Sometimes, you just don’t have the time to sleep the 9 hours you’d like to sleep. There’s a plane to catch, or an important meeting after a party with friends, or any number of things that cut your sleep short.
It happens more often than I’d like to, and over time I’ve developed some strategies that help me wake up on time, and at least semi-rested.
- Get some sleep! Seriously. You don’t want to know how often I’ve heard the “Oh, I’ll just stay awake” line. It’s going to turn you into a sleep-deprived automaton who’s barely able to stay awake with large coffee infusions. You’ll certainly not feel well. Even 30 minutes of sleep can be extremely relaxing. A nice trick if you can only get a nap and are afraid to fall asleep completely: Rest in a chair, with a keychain in your hand. As you fall asleep, your hand relaxes. The keychain falls to the ground, and you awake. Warning - does not work with carpet!
- Time your sleep Unless you’re going for a short nap, make sure you wake up during a light sleep phase. Most humans have a sleep cycle of roughly 90 minutes, and it’s easiest to wake up at the very beginning or end of that cycle. So make sure your sleep time is a multiple of 90 minutes - 1.5 hours, 3 hours, 4.5 hours. It will make it much easier for you to wake up.
- Keep the alarm away From your bedside, that is. Unfortunately almost all alarms available today have a snooze button - a really easy way to undermine even the best intentions. To avoid saying “five more minutes” ten times in a row and then having to dress & shower in 5 minutes, move the alarm away from your bedside. Make sure you still hear it, but also make sure you actually have to get out of bed to turn it off.
- Drink water. Lots. Before you fall asleep, make sure you drink plenty of water. Being dehydrated makes it harder for you to wake up, but that’s not the main point - it also is hard to stay in bed if you really have to go to the bath room. Anything that gets you out of bed is good.
- Bring in reinforcements One alarm is good. But if your sleep time is short and you can’t miss the alarm, two are better, and three really work. It’s almost impossible to miss three different alarms. If you only have one, use your cell phone. Your computer. Your iPod. Your NintendoDS. By now, pretty much anything that has a clock also has alarm functions. I wouldn’t be surprised if you could set a microwave to give wake-up calls. (Your coffee maker definitely will work!)
- Careful with the coffee. Drinking coffee before such a short night is a bad plan. It will prevent you from falling asleep when you want it, and make for a fitful sleep. Don’t drink any coffee at least six hours (twelve is better) before you go to bed, if you can avoid it. (As a side note, alcohol is bad also - your sleep won’t be restful at all) Even in the morning, tea is better than coffee. While coffee gives you a short energy burst, tea lasts quite a bit longer.
Of course, all those things work for “normal” sleep hours, too. I regularly sleep six hours, and those strategies make sure I always wake up on time and well rested.
After all, I need my morning time to write here!
When I had exams, I used to put the alarm clock on top of a shelf. If it’s hard enough to reach, it tends to wake you up quite a bit. The effect is enhanced when you pull on the wire and it falls on your head
An alternative method was to use my computer to play Carmen’s opening as an alarm. Quite effective too.
To be more civilized though, there was a post on 43Folders about how to wake up smoothly by using 2 alarm clocks: one that plays something smooth for 30 minutes and a second one, 30 minutes later, that plays something louder/stronger. The result would be that you have 30 minutes to get out of deep sleep and you don’t get woken up in the middle of a cycle. I wonder if there is any alarm clock that implements that…
I like the idea with Carmen. I have used the 1812 Overture for similar effect, but variation is always good
I don’t know of an alarm clock that implements this, but I do have a “Zen” alarm clock. It does a single ring of a bell, then is silent for a fairly long time. Then it rings again, and the interval gets progressively shorter. Quite nice to wake up to - although I do prefer “just getting it over with”.