How do I fight the urge to stay in bed?

It’s not so difficult, but it will take some change in your thinking.

It seems right now – based solely on the dearth of information you have provided us (such as how much sleep you’re getting, for example, or why you want to get up at a particular time of the morning) – that you have “Get up at 7 AM” as a goal.

Goal-setting is probably not the best way to achieve what you want. What you need is a system of sleeping that puts you to bed at a reasonable hour so that you can get “sufficient” sleep – however much that is – and then arise to begin a healthy and productive day.

Is it on a work day that you lounge for two hours? Are you lounging with coffee, computer and/or TV or just laying in bed doing nothing?

Yes, I did work last night and I went to bed at 11, so I thought 7 would be a good time. But my bed is just too comfortable…

Drink a lot of water.

That right there sounds like what they call a ‘First World problem’.

Anyway, my big issue is fighting the urge to GO to bed. I’ll hit the sheets at 2:30 a.m. and still always wake up at 6:00.

(‘Circadian rhythm’ or some damn thing, I guess….)

If you don’t have to be up by 7 don’t sweat it, let your body sleep til it is ready to wake up or go to bed earlier by 9:30. I need a 9 hour night to feel my best, everyones sleep requirements are different and change at various times in our life. I haven’t used an alarm clock in years, I naturally wake up when I am ready to.

Get your coffee pot set up the night before so that your coffee will be hot, ready and aromatic when you’re supposed to get out of bed. You can smell it now, can’t you?
And you could have someone come in every morning to fix bacon, eggs, and toast for your breakfast. You can smell that right now too, can you not?? This person could also tell you, gently, “GET THE HELL OUT OF THAT BED!”

What I used to do when I was young and single and out at night was have my alarm set on a book case away from my bed. That meant I had to get out of bed to turn it off.

Get to bed early.
Put your alarm away from the bed so you’d have to get up to turn it off.

If you’re someone who lays in bed with your phone, Netflix, or even eats in bed it could help to stop doing that as your body and mind need to begin to associate your bed as the place where you sleep and only as that.
Give yourself time to settle down an hour before you plan to go to sleep each night. Time to just lay and relax without distractions. No phone, but a book is good if you need something to do. The light phones emit does something with your brain to keep you awake. A physical book won’t do that.
For when you actually wake up in the morning and need to fight the urge to roll back over in bed and not get up, keep a water bottle on a night stand or something like that and start drinking as soon as you turn off the alarm. Water really helps to awaken and energize you more than you’d think.

I would drink a big glass of water before bed. That’s what the Native Americans (“Indians”) did before an early morning raid or battle.

(I avoid liquids after 7:00 pm so I can make it through the night without having to get up.)

That one would not work for me. I would be up at three, then struggle to get back to sleep, and then be late getting up.
It does help to have something specific you look forward to waiting when you get up, like coffee, or some special breakfast item.

For starters, get out of bed.

If I’m off, I don’t feel guilty about hanging around in the morning, having some coffee in a leisurely manner, watching TV and/or being on the computer. If I have to work, I have a little time to lay in bed but then I have to get up and start the coffee and pay attention to the clock. That’s why I asked if it’s a work day that you’re talking about.

Money Shredding Alarm Clock

@josie is actually right here. Get out of bed, even if it seems like torture to do so. Sometimes, the first step is the hardest. When you get out of bed, it may be much easier for you to stay awake and not get back.

It’s weird, but sometimes this works.

I once had this issue as well.
The solution per a mention by a friend is having my alarm clock on the opposite side of the room from my bed so that I’m forced to get up and walk to turn it off.

Once you’re up, inertia will demand that you keep going.
Inertia (Newton’s first law of motion): An object at rest will remain at rest and an object in uniform motion will remain in uniform motion in a straight line unless compelled to act otherwise by an external force.

You fight it by getting out of bed.

@RedDeerGuy1 That is a clever idea! Just the thought of it would get me out of bed quickly.

Don’t

Maybe a cat. It will claw you out of bed when it wants food.

I was a little bit rushed when I responded to this question at first, so I didn’t put in some detail that might have made it a more useful answer.

When I say to “change your system” I mean, for example, to forget about an alarm clock in general. I have a bedroom clock, and I do refer to it from time to time (no pun intended), but I almost never set an alarm. Only in extreme cases when I have to, say, get up at 4 AM to catch a plane, for example, will I use the alarm. For day to day use – and for getting to work on time – I just wake up when I wake up, and my morning routine is built to give me plenty of spare time before I have to dash out the door to avoid being late for work.

But the system that gets me there is: knowing about how much time I will need to sleep every day to wake up – on my own, with no external prompting – on time to get a shower, pack a lunch, and spend some time relaxing before I leave the house for the day. On the times when I really do sleep in late (or in the winter, when I have to shovel the driveway before I leave for work), the only thing sacrificed is my “lounge on the couch with Facebook and Fluther” before leaving, and that’s a totally flexible time.

Don’t get me wrong: I don’t like to bounce out of bed every morning, either! Left to my own devices, I can easily read in bed between occasional snoozes, and spend hours before I “get up to start the day”. But on weekdays I’m out of bed by 6:30 on most mornings (sometimes earlier) and only occasionally as late as 7 AM if I had a particularly late night the day before.

Part of the reason this system works for me – as it may work for you, too – is that I don’t have a tremendous amount of willpower to will myself to do things that I would prefer not to do. (Conversely, not enough willpower to avoid doing things that I like to do, but shouldn’t.) So the system is now… just a habit. A workable system that becomes a habit takes zero effort to achieve.

@Myusernamenotyours I like @CWOTUS answer above. I like getting up when I wake up and it is not hard once you start doing that. So pull up your socks and “just do it”. After a few days you’ll love the “extra” time you have.