Tipskey - Wake Up On Time

Posted on 2007-02-16

Wake Up On Time

In an experiment, a Russian Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1849-1936) rang the bell every time he wanted to let the dog eat. After many times, even no food was given the dog drooled when the bell was rung. That is aural stimulation. You should have this kind of experience too: when you see sour food such as pickled sour fruit that you have eaten before, your mouth salivates even though you do not eat it. This is visual stimulation. Any of the five senses can be stimulated to have the Pavlov's effect. So we are going to utilize it to help us wake up on time subconsciously.

Alarm clock with adjustable alarm time was patented by a French Antoine Redier in 1847. Of course human beings have survived without these confounded noisemakers but now we have the technology, why not employ it?

Please note that I am talking about waking up on time here. I am not talking about waking up early. How early is early? I think that is rather generic. Wake up on time is more targeted and realistic.

Which type of becoming awake do you want?
1) Become awake but do not get up.
2) You become awake and you quickly get UP.
If you open your eyes but you do not get up, that is not called wakeup.

I think waking up on time is the first thing in self improvement because if you start the day correctly, you will be more into self improvement for the rest of the day. It will always give you a better day. I know you already know the bad things when you cannot wake up on time but I think it is still good to list some here:
a) Things will not be that smooth for day if you do not do the first thing of the day right.
b) Feeling of poor-being. Frustration.
c) Time passes fast in the day.
d) Unhealthier body.

There is no excuse for inability to wake up on time. When you are sick, our mind and body are weak so it is OK if you sleep in. But if you are healthy, there is really no reason for you to sleep in.

At night you sleep when you are sleepy. No fixed bedtime is required. You do not want to waste time on the bed staring at the ceiling if you are not sleepy. Do not watch long TV show at night because even when you are already sleepy you want to finish the show. A little self discipline is needed. Having enough sleep is a basic factor to wake up on time. If you are sleepy but you still stay up, there may be such "I do not have enough sleep" voice in your head the next morning. Furthermore, staying up even if you are already sleepy certainly will decay your health. And your emotion next day may be affected by short of sleep. Do not resist drowsiness at night to do something. Instead just wake up on time the next morning and do it. It is an illogical contradiction that you resist sleepiness when you are supposed to sleep but you surrender to sleepiness when you are not supposed to sleep.

No matter what time you sleep at night, the alarm clock must be set to ring at the same time everyday (yes, including weekends and holidays). If you have insufficient sleep one night, you should be sleepy earlier for bed the next night. So it is OK if you meet up with a good friend and you two talk until late night. This kind of things does not happen every night. Do not ever negotiate with yourself that if you do not have enough sleep one night, you have to wake up later the next morning. For me if I do that I will feel bad afterwards. The fixed wakeup time is not negotiable. In fact many fixed times in life are not negotiable. If your work time starts at 8am, can you tell the boss that you do not have enough sleep last night so you come to the office at 9am?

Drink some water before sleep. Quick thoughts before lying down:
a) If you are not a busy person that always has something to do, you may want to think of something you want to do after waking up. If there is nothing in mind to do, most probably we will sleep in. What do you like to do tomorrow morning? What is your interest? What about a little work that will have monetary incentive? There must be something for us to do. If really there is nothing then we do not have to wake up anymore, hehe. We live because there is always something we want to do, don't we? For most of us who works as an employee, of course we need to be in the company on time.
b) Think of waking up as something that does not need effort. Do not think of it as a big task. If you start thinking about how to battle/struggle your way to wake up, you will sleep in. Example of such psychology is a footlog. When it is placed across a very shallow stream you can walk on it very easily compared to when it is across two tall buildings. Anyway that does not mean that you should not be serious about your life. We can still be serious when we see something as easy to achieve.
c) We should appreciate the time that we can still command our body to move.
d) Perhaps wake up "on time" is still not specific enough so we kind of lose focus what to do next right after becoming awake (and fall asleep again). Wake up and so what? Further define your own meaning / flowchart of wake up, for example "wake up on time" for Mr. X means become awake, then grab the alarm to turn it off, then walk out of the house to buy breakfast (messy hair early in the morning around the neighborhood should not be a big problem).

I sleep beside the window with curtain wide open. I sleep with my feet heading to the east so that I can see the east sky (provided if the window does not face west). I prefer to fix the time when I can see some light in the sky at dawn (this can be visual stimulation). I do not want to choose the time when the sky is still very dark (before dawn) because that will confuse me with night. And I do not want to choose the time when the sky is bright (long after dawn) because the sky will be bright all day long and there will be no time limit and I do not want to have that kind of voice in my head: "It is already bright... it does not make much difference if you wake up now or ten minutes later..." There is one period in the year when the day breaks earlier. Use that period as a standard. If you do not want to choose the time when you can see some light in the east sky, you can choose the time when the dim light from the sky starts lighting onto your bed. That is the latest you can go. Can you still sleep when the day skylight is shining on you? For me even if I can, I will feel a little unwell waking up in sunlight.

Putting the alarm within the reach of hand is not that good. When you are really tired, you may turn off the alarm without realizing it even the wakeup time is particularly important for example you have to catch up with a trip etc. Put the alarm near the bathroom so there will be extra push for you to wash your face etc.

Use an alarm that is loud and will ring continuously until you turn it off. Alarm with snooze mode is not good because it will make you whisper in your head to compromise the wakeup time and the next thing you know is you have developed a bad habit of ignoring and sleeping thru the alarm. It does not matter what tune you want to use for the alarm as long as it can catch your attention. I prefer music that motivates morale or cheers footsteps. Not only it wakes me up, but also let me feel encouraged for the day. Try telephone alarm too as our mind is conditioned subconsciously for our whole life to "answer the call".

When the alarm rings and you become awake, wake up immediately without second thought and do exercise (you do stretch yourself, don't you?) or walk to the bathroom to wash your face. If you want you can press the 'On' button on the radio or TV. You can take a quick shower for the whole body or if the water is too cold, just for the lower body. Workout or exercise oxygenates your body more and makes you awake. Do anything you like to do to cast away the sleep inertia. Any delay will make the voice in your head talk you into sleep. "Another ten minutes" is a conspiracy. The second you open your eyes and you know it is time to wake up, just spring up. Do not close your eyes again and pretend to yourself as if you have not opened them. By the way breakfast should be finished before 8am when our digestive system is the most active.

If you become awake half an hour before the alarm time, you should continue sleeping because you do not want to spoil the Pavlov's process towards Pavlov's effect. But if you become awake five minutes before the bell time, you should wake up immediately before any voice whispering in your head to talk you into sleeping a few minutes more. This automatic wakeup happens because your biological wakeup clock starts to function. Turn off the buzzer and you will feel proud of yourself that you outrival it. You can even plot a graph of your wakeup time.

When you get used to it, you will wake up yourself on time even one second before the alarm rings or when on rare occasion you do not have an alarm, for example the alarm breaks down etc. Anyway you must strictly continue using the alarm to build the Pavlov's effect and circadian rhythm.

There are many reasons that some people have difficulty sleeping at night (insomnia). But generally to solve that we should:
1) avoid consuming anything that has caffeine.
2) avoid white sugar and its product. It brings up the sugar level in the blood to an unnatural state.
3) not take sleeping pills. Do not mess up with our body chemicals.
4) exercise. Sweat it out. You will fall asleep quicker. Do not do the exercise before sleep though.
5) not take a nap in the day.
6) again, wake up on time in the morning.

There are nights that are hot and you cannot fall asleep. You can take a quick cooling shower for the whole body or just for the lower body.

If you wake up in the morning, wash your face and you fall asleep on bed again, that may be a symptom that you have health problem. You are not downright sick though because you can still carry on your daily job. Do not take that as an excuse to wake up late. Deal with it. You know what is lacking for your health for example exercise or dietary fiber.

If you have hearing problem, you need to use a timer light or establish a mechanical system that can get your attention when it is wakeup time. That is also for people that do not have hearing problem but will sleep thru the alarm.

Start doing it tonight! Do not be discouraged if you cannot make it tomorrow morning. Come back to this article again. Consider it as an experiment like what Pavlov was doing. Come to think of it, we should also "wake up" on time from "sleep" in some matters of self improvement so that we do not miss the good opportunities in life.

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