A common problem among students, and other people also, is getting up. We want to get up at seven, but when the alarm actually rings, we hit the snooze button. At eight, we finally try to make a move to get out. I wanted to become a good riser, and it worked, by using Steve Pavlina’s techniques.
How to wake up when the alarm rings
First of all, you may want to be an early riser, you want to get up at 5 am and be productive in the morning, but it won’t work when you go to sleep at 1 am. Be realistic, the time my alarm rings is always at least 6 hours after I go to sleep. I can recommend this, in this way you will always get near to enough sleep.
What is the problem here? You want to get out of bed as soon as the alarm goes of, but you can’t do it. We have to implement this into our system: ‘Alarm rings = Out of bed.’ Now it is: ‘Alarm rings = Snooze 5 times.’ After reading this post, and some practise, you will realize that when you want to get up, you need to associate the alarm with getting up. This alarm DOESN’T mean crawling in your blankets again, no, alarm means get out of bed.
To have your brain acknowledge this, you need training. Have you ever heard about the Pavlov dogs? They associate, after training, a bell with food, so when the bell rings they start to produce digestive enzyms. Do the same, dog! Here is a little training to do. Try to do this immediatly after you read this, because you will forget it otherwise. It only takes half an hour.
The Training
- Pretend you are going to sleep. Brush your teeth, put on your pyjamas, close your curtains and get your teddybear. Get into your bed and pretend you sleep.
- Set the alarm 2 minutes ahead. Two minutes is enough. Set your alarm, and pretend to sleep for two minutes. Get in your sleeping position and think about sleeping.
- Alarm rings: Put it off. Put your alarm off! Don’t hit snooze, put it off! This means you HAVE to get out because if you fall asleep again there is no one to wake you up.
- Take one deep breath and get up. Lay for two more seconds, take a deep breath and get out of your bed. Go sit on your bed and rub your eyes.
- Open curtains. Open your curtains, get dresserd or do whatever you do when you wake up normally (except hitting snooze!). Do everything until you are out of your room.
- Repeat this five times. Repeat this, just as you would repeat something when you study. Training means repitition. If you do this again and again, your brain will associate the alarm with getting up. Which means the next time you actually have to wake up and the alarm goes, your brain will be in the getting up mode. Just like the Pavlov dogs associated a bell with food, you will associate the alarm with getting up.
- Do more of these sets. It took me one set to change the way I wake up, I still snooze sometimes, but it is already much easier for me to get up. Do more of these sets and get up early.
What are we doing here?
This is just one of the great brainhacks, just like powernaps or overcoming procrastination. Your brain is a complex thing, but you can influence it by training. You only have to know this, put it in practise and see results. You are the boss of your own behaviour! Good luck with this training, did it work for you?
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One other thing I do is get 2 alarms and put the second one on the other side of the room, when the first one goes off, you set the other one 5 minutes later.
Guaranteed way to get up.
Repitition is the key to what you’re talking about. However, some people can’t get out of bed without snoozing it atleast once no matter how hard they try. Especially if you went to sleep late or had a rough night. As for me I have no trouble getting up when my alarm goes off the first time, even when I had to get up at 5 30 every morning for work two summers. I just set my alarm so I have the perfect amount of time to get ready and know I will be late if I dont get up at that exact time.
I also saw a really cool alarm clock that jumps off your dresser and rolls around your room. It doesnt turn off until you get out of bed and turn it off. Try to fall back asleep with that.
“Set your alarm, and pretend to sleep for two minutes. Get in your sleeping position and think about sleeping.” I might try this. Getting up is such a chore these days.
Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for the comments guys!
@VTAMethodman
Yeah I tried that also sometimes, but getting up is than still a chore and something you don’t like. And I just put them off and go to bed again..
@Ryan
That alarm clock sounds cool! I am going to check that one out
@Ben
I am happy to know that someone is going to try it! Good luck and share your experiences with me
I put my alarm across the room at home so that I have to get up to turn it off. At college I use my phone and keep it close so I don’t wake up roommates, but I’m so accustomed to getting up when it goes off that I don’t usually have trouble.
Great tips here. This would really help me with waking up at 5:30am every morning to get ready for school. I hit snooze about 5 times until it is 6:00.
Great blog post! My advice for waking up is to set 2 alarm times on my iPhone. The first one is an hour before my required wake up time. So every morning when that first alarm clock wakes me up I get all grumpy and think about getting up- but then I realize I have another hour until my real alarm time. A simple brain hack that convinces my brain I sleep in everyday technically.
I could really use some “wake up training.” During the school semester I wake up easily. However, this summer I am not going to school and I don’t have to go to work untill 11am. So I have a bad habbit of just turning of my alarm (skipping the snooze button) and just waking up later.
I know one of my problems is staying up too late. Once I am out of bed, it’s hard for me to turn off my brain. So I stay up late reading or working on projects.
This is great stuff! I’m definitely with Michael, above – I stay up WAY too late, pretty much all the time.
And snooze is arguably my favorite thing in the world – training myself not to hit the snooze button is a great idea. Gonna have to try this.
I do the same thing as the studenomist, I just set my alarm early so that when I hit snooze for an hour, I’m still on schedule.
LET ME SEE IF IT WORKS
you wouldn’t believe how much this applies to me!!
i find that it’s really a decision. if you really decide to get up then you will. I only oversleep when i have lectures but i always wake up BEFORE my alarm on the days when i have an exam.
I think that my body instinctively understands that getting up when it’s still dark outside is a bad idea
but the way you say “get up and open the curtains” – just training yourself to GET UP and go instead of wallowing for a pointless extra 10 min – i think that’s really great advice.
Super applicable and juicy content.
Glorious
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It’s very unatural for teenagers to get up early!! (biological clock and stuff like that)
So my advice is….. dont do it!!