As it happens, I don’t use an alarm clock. I have nothing against alarm clocks or the alarm industry, but I find they don’t work for me; they don’t let me sleep. Now, I know what you’re thinking.
“But Dave… alarm clocks are supposed to prevent you from sleeping.”
This is true. However, they are supposed to let you sleep through the night relaxed and assured that you’ll be up in time the next morning ready for that big meeting, that early flight or that walk.
Alarm clocks have a different effect with me. They make me tense and assure that I will not, at any point, enter into deep REM sleep. In fact, you can be pretty sure what will actually happen is that I will jolt awake every twenty to thirty minutes to check the clock and see how much longer I have until the alarm goes off… because I wouldn’t want to miss the alarm or have the alarm wake the rest of my family.
So… alarm equals no sleep. No sleep equals grumpy Dave. Grumpy Dave equals bad day at work as I’m supposed to be the one motivating people.
Since I don’t like alarm clocks, I’ve switched to a mental alarm. When it’s time for bed, I simply look at the clock, tell myself what time I want to wake up and how long I’ll be sleeping (“It’s 11;15. I want to be up at 5 am, so I need to wake up in 5 hours and 45 minutes). I then go blissfully to sleep and, except for that 3am trip to the bathroom (I believe I covered the issues regarding proper hydration yesterday), I sleep through and pop my eyes open at 5am (+/- 5 minutes)… everytime.
It’s not just a matter of developing regular sleeping habits as I will wake at widely different times on any given day. The key is to just go through the exercise of looking at the clock and telling myself when to wake up. If I do that, I will. It’s a nice trick that I picked up years ago in the pages of 73 magazine.
So it’s a mental exercise. However, it’s also vulnerable to mental trickery. To whit, I woke up at about 3:30 for the above-mentioned hydration issue, and it was storming out. Really storming out. Rapid fire thunder and lightning. Rain pouring so hard that I couldn’t see the car in the parking lot. A fairly certain feeling that the basement was flooding (it didn’t) but that I was too tired to go check it out. Storming. I took stock and told myself that I would check the weather at 5am, and if it was still raining out, I would go ahead and sleep in until 7am and drive in…
…and it was at that exact moment that my alarm switched from 5am to 7am. The minute I gave myself a reason not to walk in, my subconscious kicked in and said “7:00 it is!!”
So… no exercise for me yesterday. Bad boy!
Cool. I think I might actually like to try that out, though the question is HOW. Generally when I set an alarm clock I can’t risk being late, and when I don’t it’s a mental clue that I can sleep in.
Hm. It’s too late for me, I guess. 🙁
Actually, I found there was almost no learning curve. Just a matter of going through the motions of telling yourself the drill. Of course, doing the same with “You will drop 100 pounds” doesn’t seem to work quite as well.
Yeah I’ve used that concept myself. Usually I prefer a clock radio though…so I don’t worry about oversleeping, but don’t get jolted awake either.
My mother actually used to use the cat as an alarm clock. They would take a nap and she would say something like “Wake me up in 20 minutes”…and he WOULD.
Cats are incredibly smart. I can see that they could do that. I am, however, a bit surprised that any cat would be willing to help out a lowly human in any way. Go figure…
I do have to set the alarm. But I’ve found if I need to be up at 5:30, and I set it for that time I’ll be awake at 3:30 and won’t get back to sleep. Set it for 5:24 and I’ll sleep through til then. I’m not sure what part of the brain does this but it can be a pain. If I don’t set the alarm, I’ll wake up at 6.
Still a mental game… just different rules.
I so need to get back out to Fort Collins for a few days…