I recently wrote a post about how to wake up, a lot of you have also problems with waking up. Nice to see I am not the only one who enjoys staying in bed so much! And good to see that I have ‘fellow travelers’ on my journet to get up! In the comments there were not only shared stories, but also some tips from others! Thanks guys.
The most shared tip was putting your alarm AWAY from your bed. A good solution? I don’t think so! Let me explain.
Putting your alarm away from your bed..
You set your alarm at the time you have to wake up. You make sure that it is all set correctly and you go to sleep. The only difference with normal ‘alarm-setting’ is the place where you put your alarm! Instead of next to your bed (so you can hit the snooze immediately when it goes off) you put your alarm on the other side of the room. This obligates you to get out of your bed when your alarm rings, to put it off. And when you are out of bed, it is easy to take a shower, get dressed and grab your cup of coffee. This technique works great, because the biggest treshold for getting up is the actually getting up out of bed. When you have passed that point, the rest should be easy!
And why it doesn’t work..
I do think this is a good way to wake up, but not a good way to wake up for a whole year, or for the rest of your life. And I try to give tips that are sustainable, tips you actually can use the rest of your life.
- This is a short term solution. As I said, this works for now, but you can’t do this the rest of your life. It will give stress and you will hate waking up. And what if you find a cute girl and she is sleeping over? Do you put your alarm away from your bed? When it goes off, you jump out of your bed to put it off, and the girl (with her arms around you) gets PULLED OUT OF THE BED? That isn’t going to work. Eventually, you need to have your alarm close to your bed.
- Waking up is still a tough chore. Waking up doesn’t give you a nice feeling if you are waking up like this. Every time when you put your alarm off, you won’t feel satisfied. Waking up wasn’t fun before, and now it still isn’t fun, and makes the first minutes of your day really stressful!
- You can go to bed after it! This is the biggest problem I have with this method. I tried this, of course, and what I did was putting the alarm off, and going back to bed! My room was cold, it was too early and I don’t know what I thought of more, but I just went back to bed. So I have already overcome that treshold, but it is like I am only over the treshold with one leg, and I just fall back.
Why is the other way of waking up better?
With the other way of waking up, you are awake! Your alarm means waking up. You are trained in waking up, so it isn’t that hard anymore. And by putting your alarm next to your bed, it doesn’t cause that much stress anymore. Of course, there are some disadvantages, you can still put your alarm off and sleep again, but with some training, this is a better way. Do you agree? Which way do you consider as the best? Let me know!
(If you still like putting your alarm away from your bed, consider the recommondation Ryan Freed made on the last post, here is Clocky!)
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Putting the alarm far away works pretty well, but you do come to hate the sound of the alarm clock.
I hate it so much that the second it goes off, I literally fly out of bed to turn it off. It wakes me up well, but it puts me in a bad mood and I still feel tired.
The way that worked for me all sophomore year was sleeping on the top bunk bed (with a roommate not to wake up) and having my alarm across the room. I also got so used to the alarm sound, it programmed by body to wake up as soon as it started.
I have heard some good things about the alarms that simulate the rising of the sun…. interested in getting/trying one!
Wow, alarms that simulate the rising of the sun, that sounds pretty cool! I used to have my stereo set to play “Its A Beautiful Day” by U2, as my alarm. Should do it again, found it was a really good way to start the day with a smile on the dial
I think you’re right that the putting it away thing might have some problems in the long run, and your points are true but not that bad.
Waking up this way doesn’t mean you have to be stressed anymore than waking up a different way, ofcourse Ann’s idea of good and happy musics helps set the mood.
You can see any way of waking up as a chore and also go to bed.
What I do is use a alarm on my phone with a random music list, it asks you to solve 10 simple math problems before you can put it off. I also use another alarm on the other side of the room 3 minutes later for if I went to bed again…
I still sometimes wake up, put all the alarms off and go to bed again but not as often
Twitter: NateDesmond
May 6, 2010 at 7:17 pm
I personally use the method of putting my alarm clock across the room, and it has worked pretty well for me.
Although I agree that it can be stressful, it certainly wakes me up!