I hate having to wake up early in the morning. Any tips on making it a generally more pleasant experience?

I don’t think you can turn, you either are or you aren’t, but what could help easing the transition out of bed rather than a jarring alarm clock is one that wakes you up slowly with lights and sounds.It is more of a natural wake up that might help you.

I agree with blondie411 that you either are or aren’t a morning person, it’s hard to make the transition. What concerns me is the headaches, nausea and fatigue. Do you get enough sleep? Are you eating a balanced diet? Drink enough water? Drinking a glass of water as soon as you wake up could help the nausea and headaches.

Start the day with your favorite music playing in your ears. It works for me.

Sometimes I don’t get enough sleep and sometimes I do. The point is, I feel really dead in the morning if I have to get out of bed when I’m not ready yet. I mean like, eyes struggling to stay open. Only on the weekends when I can lay in bed until I am completely awake do I not experience the symptoms that I described earlier. I’m just looking for suggestions to lessen the blow of the shitty experience of waking up.

If you go to sleep at the same time every night even weekends, you will get yourself into a pattern of waking up on time. Eating well and sleeping go hand and hand though.

Give yourself a little extra time in the morning to do something you enjoy. Read, watch tv, exercise, whatever you like to do. I look forward to the little time in the morning that I allow myself before I need to work.

Sounds like a slow, soft, shockless wakeup is the key. There are products to help with it. You can be a soft-landing morning person, but probably never a snapping-awake
morning person. Will you settle for that?

Set your alarm clock an hour EARLIER. I WISH I could get up at 7! Go to bed earlier and do this 7 days a week.

Practice.

Automatic coffeepot with a timer…the smell alone makes me smile in my sleep, and then you get caffeine! (that’s my drug!)

I have the same problem, although some days ae better than others. It seems that for me if I can get a last 20 minute doze before having to get up, I don’t feel sick. Maybe try an alarm clock set 20 minutes earlier and then a doze feature. I don’t use an alarm clock (which helps too) – my “wake and doze” is my husband getting up and taking his shower.

I also look forward to 20 minutes reading the New York Times when I get up, so that helps me get out of bed sometimes. (Although most days, it makes me feel like getting right back in.)

1. An alarm clock that plays CDs or MP3s.

2. A coffee pot with a timer: set it for when you want to get up, so that just brewed coffee smell will reach you just on time. If you prefer tea, get some loose tea, filters, and experiment with how many filters you need to brew decent tea the same way.

3. Get some steel cut oatmeal and a slow cooker. Put the oatmeal along with milk, butter, honey, and cinnamon in the slow cooker the night before. That way when you wake up, you’ve already got breakfast ready and it is super delicious.

4. Stick to getting up at the same time every day. It makes it easier.

Your body goes through a natural cycle called the Circadian Rhythm. If you get yours accustomed to being up at night then you need to re-train your body to a daytime schedule.

There are a few things that can help with this. Keep in mind that I am not an expert, but I deal with insomnia so this is just from my personal experience.

Try to stay up longer and longer until you can get your body used to waking up at a certain time. You’re not going to be able to become a morning person over night. It might take several days or even a week to do.

Sleep more in some cases if it helps you wake up at the right time. Try taking 50mg of diphenhydramine (the antihistamine found in Benadryl) to help you get to sleep if needed.

When you wake up at the appropriate time, turn on all of the lights! It might be bright and uncomfortable, but the absorption of light by the retinas triggers the brain to stop producing melatonin.

That’s all I can think of for now. Hope that helps.

@ Vinitera – I lurve “you’re not going to become a morning person overnight.”

No pun intended. Soz, I just woke up actually. XD

I like the sun on my face in the morning.

I was never a morning person, always hated it. I did however manage to jump out of bed in no time, like you said. My trick was to leave the waking up bit as late as possible and go straight from sleeping to waking. That meant an exrta hour or so of sleep per day, making the process easier. It also meant no breakfast, or just grabbing something on the way. If I had a long and hard day ahead of me, I’d make some strong tea the night before and then just warm it up and drink it in the car. And of course I’d do as much as possible in the night, such as have my things ready, shave or leave the clothes on a chair so I don’t have to look for them. It generally took me less than 5mins to get from my pillow to my car.

After my daughter was born, all of this became irrelevant. I just wake up whenever she does and make her breakfast.

get laid the night before

@bostonbeliever: better yet, do it in the morning.

There’s a book that addresses this topic called Birds of a Different Feather. It’s worth a read.

1. Get up early and allow yourself to stumble through your morning half asleep, or
2. Get up at the last possible minute and rush to get out the door, and
3. Get up at the same time every day.

I find ways to make me feel better, like talking to someone you like.. or sipping tea in your garden.. I like things that rejuvenate that feeling..

Technology can solve everything :-)

Philips Wake Up Light:
http://www.wakeuplight.philips.co.uk/

SleepTracker:
http://www.amazon.com/SleepTracker-Pro-Sleep-Monitoring-Watch/dp/B000VHL9T8

I get that too!!! Getting up really early in the morning makes me feel sick! I’m 43 and the only solution I’ve found is my new work hours: 11 am to 8 pm.

Take up yoga. Five sun salutations in the morning can really help (I wish I was better at this). Also…um…coffee?

As someone who is the farthest from a morning person you can get (and yet still has to wake up early in the AM's), I recommend the Citrius Alarm Clock ( http://www.ornj.net/citrus/ ). It's a program that plays music directly from your PC (yes, PC, as in Windows XP or Vista) as an alarm. You can register for a one-time fee.

Features (taken from the link I gave):
– Set as many different alarms as you’d like
– Snooze mode lets you sleep in a little longer
– Wakes your computer from its low-power sleep mode
– MP3, WMA, and many other media types are supported
– Create playlists and wake up to a different song each morning
– Fade in alarm audio for relaxed awakening (My personal favorite)
– Alarm display with optional title (I like to label mine things like “Good Morning, Have a Great Day!”)

The only con I’d have to point out is that it’s good to set a back-up alarm for times when your computer might automatically restart, for example, if you’re running an update.

.

Other than that, I find that brushing my teeth first helps (maybe so I can get rid of that gunky night-mouth feeling) and doing things like picking clothes out and writing a list of things I’ll need to remember the the next day the night before. Little actions like this greatly reduce the morning-feeling-of-dread because there’s not so much to think about.

I’m not a morning person.
But there are some things that help me get up.
One thing I’ve noticed: I’m a lot less tired if I give myself time to wake up.

Alarm clocks are much too abrupt for me. And most of the time I ignore them anyway.
What works for me is just keeping the blinds open. The gradual light is a nice nudge.
Those wake-up lights might make a good alternative for that.

Another thing, which is a little odd, is that I’d ask my SO to turn the TV to a certain channel before they leave for work. (Unlike me, they are a morning person.) I’m a light sleeper, generally aware of what’s going on while I’m sleeping. I’d listen to the TV, still half asleep, resting but aware (based off of programming) of what time it was.

It was a very strange schedule. I knew I had to get into the shower before the second episode of Saved By The Bell came on. It got to a point where I could tell just by the music cued before a commercial where they were in the episode.

Either option, it’s just nice to know what time it is (so you can mentally prepare yourself to get up) without some loud obnoxious noise going off (that you learn to ignore anyway).

I am not a morning person, but I have to be at work at 7:20 A.M., meaning I have to be out of bed at 5:40 A.M. if I want to be on time. I never keep a fixed schedule, even on weekends I stay up until 2 or 3 A.M. I feel your pain. I have no solutions. I’ve been doing this my whole life, I’m sure my body rhythms are all sorts of messed up. Oh well, I’m happy (except when that alarm starts to sound at 5:20 A.M., ensuring at least two snooze cycles).

I feel your pain! I’m not a morning person at all but I have to be at work at 6:30 am everyday. I started taking melatonin to help get me to sleep early. It’s all natural stuff so you don’t feel like junk the next day. I still feel sick in the morning sometimes like I get dizzy and nauseas. I think it has a lot has to do with it being dark and 30 degrees outside in the morning. Summer mornings are much nicer. So, just chug coffee like I do until we find a real remedy ;)

Simple, sleep earlier and layer yourself with blankets :) a restless body is a cold one.

Do you share your bed with a partner? If possible, schedule the same waking times and enjoy a morning “quickie” everyday at 7am.

I solved my lack of being a morning person by getting a 2nd shift job. I can stay up late, sleep in, and still be ready for work in time. Awesome!

I live in Lancashire England and wake up listening to Tony Livesy he simply makes me laugh and I get up in a decent humour

Strange Thing that happenes to me:
If I go to bed at say, 10, I can barely wake up at 7.
If I go to bed at midnight, I can pull 6! I don’t get it! It is easier for me to wake up when I have less sleep because I feel lazy if I go to bed early ( I think)!

@90s_kid, I’m the same way. I can go on 3 hours of sleep just as well as I can 7 or 8; however, any less, and I’m screwed for the rest of the day. :-(

I completely agree with the coffee and music suggestions. That’s the first thing I do- make coffee and jam out to my Ipod…. makes me feel better about my life ;)

I loooove coffee while my classmates are still in the hot chocolate era. I hate hot chocolate. First of all, I don’t like chocolate (but somehow I love it :D) and it is waaay too sweet. Coffee wakes me up. And I sometimes have too much that I cannot sleep :S. It makes me pee, also. I will be up at 2:37 taking an hour long piss.

My advice: 1 get plenty of sleep about 8 to 10 hours…2 drink lots of water, especially before bed…3 sleep with your blinds open to slowly let light through…4 have a gradual volume increasing alarm clock…5 drink coffee or caffiene…6 last but not least try to sit under a somewhat bright light for about 30 min. This tricks ur body making it feels like late morning…oh and keep a steady strict sleeping schedule

I’d suggest that you ask your doctor for a reference to a sleep clinic. I had your symptoms for years, discovered that I had a sleep disorder. Now wish I had gotten that diagnosis, and the fix, years ago.

@jdogg But I am known for drinking too much water! I have 5 bottles a day (If I have ran that day)...Right now I might be drinking soda (it might possibly be a small possibility…maybe…) but I always am under a bright light :S.

Things I’d recommend:
1) Drink a glass of water before bed
2) Crack the window a bit (if it’s winter and you’re West of the Mississippi or in a snowy region maybe just a tiny crack) so you don’t overheat while you sleep, which will dehydrate you and make you irritable when you wake up
3) Take your normal hot shower, but turn the temp to cold for the last minute. It will take your breath away literally but it increases your circulation and is actually good for the complexion (so I hear). If you can’t stomach that, wash your face with cold water, which does the same sort of thing.
4) Don’t eat a big dinner. Eat big breakfasts, medium lunches, but light, fresh, unsalty dinners.

I actually turned into a morning person when I discovered how pleasant it was to work in the garden very early in the morning. Perhaps if you could start doing something that you really love first thing, you could develop a pleasant incentive to get out of bed.

a really great thing that gets me going in the morning is meditation.
it takes only 5 to 10 minutes and is really effective.
when i haven’t meditated, my mornings are always awful.
i would suggest this and listening to energizing music, which really boosts your energy

toke a lil reef

If you have an IPhone, try the ‘Sleep Cycle’ app. It is really nice. There is also a ‘Deep Sleep’ app by Andrew Johnson. I use both each night, his voice really puts me to sleep!

The nausea thing could be hunger. Try having a snack before you get out of bed – someone suggested oats, which would be good but the preparation may be too much bother. An oaty snack bar? Or even just a sugar fix like 2 choc chip cookies. When I was pregnant I suffered from morning sickness and eating before i got out of bed helped loads. Not that I think you are pregnant.

Do you drink a LOT of coffee? Or take a lot of any other addictive substance? illegal or not Because headaches and nausea can occur as part of withdrawal symptoms which would be happening because you’ve been asleep for 8 hours. If these symptoms are helped by taking the thing it could be that you are mildly addicted to it. Try weaning yourself off gradually.