Ask HN: How you wake up?

My routine-following border collie whimpers until I get up and take her on a walk. Not much opportunity to snooze...

My kids wake me up. Best alarm in the world. Can't snooze either :)

Naturally

I have come to accept my schedule. I work afternoon/evening shift (3 - 12 AM) and after work, I cannot sleep at all. I used to beat myself up for not "getting to sleep early" and waking up late. However, once I changed my mindset, I really don't mind anymore. We are a household that sleeps during the early part of the day, and we are an afternoon/evening kind of people.

So now, I work on my side projects and do whatever I got to do between the hours after 12 AM and before 5 - 6 AM. Once this time begins to approach, usually when I start to see hints of the sun, I prepare to sleep. I end up sleeping anywhere from 10 AM - 1 PM. And I don't mind at all.

I have embraced the fact that I can't sleep after work. Sometimes, if I have to work an earlier shift, I will just train myself to go to sleep earlier, and I might eat some almond butter or take some melatonin gummies to help aid me in sleep.

If I do set an alarm, I usually set two: one to remind me that I'm alive. The second to remind me that I have to get up. The first is normally set an hour beforehand, while the latter is an alarm set around a half hour before I have to actually wake up to let me know: Seriously, get up.

I sometimes still beat myself up for being so lackadaisical -- like I've been having to get an oil change for at least a week now, and I just can't seem to get up in time. But eventually I get myself in gear, bite the bullet, wake up a little earlier, and do what I have to do during those hours I would usually be sleeping.

I wake up 5:30am every single day except Sunday.

I never snooze my alarm clock. I put the phone away from me so I have to get up to it. If it's arm-reachable, the snooze it is :)

Morning are really slow for me intentionally, I usually make myself a cup of coffee and sit down for about 30-40 minutes. Watching TV or something like that.

Depending on my level of injury, I might stretch a bit and do some morning Yoga https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-Ina_WW4Yc This one works best for me.

I ride my bike 4-5 days a week and the rest of my morning depends whether I bike in the morning or in the afternoon.

Struggling to wake up (for me) means I am missing some nutrition, I try to keep a very natural and healthy diet. I found that if I keep up with it, I wake up much easier.

For context. I have 3 kids (20m - 7y old). I usually wake up about an hour before the first one wakes up.

I used to set the alarm to 7:45 and 8:00 (to be out of the door by 8:10). The ability to lightly sleep the last 15 minutes is very refreshing.

These days i'm self-employed, so pretty much gave up on alarm clocks and go to sleep and wake up whenever it happens. Tend to drift forward about 30 minutes every day...

I wake up an hour before sunrise, open the curtains, go back to bed. When the sun is up it shines brightly into my room it's much easier to wake up.

I wake up naturally and start my day remotely and the time I begin work isn't fixed.

I am one of those people that really needs 8-9 hours of sleep per day. If I get 4-6, my day really suffers from it.

If I wake up early, I like to "take the morning" [1] and reclaim it for whatever personal desires, but usually reading on the Kindle, meditating, and taking the time to brew a nice coffee by hand.

I only use an alarm clock if I have a meeting before 10 am.

At night I try not to look at any blue light more than 1-2 hours past sunset.

[1]: https://backchannel.com/how-i-got-my-attention-back-c7fc9297...

Lately I've been waking up and staying in bed for a little while, anywhere between 20 minutes in bed to two hours, especially if I'm low energy and without coffee.

On workdays I have no time for myself until I hit the road. I rush through a shower without fully waking up. I'm awake, but I'm usually focusing on getting clean first. Sometimes I have time for a small breakfast, maybe coffee, but I don't center myself until I get picked up by car pool.

I generally wake up when 5 kilos of fur jumps on my bladder and shouts "MEOW!"

However, in my life before cats I really struggled to wake up for a 9-to-5 until I got an alarm with a lamp that lights up very gradually, simulating sunrise. I was surprised at how well it worked and definitely recommend them.

I had a Bio-Brite model, which I don't think are made nowadays but google for "alarm clock lamp sunrise" and there are lots of alternatives.

Bed shaking/vibrating alarms have worked best for me. They tend to have large digital displays, so you can place them far enough from the bed that you need to stand up to reach them.

For me, I drink a pint of water before bed.

And then I balance a pint of water on my phone/alarm, which forces me to drink that when I wake up.

My last few jobs have had flexible hours, so I wake up naturally every day. If I feel I can go back to sleep, I will.

Getting enough sleep every day and never having to force myself out of bed makes a huge difference to my work performance and general mood, to the point where I don't think I could do a job without flexible hours.

For me, I need at least 6.5 hours of sleep to be mentally productive. What I do is set the alarm for 7 hours later from the point I go to bed. I realize it can take a little bit of time to fall asleep. I also avoid any caffeine past 3 pm.

I do not jump out of bed as I ended up getting an injury one time from the quick movement of my knee.

When I do get up, I drink a glass of water and get dressed right away and go for a 2 mile fast walk.

This gets my blood flowing and allows me to work out things on my mind.

I ensure I get to bed around 11:30pm so that I can wake up at 6:30am (M/W/F). I use one alarm which sounds like birds chirping and another alarm for 6:40am. 80% of the time I wake up at 6:30am and the other 20% is at 6:40am. My routine once I get up is to brush and get to the gym by 7am.

On T/Th/S/S, I wake up naturally around 6:30am but have my alarm set to 8am which is usually when I'll actually wake up. If I do wake up early, I'll do some light exercise like walking/running/swimming. I don't have to get to work till 10am so the morning is all mine to do as I see most productive.

Please try, if you can, to get your phone out of the bedroom. Turn the ringer up if you need to receive calls at night. If you need an alarm, use an old fashioned alarm clock and put it as far away as possible.

If you are not in the habit of making your bed, making your bed is a quick win that can get your day off to a good start (as you have accomplished something, albeit small but it will be a habit).

There are many yoga stretches that can be done lazily while in bed. Like child pose.

I recently moved to San Diego from Central Europe and because some of my projects are based in Europe, my mornings (well if we can call them like that) are a bit tough :) as I wake up at 3:35 AM in order to be available to my European team during noon.

It is very surprising though, how a body can adapt to situation like this and after some adjustment period you feel rested even after 4-5 hours of sleep. The key for me is:

1. do a physical activity at least 4-5x times per week - swimming or running. 2. use Sleep Cycle app for iPhone 3. take my favourite DMAE pills 4. eat healthy

I have a raspberry pi with mopidy connected to my stereo. There is a neat plugin called alarmclock that you can setup to choose a random song from any playlist provided by mopify. I usually use 666 paradox [1] if I really need to wakeup, it also helps that you cant easily turn it off without standing up.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxMmsGVzzb8

I built a sunrise alarm clock. It's just two ikea lamps, two lamp dimmer modules, and a SmartThings Hub. The lights start dimming-on at 6:37 every morning (30 minutes 0-100%). I do have my alarm on my phone set still, but I'm normally up before it goes off, it's more a reminder to get out of bed on slow days. This setup works great for me, I've had it going for about three years now, I'm, no longer shocked to awake-ness by an annoying alarm rather as I slowly wake up as I become more aware of the light in the room.

FD: I'm just about to start working for ST, but I've had this setup for years already.

I feel kind of silly writing this, but when I started sleeping more (~8 hours/night) I stopped needing an alarm click. I naturally rise around 0700~0730 every day.

I try to keep other morning activities (web browsing, reading, etc) separate from time in bed. I go straight to the kitchen to boil water for coffee.

I didn't really start waking up early on a regular basis until I started making my spouse lunches in the morning before she left for work. There is something about the sense of responsibility that gets you on your feet.

One leg at a time