Before the Holiday Break, I had been waking up most days at around 6. Starting when I returned from vacation, it felt as if I were not able to pull myself out of bed even had there been a box of donuts downstairs. This led to me feeling very rushed in the morning, and I knew I had to come up with something, so naturally I started by simply experimenting.
At first, I just altered the sound on my alarm, hoping to prevent me from sleeping through the same noise over and over. I soon found these noises did a much better job of waking my mom than it did me.
Onto the next try! At this point, however, it had become a joke throughout the house. Rather than just go buy an alarm clock, my youngest sister and I had conclusively decided that it would be more enjoyable to be as creative, albeit ineffective, as possible.
Our first attempt was to use sunlight. If our ancestors woke up naturally to sunlight everyday, why can't I? Now, the problem was the sunlight hit the foot of my bed and went over my head, so we removed the mirror from my wall and taped it to the foot of my bed. After adjusting the mirror for about an hour, we were able to redirect the sunlight to my pillow. Unfortunately, the sun in the afternoon does not strike the same spot as in the morning, so no cigar.
Next, we tried the dog. She is up at 5 in the morning anyway, and so we left her in my room for the night and hoped for the best. Technically speaking, this worked perfectly. I was awake at 6 in the morning. Contrarily, I had not slept at all yet since the dog believed she was entitled to my blankets and had stolen them all for her king size doggy bed on the floor. Closer, but not quite.
The last, and most successful, attempt was actually changing what I did before I went to bed. Before vacation, I had spent most nights before bed reading, studying, or something like that. I should confess, though, that the last few nights I had been watching YouTube until I fell asleep; quarantine is rough.
I went back to reading my Quantum Mechanics book every night before bed (great book, written by Professor Leonard Susskind on the basics of quantum entanglement theory, the Schrödinger equation, harmonic oscillators, vector spaces, particle dynamics, and tons more). I also tried to hangout with my dog awhile and avoid YouTube. With these changes, I have found myself able to wake up everyday again around 6, and all seems well again.
To the reader of this blog post, who undoubtedly finds this much less interesting than me, I ask whether anyone else experiences this. Is it easier for you also to fall asleep after reading versus watching Netflix/YouTube? Have you ever tried both? Do you even care?
Let's discuss in the comments, and I hope everyone is doing well.
 |
| Credit for Image |
.jpg&psig=AOvVaw2HZdzCIlEJ0emxTZX8geHD&ust=1610163579599000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAIQjRxqFwoTCNDp0Pa0i-4CFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD){kind=link}
I used to try to get myself to sleep by reading college textbooks by using their boredom. That is actually found out my passion for aerospace engineering. Now (when I have time) I read the Fundamentals of Astrodynamics. I find that reading books that are too entertaining can make you lose track of time, but using informational books helps you still do something productive before bed without losing sleep.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I also have trouble falling asleep. Most nights I'm out by 5am, which is well...extremely unhealthy. Every single night I watch netflix before going to bed, and I've found that I just end up not wanting to miss any part of the show - which led me to staying up for the entire night. Honestly, I'm just to lazy to fix my sleep schedule, and I feel like I'm already into this issue too deep.
ReplyDeleteI, personally, am more of a morning person then a night person, however, I still often find it hard for me to wake up early in the morning, depending on what time I go to sleep and how well I actually slept that night. For me, I have found that if I know I have to been up early in the morning, I try and get myself ready and in bed up 10, at the latest. Usually, I go on my phone and watch Tiktoks until I get tired, which is a bad habit that I am trying to break. I also find that if I don't get a proper amount of sleep at night or sometimes if I get too much sleep, I am tired the next day and well coffee can only do so much.
ReplyDeleteI never really feel motivated to get out of my bed in the morning. That being said I think that creating more and more creative and entertaining ways to get myself out of bed might actually give me more of an incentive to try rather then if I was going to try something simple and easy.
ReplyDeleteMy sleep schedule is fine with me but apparently not to others. I tend to go 2-3 nights without sleep and one night with at least 7 hours of sleep on rotation. I find that its hard to get out of be by 6:00 as well but usually that's when I have to go into school (so I don't have a choice.) I've found that On the nights I do sleep, playing rain noises or like wildlife noises help. Unfortunately then sometimes my alarm doesn't go off, so as a backup I have my family throw rocks or something I told them to throw at me so I wake up. I personally think I've been more lax with my sleep schedule though after break as sometimes I only stay up for 2 nights in a row.
ReplyDeletePersonally I believe the secret to waking up using an alarm is all in the alarm. A charming noise in the morning may be nice to listen to you, but it will not be enough to get you up and get you prepared for the day's challenges. A violent alarm always helps me out. I use the "morning call" trumpet song from Us army military training camps to wake me up, and I must say, it is extremely effective. IT shocks me so much that I feel refreshed and I feel ready to attack the day.
ReplyDeleteThis was a really fun way of writing about a common experience! FWIW, I also struggle to get up early, especially after my sleep schedule gets messed up on a break; I'm a night owl, and last spring on quarantine, I actually ended up doing most of my "work day" from 9pm-2am and I was soooo content with that! I have no advice, except that my husband has used our google home to set the bedroom lights to turn on precisely one minute after my alarm goes off, which definitely helps!
ReplyDeleteP.S. The way you ended your blog post, with a question, is perfect: invite conversation! Next marking period that type of ending will become part of the assignment.