Train post - sleep

[innocent_lex]

Sleep is an inefficient use of my time. i didn't wake up on time this morning and am running late. not enough sleep, you see, and therefore failed to surface from the unyielding grip of night in time to catch my train. there appears to be nothing i can do about my hopelessly inefficient transition to wakefulness beyond being paranoid about it and uaing more than the three alarm clocks i have.

so advice please - what does everyone else do? how do you actually wake up in the morning?

Comments

[nausica2.livejournal.com]

I have only one alarm clock, but the time is forwarded 15 minutes. So if my alarm clock says 8:30, it's actually 8:15, but I act as if it was 8:30 so I have 15 minutes to spare in case someting happens.

I'm lucky, though, I've never had much trouble sleeping. Until last year I used to go to bed quite late and was more tired in the morning, but then I started going to bed at the same time (23:15 to read a bit, already sleep before midnight) and now the next morning I have no problem waking up. I started doing this last year out of necessity (when mum was sick), but I've kept it up now that things are normal and it's good for me.

[innocent-lex.livejournal.com]

I've tried that clock thing, but I find it immensely hard to con myself, even when I'm not even awake.

I tend to go to bed around 10:30 / 11 on a school night and read for a bit until I drop off. It's the way I stop my brain from going all fizzy on the stuff that happened during the day and the stuff that's coming up.

[sg1scribe.livejournal.com]

Perhaps we need to merge our genetic material and then share out the sleep - awake genes more fairly seeing how I'm at the opposite end of the scale.

5:00am - ping! I'm awake. Very frustrating, although at least i don't need to worry about missing trains.

Perhaps I should drive to your house, wake you up and then go to work!

[innocent-lex.livejournal.com]

Oh, the merging thing would help me enormously. I'm always so confused by your ability to be awake at 4 in the morning and not stumble through the day like you've not had any sleep for a week.

[obelix]

Have you tried alarm clocks that simulate dawn? I use one that's used for treating SAD but there are others that just simulate dawn. They wake you up slowly and gradually and work a lot better then the conventional ones in my experience.

Here are examples of what I'm talking about:

Dawn Simulators:

http://www.sadbox.co.uk/dawn-simulators-c-41.html

Sun alarm clock (used to help with SAD):

http://www.serenityhealth.com/sun_alarm_clock.html

[innocent-lex.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for this! It looks like it could be really helpful to me. I spotted some of these today (it was xmas shopping day) and I think I may well treat myself to one of these for my own present.

[obelix]

No problem :-)

Hope it helps, I know it works for me makes getting up a lot easier and for some reason I wake up less tired.

[ali888.livejournal.com]

I use my mobile as my alarm clock and I leave it out of reach of the bed. That way I either have to get up to switch it off or let it make an annoying noise for a minute.

[innocent-lex.livejournal.com]

This is also an extremely cunning plan that I will adopt along with the light thingy. None of these things are going to make it any easier in the mornings, but they should actually wake me up!