Please let me know some tips for waking up for appointments?

I’m really not being a smart a$$, but can you make your appointments for later in the day for when you are awake?

@chyna I try that, but I have problems waking up before 5pm. Most appointments are on business hours.

I will ask my doctor on Wednesday. I am open to suggestions.

Like coffee, or water and vitamins. Ect.

What time do you go to bed at night? Describe your routine when you do go to bed.

Set your alarm clock and leave it across the room so you have to get up to turn the annoying thing off. Like @seawulf575 says…what time do you go to bed? Likely it’s just a habit you’ve let yourself get into, especially if you don’t have to get up, it’s easier just to stay in bed. Use your alarm and develop a healthy routine. I don’t have to get up unless I have an appointment, but I’m out of bed by 8:30 at the latest. I would get depressed if I stayed in bed all day.

If it’s earlier than I usually get going, I use two alarms set for about 15 minutes apart. And I fiercely promise myself not to hit any snooze buttons.

Trying to force an earlier bedtime is not so easy for some of us.

I used to do the across-the-room thing, and I also used to set the time a little bit ahead, but by an odd amount (like 17 minutes) so I couldn’t easily calculate the real time while half asleep.

But across the room, it wasn’t so loud, so I could ignore it. Set ahead, I could say I don’t have to get up yet. I no longer have a cat to pester me, and fear of job loss is no longer a factor. So two alarms.

That and having to pee.

@seawulf575 I go to bed at 8pm some times I stay up all night on YouTube/ Fluther and online shopping.

@Jeruba I used to work in the pricing department at a grocery store and I had to go in at insanely early hours. I tried to do the alarm clock thing across the room, but then I would just get up, walk across the room, and set it for another hour of sleep. My technique right now is that I set three alarms on my cell phone. One for 7:00 a.m., one for 7:20 a.m., and one for 7:30 a.m. The first one kind of gets me out of a deep sleep usually, the second one is the warning that I have to get up soon, and the third one is when I have to get up.

@RedDeerGuy1 my phone can definitely be my worst enemy and I too like to watch YouTube videos late. You just have to ki
get yourself to put it down, which I know is easier said than done. I do like those long videos on YouTube with the sound of rain falling. I’ll put one of those on and turn my phone face down and listen to that to help me fall asleep.

The ironic thing is that any number of years ago I decided not to have a TV in my room anymore because I would tend to stay up too late watching it. But now I have my phone and since that’s my only alarm clock, it’s in my room.

Caffeine never helped me as it relaxed me & I slept deeper!!! Since I’ve retired, I find the most irritating alarm sound that’s out there to have for those days that I REALLY need to get up. I set the snooze button on my phone where it goes off every 5 minutes. That way I’m NOT going back into a good sleep before it goes off again. I also set it so it will alarm FOREVER & NOT only 3 or 5 times & then goes off for the day. It becomes so annoying that I can’t go back to sleep out of the dread of it going off again. I’ve also gotten to where I set it a couple hours before I really need to be up so I have time to goof off & still be awake when I need to be.

You might also want to STOP staying up all night the night before your appointment. That way you’ll be more rested the next day. If you get up earlier the next day, you can reward yourself with some time online before you need to actually get ready!!! It does give your brain something to look forward to!!!

Buy a cheap alarm clock and put it across the room. Don’t rely on your phone.

hmmm…online shopping…so you’re losing sleep and money and appointments. O_o

Do you have trouble sleeping when you finally get to bed? Medications can disrupt sleep cycles, making it hard to wake up. I just increased an anti-depressant to help me sleep. It works so badly as an anti-d that they use it for sleep instead LOL

@smudges Mostly online shopping for groceries. Sometimes I listen to a whole audiobook at night.

Try playing a difficult puzzle on your phone that has 255 to 400 pieces. Trust me when I say your eyes will just eventually want to close from the extreme boredom of looking at 50 different blues or reds or light colors like beige. There will be a point where you say whatever and just go to sleep. Can’t say it always works, if you had caffeine or sugar before bed. Sugar can make you hot and sweaty. And when I say sugar, not just the white stuff. It can be from fruits as well. Anyhow, besides what was already mentioned above about putting the alarm clock far you can also start to train yourself to wake up at the same time everyday.
After you set your alarm, repeat in your mind and visualize the time you will wake up. Keep repeating the time over and over. Believe it or not, your body knows what every hour is like. I do this for trips all the time and appointments. If I set the alarm to ring at 8 am, I will keep repeating 730 in my mind and I will wake up at 730. Sometimes I’m a minute to 5 minutes early but it gives me more time to prepare and shake off the sleep. I do it for naps as well.

Before I go to bed I decide what I will have for breakfast. Sometimes I write a not to myself as a reminder. Having that image in mind – and being hungry – gives me more incentive to get up.
Needing to pee also works. Drinking a glass of water before bed works wonders in that department.

They are not important enough for you apparently. When we don’t really care our brain sabotages itself.
Justify their importance to you doing it.

Personally, annoying alarms will wake me up for a second, but my brain is so reliably offline at those times that I turn alarms off. I once woke up to a blaring siren from the restaurant across the street and woke up enough to close the window groggily – when actually, I should have called the police because someone had broken in! My prefrontal cortex (the adult human being of the brain) is just not active. It’s like the decision-making and responsible me is strapped in the backseat, while an irrational preschooler is sitting in the driver’s seat.

Is that your problem, too? You wake up for a second, but go back to sleep before you’re alert enough to make sensible choices?

For that problem, I’ve found that it helps to make the morning as appealing and comfortable as possible. For example, I had an important appointment today. My alarm woke me up, and I saw that I had put a juice box on my nightstand and a cereal box and my laptop close to the bed. I then remembered that my plan was to eat cereal, drink juice, and watch a fun show in bed to wake up. Literally a preschooler’s idea of a good morning!

By the time I’ve had twenty minutes of that, I’m alert enough to actually get up (I put my phone with the second alarm across the room to make that happen).

When I can, I also pay attention to my sleep cycles as waking up between them is much easier than in the middle of one. Here’s a page that calculates the ideal wake-up times for you: https://startsleeping.org/sleep-calculator.

@RedDeerGuy1 , You said you have trouble getting up before 5 PM. Don’t you get hungry?

@RedDeerGuy1 My wife has a hard time “turning off” at night. But she got into the habit as a child that she has to have a TV on for her to go to sleep. But that, like YouTube, Fluther, and online shopping, are stimulations. She wakes up numerous times through the night, can’t get a good nights sleep, etc. She got advice one time (not from me) that the TV was her problem. When you go to bed, the bedroom ought to be only for one of 2 activities and neither involves the TV (or the cell phone).

If you are going to bed at 8 pm, 8 hours of sleep is 4 am, not 5 pm. If you are routinely needing more than 8 hours of sleep, you may want to look at a physical or psychological reason why. You might have depression, for example.

If you want to break the cycle and be able to be functional during daylight hours, you have to change the routine. Set yourself a time that you will turn off all outside stimuli such as 10 pm. Don’t go to bed to play on your phone…sit up in the living room to do that. At 10 pm, you have to go to bed. For the first few days you will likely toss and turn as your mind tries to deal with changing habit. If you HAVE to, take a little melatonin but keep the doses low. Too much and you will have the strangest dreams you have ever had. Set an alarm to get you up by 7 or 8 am. Get up when the alarm goes off…don’t ride the snooze button for hours. If you are a coffee drinker, limit it to just a couple cups in the morning and absolutely none after noon. Establish an exercise routine whether it is calisthenics or riding a bike or walking/running for at least half an hour each day.

These things will help you function on a different circadian rhythm than you are currently on. This is 30 years of rotating shift work talking.

Having a regular schedule for sleeping and waking up would be the best solution. Then if you have to toggle it a bit for a slightly earlier appointment, an alarm on your phone or a clock wouldn’t be so difficult to respond to.

Yeah, I shop online for my groceries, too. My back won’t tolerate walking around a supermarket. Usually all I do online is reading headlines followed up by article if I’m interested, self-improvement stuff, fluther, and games – not huge games where half the world is playing, but Mahjong, crosswords, that sort of thing.

I do find that if I’m looking at my phone or computer, time flies and it takes a lot longer to get sleepy, I guess because my brain is really engaged. But if I’m watching tv my attention can wander and my eyes get tired and ‘blinky’ sooner. So maybe watch tv for the last hour that you’re up?

Place your alarm clock on the other side of the room away from your bed.

@LostInParadise I have a fruit tray or pop when hungry.

Then the solution may be to not have any food nearby to force you to get out of bed to eat.

If you’re in a cycle that has you sleeping until 5 p.m., the best solution for you might be what worked for my husband: make the appointment for as early in the morning as possible, and just stay up for it. Go to bed when you get home.

The main problem as I see it isn’t the getting up, it’s the going to bed. You go to bed early, but then stay awake doing stuff. Why not try staying up until 10 doing those things, then go to bed and leave your phone or laptop or whatever in the other room. If you’re about to tell me that you use your phone for an alarm so you need it in the bedroom – great solution – buy an alarm clock. I think you know the answer to your problem, and maybe don’t want to stop playing all night?

@Jeruba Thanks I will do that. Will update in around the end of May, or beginning of June.

@smudges I use both clock radio alarm and alarm on my phone.

I think you know the answer to your problem, and maybe don’t want to stop playing all night?

@smudges Yes. I am just looking for unique solutions that I never heard of. I will discuss with my doctor tomorrow and my counselor tomorrow afternoon.

I was wondering if it was a brain problem that can be fixed with medicine or diet? I did not include exercise, because It’s not going to happen.

Thanks all for the suggestions. I will update when new information arrives.

Have a very bright light shine in your face when the alarm goes off. It might help you make those upcoming appointments.

Good luck! Sleep problems affect so many people and it’s often hard to figure out exactly what’s going on. I’m dealing with it myself right now. My calves are hot and itch so badly that they wake me up 3–4 times per night! Getting an anti-itch cream tomorrow.

@LuckyGuy needing to pee has become my newest effective way of waking up!

@RedDeerGuy1 maybe that’s a key to the solution. Drink lots of water before you go to bed and you’ll be forced to get up after a certain amount of sleep.

@RedDeerGuy1, yeah, my husband was not into making lifestyle changes either. So that’s what worked. He even handled a 9:30 a.m. appointment that way.

My son, facing a three-hour drive to the airport every time he came home from school, did the same thing. He always said it was easier to stay up than to get up.

Why didn’t it work to set an alarm? Now that I carry a “mobile device” around most of the time, I find that it’s alarm and calendar features are quite useful for reminding me to do many things.

I do the same as @LuckyGuy. Lots of water before bed. Use my bladder as a partial alarm.

Also sleep with the blinds open. The gradual shift in light helps wake me up.

And an Alexa alarm in another room that I can’t easily turn off. Bonus: Set it to play a song you hate.