Waking up early can be trained

Who should this read?
- people who overhear the alarm clock while sleeping
- people who constantly go back to bed after turning off the alarm clock
- people who have a general problem with getting up in time

As the classical conditioning, where certain stimulus become associated with actions, you can train your body to wake up early. From another perspective: you can make a game out of it!

Here is what I do:

I think of a wake up routine for every morning, mine is:

1. standing up
2. turning on the light
3. turning off the alarm clock
4. putting on my glasses
5. going straight into the bathroom

Take a sheet of paper and a green pencil for a tally marks. During the day, when you are home set your alarm clock for 3-5min and lay down into your bed. Try to relax, pretend you want to sleep, just lighten up. When the alarm clock rings stand up and follow the routine you have thought of. After that is done, draw a line on the sheet of paper.

Repeat this a few times on the day, especially at least one time before you go to bed. When you finally go to bed, thing of the routine which you are going to perform.

The next morning you will rise up like a thunderstorm. Follow your routine and DO NOT forget to make a new line on your tally mark sheet. If, however, you:

i) keep on sleeping
ii) turn of the alarm clock and go to bed again
iii) do overhear the alarm clock

Erase all your tally marks you have collected so far (yes, also those which you have gained through training). This does not feel good, does it? So go back and train again and trust me, next time it will work.

Finally some tips:

- If possible, choose always the same time of getting up
- If possible, choose always the same time of going to bed

- If you don't like something of this, try to vary it: maybe you like giving yourself a red line for each time you fail more

- Try to keep the routine short, if you do too many things I think this will not work fast enough or it needs more preparation

- Something which I have learned bitterly is the fact, that this cannot replace sleep: if you are to overtired, your body will reject this method