Ask Lemmy

Conventional wisdom is to keep a balanced circadian rhythm. Sleep at regularish times. Your body clock is set by when you first see blue light from above, so going outside first thing and looking up. Meal times too. Consider your diet and pre sleep habits - sugar, tv, caffeine tend to mess with sleep. Alcohol disables your adrenaline and helps fall asleep but then lowers the quality. Weed largely removes dreams and helps feel rested, but then there's a slight hangover that encourages you to keep smoking

In short, it's a holistic lifestyle thing. Everyone is different, so keeping a journal and experimenting helps. And of course your daily level of stress is a factor

Perform acts counter to what your body wants for the majority of your earthly existence. Feel bad bout wanting rest and relaxation. Develop anxiety about not having enough money.

Go to sleep earlier, you probably are really just still exhausted from lack of sleep. Once you have eniugh sleep you'll wake up without falling asleep again.

Always wake up at the same time

Make it a habit to always just stand up when you wake up. Even if it's like an hour away from when you actually wanted to get out of bed. I used to be really bad at getting out of bed, but now even when I'm depressed I manage quite well. I will say you need motivation to get around the start.

Have a cat retching... works always here.

I'm no morning person either. I just set a timer on the radio (when I sleep trough it I'm to exhausted) and I take about 2h before leaving for work. I'm just a liability on the road when I leave without waking up slowly.

I use "Sleep as Android".

1. Sleep tracking in an attempt to wake me up 30 minutes before my alarm depending on my sleep cycle.
2. Smart watch with the same app for increasing the accuracy of sleep tracking by giving access to my pulse.
3. NFC Tag. Using one of the settings from the same app. I've connected it to an NFC tag in my living room. I can't turn off my alarm unless I scan the NFC tag. Nor can I turn off my phone, snooze the alarm, or lower the volume.

Realize you overslept.

Get a smart light. Schedule it to turn on before your alarm. The best is gradual over 30-60 minutes, ending at full brightness, but just turning it on halfway five minutes before your alarm is also way better than nothing.

Get a light that turns on slowly over 30 minutes before your alarm. Helps ease you into morning if you live in areas with dark winter mornings.

Get at least 8 hours sleep. Note that this means “sleep” and not “8 hours in bed” so if you read or do other activities in bed, add extra time for that stuff. I usually give extra time for my brain to stop running a mile a minute

Go to bed at the same time every night. Wake up at the same time every morning. Avoid caffeine. Caffeine can cause sleep disruptions you may not notice, even if consumed early in the day.

Get tested for sleep apnea.

Get tested for sleep apnea. You'd be surprised how many of us have this and never knew. We just knew we woke up exhausted.

Why are you exhausted? If this is not normal it may be worth a doctor visit.

As others have stated, good sleep hygiene. Are you putting in good hours for sleep, 7-8 hrs? That will help keep you healthy over the years and make it easier to get up.

When a certain time hits, don't stare at your phone in bed. I put on a simple podcast before bed with a sleep timer; it's perfect for me.

DO NOT consume caffeine for the first 30 mins of wakefulness; this is not helpful & it will train your body to need that caffeine/stimulant in order to wake up. No. Wake up naturally, after some good sleep, throw on some music & start your day....allow your body to "boot up". As it were. I slam caffeine after being awake for at least 30 mins, if not an hour.

Good sleep hygiene to start. After that, always go to sleep and get up at the same time (or as close to it as possible). do not use snooze and get out of bed when your alarm goes off.

That's what helped me, anyway.

I'd avoid it if at all possible. Waking up slowly and taking your time to adjust can be beneficial. There's no way a sudden jolt of adrenaline and caffeine is good for you in the long run.

There have been studies stating that when daylight saving is rolled back one hour there's a spike in coronary accidents. That may or may not be true, but I do feel better when doing my slow start routine.

I sleep with a bottle of water beside my bed, and when I wake up, I chug as much of that as I can handle. It really helps me. I started doing it after I read somewhere that dehydration can contribute to fatigue, especially in the mornings. I'm probably pretty dehydrated on average, so that scanned.

Get an old school alarm clock. I mean really old school. The kind with physical bells that get hit by tiny hammers.

Put it out of reach of your bed so that you physically have to get up to shut it off.

But as others have said, a slow awakening is usually better. Maybe just do what you're doing but an hour earlier?

If you can, make sure you open your blinds at night, especially if you usually keep them closed. Even just a modicum of extra light can help you wake up quicker.

Tbh, the only REAL tip I have is go to bed at like, 10 PM ish. I know that sucks ass but then you wake up to the sun in your window naturally and it's a whole different experience.

The wake up lights work really well. They're designed not to interrupt deep sleep (which results in grogginess). I've had one for years. But regular circadian rithms work best, always go to bed between the same ~ 30 min. Try to hit snooze only a set amount of times. Morning walks and cold showers if you can handle it. Note that one (or all)of these implementations won't give results overnight, you need to give your body some time to change hormone cycles.

Falling asleep at the right time. Not getting into bed, falling asleep.

Use a sleep calculator to work out when you should be in bed so you can wake at the right part of your sleep cycle.

Back in college I lived off campus and had to bike in. Usually waking up at the last possible moment had me leaping out of bed, eating as fast as possible, and pedaling my dumbass to class seconds after opening my eyes. Maybe the regular exercise helped.

I barely qualify as simian first hour of waking up. I've got an answer, an answer that neither you nor I will like.

Go to bed an hour earlier.

I know it works for me, I never do anyway. Now if you excuse me I'll ooze over to the kitchen counter and guzzle coffee.

I have an alarm clock that lights up. It simulates dawn about thirty minutes before I need to wake. Makes it a lot easier to get going on dark winter mornings.

Other thing that helps is modafinil. Turns out I'm medically overtired.

The bed I usually sleep in gets hit by direct morning sunlight

I look forward to having coffee

I have to get up to go to work

If you live alone, and trust me on this, start screaming. It feels weird but it works 9 times out of 10 also it relieves some stress probably.

If you feel uncomfortable doing that or don't live alone or share walls with other people, try splashing you face with cold water. It fucking sucks, it really does, but you probably won't fall asleep again.

If you're ADHD like me and you've never been able to establish a consistant sleep schedule in your entire life then you gotta find tricks like these to help. No amount of "just go to bed at a regular hour and get up at the same time every day" is ever going to change anything. Coffee helps and so do prescribed stimulants but I can still pass out with those in my system. Cold water and staying on my feet hasn't filled me.

However, if you're struggling to get out of bed bc you turn off your alarm in a sleep haze and pass back out I recommend getting an app called alarmy and using it's barcode scanning function. I pasted a barcode on my medication bottle that stays in my bathroom and the alarm won't turn off until I scan it. It forces me to get out of bed and take my meds ASAP bc that alarm is annoying af. You can also keep your phone charger far away from your bed for added protection but if you have no self control at night this will eventually get annoying and you'll move it back to your bed.

I hope something here helped o7 best of luck fellow permanently exhausted pigeon

I get out of bed immediately after turning off the alarm and I go wash my face. I find it helpful to fully wake up faster.

Sleep with caffeine pills next to your bed. Set an alarm for 20 minutes before when you want to wake up. Take the pill with the alarm, and go back to sleep. You will magically wake up super awake at the time you want to be up.

This is obviously a lot less good than the healthy solutions here, but I work a rotating shift schedule and this trick has been working for me for over a decade.

Shower

Personally I think it's normal to take awhile to wake up slowly. Evolutionarily I don't think we popped up ready to hunt. We gradually woke up.

For the exhaustion, you probably simply need more sleep.

For gradual wake-up, get one of those light-alarm clocks. They light up over a period of 5 to 40 minutes (whatever you set it to) to mimic a rising run. Especially important at this time of year.

Cold Shower.

Maybe a cold shower that has to be as long as the time it takes you to get into the shower from your bed. If it takes a minute to get into the shower, then you owe a minute of the coldest water.

I successfully trained myself to wake up at the right time without an alarm. There are methods for doing that, I'll elaborate on mine if there's interest. It takes all the pain out of waking up.