Make a clone of yourself to wake up early for you
No drinking definitely helps me.
Ignorance is what helps you.
My “strategy” consists of going to bed at a fixed time and a modern electronic alarm clock that is 100% reliable.
Go to bed at 8:00 p.m.
My estradiol alarm. Starting the day has never felt so good.
Apologies in advance, for I am kind of dumb, but what does this mean?
Estradiol is a pill I take twice daily. It is hormone therapy to make me more feminine (I’m a transgender woman). The side effect is it makes me really happy about myself and life. Chronic depression is a thing of the past.
I get seasonal affective disorder in the winter. Thirty minutes of the light therapy lamp first thing in the morning works wonders if you use it properly and consistently.
Drugs
I have add and take adderall. My alarm is set for 7 and 8. At 7, I get up, take my meds (more than just adderall), let the dogs out, and feed them. I do all this trying to stay as “asleep” as possible and go right back down to nap until 8. By then the adderall has started to kick in and I literally can’t stay asleep.
Routine. Go to bed at the same time. Reduce electronics before bed.
This is ignorance. It is not the way for many of us.
My only strategy is to try to get enough sleep. Coffee provides less of an effect and more of a feeling of an effect.
Wake up early consistently every day for at least a week before then. Also go to sleep early every day for a week before then.
If I might add: Jump out of bed the moment your timer goes off. No 8 timers to wake up bullshit. Just one. When it rings -> you’re already on your way to the bathroom.
It’s kinda inhumane the first few times but the shock will wake you up. You will be too preoccupied with shivering and can’t feel like shit.
This is technically the best advice.
I just got back from 4 weeks in a +5 timezone and after a week home I’m still waking up at 5:00 fresh as a daisy.
So if you’ve got the money, time, inclination maybe go for a trip to help.
This is not the way.
You can’t make yourself sleep. You can make yourself get up. Force yourself to get up early the going to bed early part will take care of itself.
Oh and you should stop drinking liquids a couple of hours before bed. Unless your a man over 50, in that case if you want to sleep through the night you’ll have to avoid any fluids after Tuesday.
This is not the way.
YMMV but personally, I’ve never found that no liquids thing to be good advice. My body seems to wake me up if I need to pee in between sleep cycles, and I have no problem getting back to sleep. But I can get busy and forget to drink enough, and then realize how thirsty I am as I’m getting ready for bed.
Force yourself to get up early the going to bed early part will take care of itself.
Maybe for you, for me I get exhausted in the middle of the day, and when night rolls around I get a second wind that lasts until the wee hours anyway.
Get old.
for me the difficulty started in my 30s. before that 6:30 am daily with 2 years of 4am. zero problems and no energy drinks or excessive coffee outside of grade 11 and 12 of high school.
I do several things in conjunction.
-
I plan when I need to go sleep using either sleepyti.me or wakeupti.me and set my alarms accordingly. Setting your alarm to align with your sleep patterns makes the act of waking up much easier.
-
I set my phone on my desk away from my bed. The reasoning is two-fold; it forces me to get up and out of bed to dismiss my alarm(This works extra well if you make it a habit to get dressed as soon as you’re out of bed.), and it prevents me from laying in bed while playing on my phone.
-
I wake up at the same time every day. Consistency is paramount managing sleep.
-
I only sleep in my bed. I don’t do anything else. This builds an association to automatically get sleepy when you get in bed because the only thing you in bed is sleep. Your brain knows what to expect and just does it. Sort of like how some guys get excited when they see their girlfriend tie her into a ponytail.
-
My puppy. First thing at 0430, get up, take him out to pee, get dressed, go for a short walk, inside for training (all kibble is used to training), then hand him over to my wife at 0530. That hour really gets me going, but only because I want to give the puppy three best life, which also brings me joy!
- I just need a good 7 hours of sleep at least. You can’t cheat sleep duration. Eventually, you’ll need to catch up if you aren’t getting enough and it’ll compound the bad feeling.
- I fall asleep faster if I’ve had a drink, but not necessarily better. I might wake up in the middle of the night if I do.
- Pattern is important. If you usually wake up at 9 or 10am and want to wake up at 5 or 6am instead, you’ll probably have some meh feeling regardless, but the more you do it, the better it gets. Maybe consider moving your normal wake up time closer to the earliest times you want to wake up.