work, or play).
For me, and particularly when I was working for someone else, I got up because I set an alarm and had to get up. If I didn't, I'd get fired (probably). I've found over the last few months the key (mentally) has been doing something for me. If you have to get up at 7am to work for someone else, getting up at 5am or 6am means you're not getting up for them, you're getting up for you. It's harder to resent getting up and getting moving because you're owning it - it's your choice.
Anyway. I may just be getting older... Just my 2c.
The only thing that ever really helped me get up early was to ditch my alarm clock. I used to snooze for over an hour every morning. Once I got rid of my alarm clock I started getting out of bed the first time I woke up each morning.
I got up a little later than I used to set my alarm for, but much earlier than I actually got up with an alarm clock.
When alarm goes off, I take 1/3 of a caffeine pill (66mg - Im pretty sensitive to caffeine). Then I turn my alarm off and let myself drift back to sleep.... 15 minutes later I'm up and starting the day.
On rare occasions that this doesn't get me up, I really needed the extra sleep.
Its the only way I wake up these days. I used to take a whole caffeine pill (200mg equivalent to one cup of coffee, but it was too much - I would crash in the afternoon and when I stopped taking it, I got headaches. The 1/3 dose hasn't been a problem though)
Tried it several times. I'd wake up at two in the afternoon then - nope, not kidding. My natural need for sleep seems to be around 12-14h and I have zero clue how to deal with it other than forcing myself out with an alarm. Every morning since 20 years has been a torture and no doctor has taken me serious yet on the issue.
I'm pretty much the exact same way. The only thing that works for me is simply embracing it.
Considerable unemployment times has shown that my natural circadian rhythm is from 7am to 2pm, give or take, meaning that all those extra 4 or 5 hours are really not sleep at all, but just some state of not-sleep.
Adjusting this to normal working hours is rather difficult, but I've simply accepted the fact that there is no shame in being tired, so if I have to sleep at 6pm, just fall into bed and sleep.
Of course, I don't have kids and I don't feel like I'm missing out on life if I don't go out on Friday night.
Yup, can relate. When still studying, I went to bed when the sun would start to rise in summer, and it felt normal. Being cofounder of a Series A stage startup and having two young kids lowers the chances for that to zero though. It's really just iron discipline every day and a constant state of sleep deprivation & low energy. So wish I could do something about it.
I used to be pretty bad at getting up, and fixed it (for me) by keeping the same (morning) schedule on weekdays and weekends. The rationale is that your body has a rhythm, and if you laze around on weekend mornings but get up at a different time on weekdays, it gets out of sync, and you have all sorts of sleep issues. So, pick a time, and get up at that time every day whether or not you feel rested; soon enough your schedule will adjust so that you feel tired enough to sleep 7 or 8 hours before that.
For anybody who needs some help with sleep, take a look at cognitive behavioral therapy (e.g. http://shuti.me/), which is reportedly much more effective than ambien et al.
My secret for getting out of bed is that over the years I have lived an worked such bat-* crazy hours that morning has lost its meaning. Oh, and I don't have a bed to get out of. I sleep on a hard floor with no blankets.
I sleep on the floor because it's more comfortable for me than a cushy mattress. I learned this from my migraines at an early age. If I'm in a bed when a migraine strikes I can't get into a position that makes me comfortable for enduring the pain. I always ended up on the floor. I think this is because the floor give me the solid support to allow me full control over the position of my body. Years later, I just decided to ditch the bed altogether as it seemed like a waste.
Agree with the two replies here. It's not for everyone. Not for anyone. It's just something I felt like a had to do for a while to keep up with my workload ad it blew away my sense of categorizing time.
That said, I do feel that the sun is extremely important in the benefits that it gives you. So I do try not to spend plenty of time in the rays.
I remember falling asleep on the floor (caribbean island climate though). Hard surface will massage your back in a weird way.. I expected to feel like a prisoner but I woke surprisingly delighted.
I've tried so many things, and most of the things I read here in the comments sounds like fairy tales (just do it, go to bed earlier, ..). I'll spare you the details (I should make a blog post about it), but here's what worked for me:
- get a dawn simulation device (doesn't work on its own, but still helps waking up more gently) // the more powerful/lumen, the better
- likewise for audio: volume going up slowly (I use AlarmDroid), for this, use a gentle non-continuous sound (knock knock, pause, knock knock, pause) the idea is that a continuous sound is too much annoying, forces you to go turn it off asap and go back to sleep. You may use a more brutal sound for your real wake-up time (so, at the end of the dawn simulation), the idea is that you'll have a gentle alarm beforehand and hopefully fear the brutal alarm and just get into a habit of getting up before the brutal alarm.
- best for the end: padlock your alarm in a solid case, and put the key in your mailbox the night before (hopefully not too close to your bedroom, in my case, I may meet neighbors, so it forces me to fully clothes on). A key-less alarm at the other side of the rooms does NOT work and you will just get up, shut it down and go back to sleep.
- bonus : use a very bright light (at least 5000+ lumen) on a programmable plug for the end of the dawn simulation (or just get a really powerful dawn simulation one, not sure if that exists though)
edit: added bonus
edit2: everyone is different, I just wanted to add my part to the overall list of ideas, please check out all the other comments, different stuff works for different people! (the coffee one sounds interesting, I would have tried it if I was a coffee drinker)
edit3: This should be common sense, but please don't use this as a way to sleep less. I use this because even when I sleep a fair amount (9+ hours for multiple days, I still struggle to wake up).
The only thing that works for me: go to sleep early enough that I'll get my full eight hours of sleep. Leave some room for those times when I'm more exhausted than usual. This means falling asleep by 10pm to wake up by 6:30am on weekdays.
Yeah, please do try this also. Everyone is different. Personally, When I try just going to bed early, I just end up fully conscious for hours in my bed not falling asleep. (edit: and yes I tried with using f.lux, not using a computer screen, reading on a passive Kindle, just listening to music beforehand).
I have a couple of suggestions for your sleeplessness for those times when you try to fall asleep earlier:
Definitely, it helps to be tired enough to sleep. But to be tired enough, you need to wake up early.. kind of circular. A heavy workout earlier in the day often does the trick too. If you're trying to make it a habit, then doing it gradually is probably the way to go: fall asleep earlier by 15 minutes each day.
There are also times when there are just too many thoughts in your head that won't go away - it helps to close the eyes, roll them up, do one of two techniques:
1) Consciously don't hold onto any particular thought. This is a meditation technique. Oddly enough, I think we do this naturally when we're really tired and sleepy.
2) Take yourself back to an activity that required total presence of mind and body: for me it's sky diving. I'm just falling, adjusting... and pretty soon I'm asleep and dreaming. I guess this is more of a visualization technique.
Both of those work to take the mind off attention grabbing thoughts and moving you to a more relaxed state.
>> most of the things I read here in the comments sounds like fairy tales (just do it, go to bed earlier, ..)
They don't sound like fairy tales, they sound like things that work for them and perhaps others. It's OK that some tips are not practical for you, it doesn't make them any less useful.
You're right, I should have written it as « sounds like fairy tales to me ». Everybody's different, and I just felt this way because that's the kind of suggestions I often read while I had trouble waking up and made some research, and it obviously didn't work for me.. That said: please, do try as many things as possible and see what works for you, start with the easy stuff.
> It’s a beautiful passage, and a good introduction to the Stoic philosophy that follows. For an emperor, too, it seems very sound counsel. But for anyone under the pall of depression, it’s some of the stupidest advice ever written.
I disagree. If you read between the lines, much of his message is "just fucking move, do something, get out of your current state" and from my experience, that is very sound advice for when you find yourself in a rut. (For the trolls - obviously it's not the one and only way to handle down times, nor is it "that simple" for true sufferers of depression.)
Marcus Aurelius is a funny guy. A caesar "teaching" people to be humble, stoic and productive ... but of course that sounds really thin coming from literally the richest guy of his time on the planet. Granted, he certainly was one of the better and more capable emperors of the Roman Empire (given the list of screwups, that's not as high praise as you might think), but way he found power and richess certainly had less to do with productivity, humbleness and stoic behavior, and rather more with his family's accomplishments. Also he is famous for his hobbies, whilst he was no disaster, he certainly was no Julius Caesar either.
On occasion that leaks through in his writings. For instance he is usually far more concerned with "explaining" a slave's fate than with doing anything about it. Why is anyone a slave because of Marcus Aurelius ? Well, it's their own fault. They are the slave of their emotions, they drink and dance and don't think of tomorrow (slaves in Rome, especially the more skilled ones were treated very well. It is muslims that gave a bad name to the term slavery (although some Roman provinces contributed as well). In the Roman Empire, around Rome itself, it was not that different from being an employee. Sure there were bad jobs, and allowing employers to trade employees was horrifyingly bad for the power relationship, but if you compare to poor-rich relationships elsewhere in the same time, Rome comes out far ahead).
Marcus Aurelius sounds about as fair and balanced as the American Enterprise Institute explaining why there are so many poor. It seems to boil down to not being entrepreneurial enough. Never mind the obvious fact that being an entrepreneur is only common in the top 0.1% (and there, only in name, I've yet to see examples of companies started by the 0.1% that really introduced a new product. Somebody who takes over part of a bank into an independant company is not an entrepreneur in my opinion). In the bottom 50% being an entrepreneur, an independent businessman is actually far more common than in the top-50%, mostly out of necessity. I doubt any explanation for this will be forthcoming from our libertarian think tanks.
But Marcus' opinion of others is similar : if they aren't successful, that must be their own doing. If you didn't own half the farms around Rome, apparently it was because you drink too much (never mind that the Roman rich, not the poor are absolutely famous for just how elaborate their debauchery became).
I bought a few Phillips Hue Lightbulbs for my room which turn on at 4:00AM, right when I get out of bed. So far, any night I haven't been out past my usual bed-time, 9:00PM, I have had no trouble waking up and staying alert the rest of the day.
Unfortunately I'm on travel right now so this system isn't accessible to me. I am now frequently finding myself sleeping in until 5:00AM.
LiFX makes some nice tunable-color-temperature lightbulbs which can integrate with lots of smart home stuff if you don't want to mess with Amazon marketplace cool/warm LED strips or build your own using a Teensy (look up Adalight and prepare to spend at least a few hours of research + ordering parts + assembling + programming if you go this route).
The only bad part: $40 per bulb for the ones that do all the shades of white (very warm to very cool). Worth it IMO. The Teensy solution costs at least that much and requires a LOT more time. This is plug and play with the option to tinker more later if you need it. I'm not associated with them in any way other than being a happy owner of a few of them :)
I've found it absolutely essential to spend some time outside in the middle of the day. I usually take a 1 hour walk outside around noon. If I don't do this, my circadian rhythm will get out of whack: I won't be tired in the evening, but I will be very tired in the morning. In other words it will be extremely difficult to get up from bed at a sensible time.
Also, I avoid sitting in front of a computer or TV within 3 hours of bedtime. If there is something that I absolutely need to do on my computer, I use glasses that block the blue part of the light (it's the blue part of the light the influences melatonin, which again regulates sleep).
I have tried redshift, however, I don't really like using my computer without good colors. I usually spend my late evenings reading paper books instead.
I have a dog that gets me up at 6 every morning, but that dog is also asleep again by 9 or 10, and doesn't get up again until 3 or 4 in the afternoon. While there's no way I can do that (even if I had the free time to do so) I do make a point to schedule an hour or two in the afternoon to rest if I need to. Knowing that I can rest for a bit if needed makes getting out of bed less of a burden. I realize that few jobs allow for that, but they absolutely should. I probably get more done before 9 than many people do before noon.
I love how Marcus Aurelius' thoughts echo across thousands of years and enormous class stratification with the kinds of things that every single human can identify with. His is easily one of my favorite books of all time.
Actual advice for getting out of bed? Well, I presume it would be different for different people as most often it comes down to motivation, and different people need different motivation. However, you can take a look at http://www.earlyrisershub.com/ . I have tried to introduce different gamification techniques to try to motivate you to get out of bed. For example - competition, tracking progress and some small rewards. Also, any feedback is welcome. Thanks!
Btw, there are some benefits of it being a website. For example, you earn bonus points if you check from a non-mobile device - this implies that you are out of bed ;)
It's helpful to have small practical tips on coping and how to be kind to yourself when you are too depressed or ill to get out of bed. Sometimes that self care is more useful than trying to go instantly from 0 to 60, sad to happy. Or, than what Marcus Aurelius is doing, beating himself up emotionally and feeling shame and guilt.
While I like Stoicism, I wish I could go back and time and give Marcus Aurelius a day off!
I've never minded mornings. I mean if I woke up I can be out the door in 5 minutes and be ready for the day. At times it can be odd if I just get few hours of sleep, I can deal with a work day, but after that 6-10 hours I crash pretty hard.
To get up well, you need to go to bed well. Going to sleep at roughly the same time every day is good. Physical activity also greatly increases the quality of the sleep.
If you are going to diss Aurelius on his advice dispensing (calling the classics 'stupid'?), you had best have profoundly insightful alternative to propose. The author did not. I bin this in with 'more patricidal (elder disrespecting) rubbish' seeking to overthrow the tables of the greats who got us here and usurp it with presumably more salient and/or pertinent 'recent findings' or what have you. Such endeavors usually fail miserably.
The author does not say the advice is stupid. She says that it is stupid for people suffering from depression, which she acknowledges is not likely the target audience of the original piece. (In fact, the target audience was Aurelius himself, since his Meditations were more of a personal journal than a work intended for public consumption.) This article is not in any way criticizing the writing of Marcus Aurelius; it is simply using it to point out an unhelpful mindset when dealing with depression.
