I want to become one of those 'Get Up On The First Alarm' people
By Jo Abi| 2 years ago
No. More. Snooze.
For the past few years, I've become someone I don't even recognise.
I can't wake up early for the life of me - and it's ruining my life.
After a decade of breakfast radio, during which I woke promptly at 3.30am on the first alarm and perkily headed to work, that memory has well and truly faded.
Maybe I messed up my brain wiring by getting up hours before sunrise?
Perhaps it's because I was a decade (or two) younger?
When my alarm goes off now, my brain throws a complete and total tantrum, refusing to even acknowledge the sound and doing everything it can to go back to sleep.
Maybe after a decade of ridiculously early hours I've caused my brain to regress into a toddler-state.
(I tried setting just one alarm and have no recollection of turning it off, let alone waking. Image: Supplied)
Perhaps my brain is reliving it's youth, during which I SHOULD have been struggling to wake up on time, not wanting to even contemplate the early hours unless it was because I was out drinking and dancing and partying.
I press 'snooze' a ridiculous number of times, for a ridiculous length of time and it's getting worse.
My average is six alarms and a series of 'snoozes' over the course of an hour. Nine minutes, nine minutes, nine minutes...
My wake up time has gone from 5am, to 5.26am, to 5.42am to minutes before 6am, leaving me well and truly BEHIND!
It can't be good for me, not to mention the fact it leaves me rushing around in the morning to write my stories and get my three children to school, let alone finish a cup of coffee. Each afternoon I arrive home to see a sad, half-full cup of congealed coffee, a reminder of my failure to 'adult' in the AM.
I know people who just get up on the first alarm without fail. They are like aliens to me and I'm seriously considering 'unfriending' them and 'unfollowing' them. (They know who they are!)
Their alarm goes off and apparently, they turn it off, stretch wakefully, get up happily, and begin a full and productive day. HOW DO THEY DO IT?!?!?
(I really want to get up earlier so I can have a more relaxing morning with the kids. Image: Supplied)
One such alien told me the key to waking up early is to put yourself into a state of "discomfort".
"The trick is to stick a body part out from under the covers," she said. "Then that body part gets cold and you can't fall back asleep, so you just get up."
Another said the trick is to leave your phone across the room.
"I plug my phone on the other side of the room so I have to get up to turn it off. Then I'm up already, so I just get ready and start my day," they advised.
One of my friends doesn't need any tricks, which is super annoying.
"I just get up. Don't you just get up? What's the point of 'snooze'? Just get up Jo!"
Definitely 'unfriending' them.
Someone else I can no longer be friends with said he'd "trained" himself to get up on the first alarm, but doesn't know exactly how he did it.
"Maybe it's abject terror at the thought of sleeping in," he mused, annoyingly.
A more like-minded work colleague fessed up to an elaborate combination of multiple alarms and snooze sequences, which made me feel a little more normal.
"I set four alarms at five minute intervals," she admitted. "I snooze them, I fumble around, I wake up my partner, I turn on the light while my partner is still asleep, I fumble around, and I leave as late as possible so I can get to work on time."
(Image: Supplied)
As comforted as I felt after being taken through her ridiculous alarm schedule, I really want to be able to wake up on my first alarm, and take advantage of the extra time.
I can picture myself stretching luxuriously after turning off my first and only alarm, a smile dancing across my face. I'd then get up and perform a serious of elaborate yoga poses before sipping on my green juice prepared by my houseman, who works shirtless...
I decided to try all of the things to try and get up on time.
One night I lay in bed playing on my phone, with the intention of getting up and plugging it in across the room so I'd have to get up in the morning to turn it off, thus being awake and staring my super-productive day.
I ended up falling asleep while staring at it, dropping it painfully on my head. Injured and feeling sorry for myself, I set my alarm for 5am and tucked it under my pillow.
Maybe I could just get up on one alarm? The fear of sleeping in compelling me to wake? Without the security of several, secondary alarms?
I could stick my leg out and when it was cold enough, get up due to the discomfort, then do the stretching and the yoga-ing and the green-juice-sipping?
That never happened. I woke up at 6.37am, so, so, so, so late, with no memory of the alarm having gone off, let alone having turned it off.
In fact, where was my phone? I wandered around my bedroom, dazed and confused. Oh, there it is.
My phone was across the room alright, but it had been thrown across the room and somehow switched off. So my brain had thrown a tantrum, again, an EPIC one, but this one was totally unconscious.
I don't know why I have so much trouble getting up in the morning. I go to bed early, between 9 and 9.30pm every night without fail.
I'm not the most peaceful sleeper. But who is? Nightmares are my brain's way of warning me off bad decisions.
I just really want to be one of those people who wakes up promptly on the first alarm in the morning, because clearly, they are better people than me.
Tonight I shall try plugging my phone in across the room, not even giving myself any time to mess around on it in bed, just in case I fall asleep with it again.
It's time for tough love!
Fingers and toes crossed.
How do you get up in the morning? What are your tips and tricks?