I was thinking about this the other day. How you you guys wake up in the morning? And/or what is a routine you all know of to work better for you to get you started on the right foot?
Go to bed and wake up at the same time every night/day. Also, avoid using 'snooze' and taking naps. If you're not used to it, then you really have to be determined at first, but there's definitely a noticeable difference after a week or two. If you're consistent, your alarm will become obsolete.
I've learned (and adapted) to the fact that I just can't get any reasonable work done in the first 3 hours or so of the day. I can ingest massive amounts of caffeine, go run a marathon, or whatever, but my brain just needs a few hours to get up to speed.
You might find that, like myself, you function much better in the evening and night. Even though I keep a normal daylight schedule for work reasons, I long to fall back to my natural rythmn: rise at 4pm, and sleep at 7 or 8am.
For a long time I thought I followed the same schedule. Since I'm in grad school, I decided to experiment with that. I found that I was not a night person after all. Rather, anxiety and thinking about a given problem kept me up indefinitely.
I even tried the experiment where you stay up until you are tired, then repeat. It was terrible. After a week I could not sleep at all. I'd get tired when the sun set, as we are supposed to. But despite being tired, no sleep came.
Through much pain, I discovered that the major source of my sleeplessness was a lack of social contact. Now this varies immensely by individual. But the moral of the story is that every sleep problem is unique. Your solution is not my solution. And mine is not yours (I don't have a good one btw).
I'll guess that sleep researchers already know this. Best of luck hacker news!
While writing up my PhD I went through three different sleep styles, each time for four months.
The first was to work nights. I'd get up at 15:30, "breakfast" at 17:00, socialise from 18:00 to 20:00, then go to work. I'd eat my last meal at 07:00 (bacon eaggs and toast are an interesting "last meal of the day") and go to bed at 09:00.
The second was to sleep every other night, sleeping for 12 hours when I sis sleep at all. The night I stayed up I'd catch a cat nap at about 03:00 for 20 minutes. This was effectively a 48 hour day.
The third and most interesting was to stick to a 28 hour day with 8 hours sleep. This gives a 6 day week, and I'd drift in and out of phase with normal people. That really suited me, and I wish I could do it more.
You have no idea how many times I've turned my blackberry alarm off and thought I had hit snooze. the iPhone alarm is a thousand time nicer with 2 different mechanisms, touch snooze and slide off.
Just having an unbounded number of alarms puts it ahead of any other alarm I've had. I have alarms set for 7:01, 7:10, 7:20, and 7:45 (when I finally have to be on my feet to get the kids out the door to school).
I have a Palm Centro and I just have to tap the screen anywhere to snooze. To turn it off then requires a second tap to a specific button on the screen. Best I've used.
My only complaint about the iPhone alarm is that I really, really wish it had a setting for how many minutes ’snooze’ is. When I hit snooze I always want to sleep for another half hour, not nine minutes.
Try to get used to waking up always the same time. Every time I wake up early in the morning, I kiss my girlfriend, then get up, and after the bathroom I do some workout. Nothing serius, just to make myself fresher. And then, for about an hour, I work on my private project(s), until my girlfriend gots up too (she's a little sleepy :) ). Then have breakfast (ALWAYS have a substantial breakfast), and then I go to work (I always get a shower before I go to sleep). This way I always start my day with good mood, and by achieving something, which makes me confident.
When I had a job this was pretty much my exact routine - started at 6AM every morning. Just replace the workout with meditation... I'd go to the Gym and/or Bikram Yoga w/ the girl after work during the week.
Somatomax has also been invaluable for my sleep and clear operating mind the next day...
Now, without the job, I typically getup at 7AM (sometimes a bit later), shower, catchup on email and Hacker News then start my personal project.
After ~6 months of using my call phone as my alarm clock, I now have a strong pavlovian conditioning to several of the Verizon ringtones, especially "rings"
I'll hear it randomly in public in the middle of the day and immediately get a rush of adrenalin -- "oh fuck I'm waking up 6 hours late aaaahhh!!!" -- and it will take me at least 15 minutes to calm down fully. For hours afterward my ears will parse any plausible input into phantom ringing (that happens randomly by itself too).
If it's a good day and I'm paying attention to my body, I just get up whenever my I first wake up, usually before my alarm goes off. Sometimes I think it is the cats that wake me, other times I think I wake the cats... I can never tell. If it's a bad day I don't get up right away and then proceed to sleep through multiple alarms; often I will snooze them and go back to sleep until I run out of snooze cycles and then wake up hours later wondering why my alarm went off. I sleep snooze.
I have noticed though, that when I wake up first without (before) an alarm and promptly get out of bed and start my day I am usually less groggy and more inclined to be productive. My body has ~1.5hr sleep cycles, meaning if I sleep in increments of roughly 1.5hrs I tend to get better sleep. I learned all this about myself when I was practicing a polyphasic sleep experiment. I don't recommend this to anyone as an actual method of sleep or rest (my experiment was less than successful) but I sure learned a helluvalot about my body and tolerances.
I haven't used an alarm in about 10 years, and always manage to wake up at the correct time, even if it is 5am. My girlfriend is always amazed. I get up, have a shower, then go straight to work. I can be out of the house in 10 minutes. I find my housemates strange, the ones who fool around in the mornings having dinner, watching tv. I know I used to when I was a kid, but not anymore.
Two alarms: One within arms reach, and another that I have to get up for, set 1 minute later than the close one. Always make sure you have an alarm out of arms reach from your bed.
That's a good idea, but it's also battery conservation and the knowledge that it's also OFF. Certain processes can hang and chew through your battery until you restart, which is also why it's nice to turn it off of a night.
Set a recurring alarm on my phone, snooze it a couple of times, head to the restroom, freshen up a bit and go play squash for an hour. Come back, take a shower, have breakfast and then get to work.
I've noticed I don't need an alarm to wake up. If I keep my blinds open, the sunlight along w/ any ambient noise always wakes me up after about 7-8 hours of sleep.
I have a small 3 year-old walk into my bedroom ~6am every day and jump up and down on the end of the bed saying, I want to have breakfast/watch Bob the Builder/brush the baby's teeth..
Funnily enough, this perfect alarm-clock never fails to wake me up!
That sounds like how I wake up on the weekends, except mine is also normally shouting, "The sun is up!" He never seems to realize that I know, but don't care that the sun is up.
Some days it's the 3 year old, some days the 5 year old, some days the 1 year old. In the rare event that none of them wake up before 7:30, I wake up by then on my own. Sleeping in has long been situationally impossible; I now find it biologically impossible as well.
I realize the inherent nonexistence of all entities and how they are all impermanent, and thus that all striving is striving for temporary results; the only true achievement is to dissolve one's karma and be liberated from the Wheel of Rebirth, never again to be born & suffer.
I have one of those alarm clocks that lights up the whole room over a 30 minute period - that makes it easier to get up in Winter. It also plays the radio gradually louder. I also have my iPhone alarm set on my desk "just in case..."
Alarm goes off at 7:22 (for some reason the snooze uses 8 min intervals - so if I'm tired I'll have 1 snooze until 7:30 otherwise I'm straight up). Pee, puke (morning sickness), shower, get dressed, breakfast.
I become conscious sometime in the afternoon, take a quick look at my phone for any missed calls/e-mails/text messages etc, and if they need immediate attention, I pop open my macbook pro and go to work. If there are no critical issues, I usually jump in the shower and "meditate" for 30 minutes to an hour. Then I usually get to work or whatever I planned on doing that day.
At 6 AM, after 8.5 hours of sleep and after a sunrise alarm clock has been getting brighter for about half an hour. Then I make breakfast and coffee and try to have an uninterrupted 2 hours of working on personal projects before going to work.
My alarm goes off at 7:55 pm. Work starts at 8 pm so there isn't much time for messing around. This is by design. I work support and sign in, start work-related tasks etc.
My radio alarm clock goes off at about 8:30am. The radio slowly soothes me awake, so that I gradually wake over the next 30 mins or so Using this method puts me in a better mood more consistently than when I used to get up immediately and/or earlier.
I would love to get up early and work on some personal projects before I went in to work, but my brain just doesn’t start running until about 11am, and I cant figure out how to change this.
I find when I wake up at the same time each day I do a lot better. Weekends completely throw me off cause I can usually sleep in until 7, sometimes at the latest 8.
I have a few methods of waking up.
1. Cell phone alarm set to 5 a.m, this is hit or miss. Sometimes I actually wake up a minute before the alarm even goes off.
2. A 2.5 year old who wakes me up with a plastic golf club or other blunt instrument on the weekends (this is the whole sleeping in part)
3. Instances like this morning, where I was up at 3:15 because I stopped breathing...
The last one is not recommended but it always wakes me up. Thankfully it does not happen too often, just now and again.
Routine is get out of bed, roll the arms around to get the blood circulating, make a nice breakfast and prepare a lunch to take into the office. Drink a bottle of water, turn the coffee pot on, knock out a set of push ups, hit the shower, get dressed, get in car, get 2 blocks down the road and realize I forgot the lunch or my pants, turn around, get item, head to office.
Weekend is fairly void of a routine with the exception of my son waking me up, and taking him to Starbucks in the morning to flirt with chicks.
Ultimately, My routine during the week is the best one for me. It make's me pretty productive, and I really enjoy being the only one in the office for a few hours. It's amazing what you can get accomplished when no one is around to interrupt you.
68 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 148 ms ] threadI even tried the experiment where you stay up until you are tired, then repeat. It was terrible. After a week I could not sleep at all. I'd get tired when the sun set, as we are supposed to. But despite being tired, no sleep came.
Through much pain, I discovered that the major source of my sleeplessness was a lack of social contact. Now this varies immensely by individual. But the moral of the story is that every sleep problem is unique. Your solution is not my solution. And mine is not yours (I don't have a good one btw).
I'll guess that sleep researchers already know this. Best of luck hacker news!
The first was to work nights. I'd get up at 15:30, "breakfast" at 17:00, socialise from 18:00 to 20:00, then go to work. I'd eat my last meal at 07:00 (bacon eaggs and toast are an interesting "last meal of the day") and go to bed at 09:00.
The second was to sleep every other night, sleeping for 12 hours when I sis sleep at all. The night I stayed up I'd catch a cat nap at about 03:00 for 20 minutes. This was effectively a 48 hour day.
The third and most interesting was to stick to a 28 hour day with 8 hours sleep. This gives a 6 day week, and I'd drift in and out of phase with normal people. That really suited me, and I wish I could do it more.
But I sympathize, I am much more productive at night than the morning.
Somatomax has also been invaluable for my sleep and clear operating mind the next day...
Now, without the job, I typically getup at 7AM (sometimes a bit later), shower, catchup on email and Hacker News then start my personal project.
Second alarm: iPhone alarm 40 minutes later. I now mega-loathe the "Harp" alarm tone. (8.00am)
Third alarm: Girlfriend kicking me out of bed between 5-10 minutes later. (~8.10am)
Works like a charm every time.
I'll hear it randomly in public in the middle of the day and immediately get a rush of adrenalin -- "oh fuck I'm waking up 6 hours late aaaahhh!!!" -- and it will take me at least 15 minutes to calm down fully. For hours afterward my ears will parse any plausible input into phantom ringing (that happens randomly by itself too).
I have noticed though, that when I wake up first without (before) an alarm and promptly get out of bed and start my day I am usually less groggy and more inclined to be productive. My body has ~1.5hr sleep cycles, meaning if I sleep in increments of roughly 1.5hrs I tend to get better sleep. I learned all this about myself when I was practicing a polyphasic sleep experiment. I don't recommend this to anyone as an actual method of sleep or rest (my experiment was less than successful) but I sure learned a helluvalot about my body and tolerances.
Read more at http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/polyphasic-sleep/ or on http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/4/15/103358/720
Funnily enough, this perfect alarm-clock never fails to wake me up!
I realize the inherent nonexistence of all entities and how they are all impermanent, and thus that all striving is striving for temporary results; the only true achievement is to dissolve one's karma and be liberated from the Wheel of Rebirth, never again to be born & suffer.
Then I have some tea and check my email.
I don't have any problems getting out of bed.
I have a few methods of waking up.
1. Cell phone alarm set to 5 a.m, this is hit or miss. Sometimes I actually wake up a minute before the alarm even goes off. 2. A 2.5 year old who wakes me up with a plastic golf club or other blunt instrument on the weekends (this is the whole sleeping in part) 3. Instances like this morning, where I was up at 3:15 because I stopped breathing...
The last one is not recommended but it always wakes me up. Thankfully it does not happen too often, just now and again.
Routine is get out of bed, roll the arms around to get the blood circulating, make a nice breakfast and prepare a lunch to take into the office. Drink a bottle of water, turn the coffee pot on, knock out a set of push ups, hit the shower, get dressed, get in car, get 2 blocks down the road and realize I forgot the lunch or my pants, turn around, get item, head to office.
Weekend is fairly void of a routine with the exception of my son waking me up, and taking him to Starbucks in the morning to flirt with chicks.
Ultimately, My routine during the week is the best one for me. It make's me pretty productive, and I really enjoy being the only one in the office for a few hours. It's amazing what you can get accomplished when no one is around to interrupt you.