# wakeup: my tricks to waking up early

for me a good day begins with a nice morning. and a nice morning begins with waking up quite early when i can still hack on my hobbies undisturbed. i have to wake up before the world starts nagging and distracting me. the problem is: waking up is hard.

but thanks to a few tricks i've managed to get the hang of waking up early in a reliably manner.

i always wake up at the same time and i think that helps a lot. going to sleep always at the same time helps even further. my current pattern is bedtime at 22:00, wakeup at 05:30. i try to wake up even when i had a crappy sleep and i simply rely on powernaps thorough the day to break even. the only exception to this is when powernaps will be unavailable, e.g. when there's travel or some other full day event upcoming. if i feel i have some sleep debt, i'd rather go to bed earlier than wake up later.

i have a very slowly loudening white noise as the alarm clock. i think this helps to soften the wakeup process. i used to have some ordinary alarm sound or music but that often startled me too suddenly. it wasn't a nice start for the day.

i think this slowly loudening white noise works similarly to sunlight: it might not immediately wake me up but it probably starts the background wakeup processes in my brain as soon as the first rays/soundwaves reach me. by the time i get conscious about the alarm, i'm already long into the wakeup process, i don't feel it too sudden.

if i'm having trouble getting up out of the bed after the alarm clock, i just sit up with my eyes closed. in this mode i don't need to move and i can still feel that i'm continuing to rest but it will totally prevent me to falling back to sleep. i start reminding myself that i shouldn't worry about tiredness because i can powernap later on. i also start reminding myself about my morning routine, the things i want to do. that usually gets me excited enough that i then actually want to wake up and do my routine. all tiredness evaporates out of me after i'm out of bed and done something, even if it's simply brushing my teeth.

i don't drink coffee (or energy drinks) at all. i have this pet conspiracy theory that over long term coffee just increases your baseline tiredness and drinking it just temporarily removes the strains it slowly added onto your body. basically it messes you up. that's my armchair philosophy explanation of why seemingly some people can't seem to function without coffee anymore (in other words: they are addicted). aaaanyway, regardless of that, it's one addiction less, which means more mental acuity for other stuff.

and that's it. in short:

• regular bedtime and wakeup time
• slowly loudening alarm clock
• sit up in the bed for a few minutes on the harder days
• have an exciting task or routine to wake up to
• no stimulants

published on 2022-04-11

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