“There is no snooze button on a cat who wants breakfast.”

- Author unknown

Waking up early is almost impossible for me.

Getting a cat would probably be a solution, but as I don’t want to go that far, I hope that there are other solutions that work as well.

I need quite a lot sleep, at least 8 or 9 hours to feel normal, and 9 to 10 hours of sleep to wake up without an alarm clock. Some people enjoy going to sleep early and waking up early, too, but I often like to do different things in the evening and prolong going to sleep, which of course makes it harder to wake up in the morning.

If you are on a vacation, it doesn’t necessarily matter when you wake up, but I have noticed that waking up early makes me feel better (if I have slept enough) and it is then easy to get more things done during the day and still be able to catch a little bit sunshine after the workday is over.

I am not working for anyone else than myself at the moment, so no one is expecting me to wake up in the morning, which gives me the full responsibility to take control of my own sleeping patterns. It is both good and a bad thing.

For me, tips like “just wake up the same time every morning and go to sleep when you feel tired” don’t work at all.

The alarm clock doesn’t wake me up, because it is possible for me to shut it down, even though I would have set on 15 different alarms to make it more difficult to shut them down in the morning, one each minute, for fifteen minutes total (I really tried that).

Neither works putting the alarm clock somewhere where I have to walk in order to put it off – I can then easily return to the bed and continue sleeping.

I thought I was a hopeless case until I came up with these ideas:

1. Ditch your blanket

Have you made your bed to be as comfortable as possible, with just right kind of mattress, soft pillows, and warm blankets?
I have certainly done that mistake.

Bed is supposed to be just a place to get the necessary rest – not a place where you want to spend your days. Remove the blankets for one week and see what happens. If you feel cold, put more clothes on.

2. Sleep in the sofa

Getting rid of blankets helps sometimes, but if that’s not enough, you can try sleeping on the sofa. I tried that two days ago and it worked tremendously well – I woke up at 9:40 AM, which is five minutes before my alarm was going to set off. If that time sounds late, remember that I normally wake up at around 11:30 AM.

I could get a decent rest on the sofa, but it wasn’t too comfortable, so I didn’t feel any urge to continue sleeping when I woke up for the first time.

3. Open your curtains

I have used this tip earlier as well, and it helps a little bit, as light helps our body to function correctly and release the hormones that are needed to waking up. I open the curtains before I go to sleep so that in the morning the light will come in and make it much easier to wake up, and a little bit uncomfortable to continue sleeping when the sun is shining through the windows.

In Finland, where I live, the problem is that during the summer the sun is shining almost all the time, but in the winter the day is only a few hours long.
When it’s dark all the time, I use wake up light to help me wake up. It’s a basic lamp with a bright light that you can program to wake you up naturally when you want. It works quite well.

4. Tips for going to sleep earlier

One thing that makes it much harder to wake up in the morning is going to sleep too late. Sometimes I just listen to music or surf online in the night, although I wouldn’t have anything important to do. It’s actually a complete waste of time.

The problem is that it is difficult to shut the computer down if you have been sitting on it for a few hours and you have nothing better to do except sleeping, and you are too tired to work.

I don’t like sleeping in the evening; I just like to sleep in the morning, so I obviously had to come up with a solution to being able to get to bed (or sofa) earlier somehow.

The solution for me was to figure out ways of making it fun to go to bed.

It’s easier to shut the computer down if I decide to watch TV for a while or read a book in my bed. If I am already lying on the bed, it’s easy to fall asleep quite fast, so that’s the way I can trick my mind to shut down the computer earlier, which on the other hand makes it easier to go to sleep earlier.

If the problem is that you don’t feel tired at all, you should try melatonin capsules. They are natural sleep hormones that are sold in many places without a recipe. Unlike some sleeping pills, they don’t make you feel groggy in the morning.

Extra tip for changing your sleeping pattern quickly

If you have been traveling in another time zone or if your sleeping pattern is so awry that it is difficult to change it, you can try this method:

Skip one night completely.

Don’t go to sleep at all for one night, and refuse to go to sleep until the next night. If it’s difficult to stay awake, drink coffee or make yourself busy for the whole day to help you avoid sleeping.

Now you should be quite tired in the evening, which makes it easier to go to sleep earlier and wake up earlier as well.

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