Tips for getting out of bed quicker in the mornings?

Question

Every night I tell myself, 'well I just stand up and do my morning routine'. My morning routine is efficient and brilliant, it contains a workout, coffee, and always plenty of time to start the day without a hurry. But I'm annoyed about the amount of time it takes from the first alarm bell till I actually manage to force myself out of bed. I tend to snooze.

• :-) it helps that my alarm clock lets me snooze for only half an hour (once every five minutes. imagine! how annoying!)
• :-) it sometimes works for me to count myself down from ten to zero, but
• :-( I trick myself, slowing down the count so much so that I fall asleep again before I get to zero and
• :-( I rarely even think of doing this.
• :-( it does not work to put the alarm clock somewhere else, forcing me to get up and walk around.

How can I reduce the time between first alarm bell and getting up?

EDIT: what has helped best is understanding that snoozing is totally habitualized and therefore, waking (and staying up) on the first beep also is. Simple, but not easy. Thank you everyone for awesome ideas!

Answer 1

I actually had this problem. I used to time myself about 2 hours ahead of my scheduled arrival to work. Getting to the office is about 15 to 20 minutes. So that leaves me about 1 hour and 30 minutes to do anything I want. The problem was that I had 1 hour and 30 minutes to do anything I want. Reduce your preparation time. That way you will not take a snooze and go do what you actually need to do. When I wake up in the morning it goes directly to sitting down on the bed. Prepare all the stuff I need to bring while sitting on the bed. Then getting up and taking a shower, get dressed, get my stuff and move out. This takes me about 30 minutes to do.

Answer 2

A great solution I found to this was placing the alarm clock at the foot of my bed beyond my reach. I therefore had to get out of bed to hit the snooze button. I found that once I was actually out of bed, I naturally wanted to stretch and begin my daily routine.

Answer 3

The way I look at it is this: I have a drop-dead time that I need to be out of bed in the morning in order to get to work on time. Let's say that's 07:00.

If I get out of bed after 07:00 I'll miss the train and then be late for work.

Why would I set my alarm for 6:30 and have luxury of "snoozing", when I could have the luxury of actually sleeping from 6:30 to 07:00? Set the alarm for the last moment that you know you can perform your morning routine and still get to where you need to be. Sleep, then, when the alarm wakes you, there is no scope for pressing snooze - you need to be moving!

Those 30 minutes will be quality sleep and will mean you are getting more sleep and better sleep.

Some days, you might find that you start to wake before the alarm goes-off. This will only happen if you've had enough good-quality sleep. THEN you can check the clock, see that you have 30 minutes until drop-dead time, and make a decision whether to revel in your well-earned "snooze-time" or get-up early and have a more leisurely morning routine.

Answer 4

I once had an alarm clock that had to be physically thrown across the room to shut the h*** up. (one of those miniature football ones) The exercise woke me up. But as I got older, and included other people in my life and home, my girlfriend started putting sh** that can break around my... I mean our bedroom. Now I just have her. But she does deliver coffee to me before I even consider getting out of bed, and that usually helps. Either by the caffeine content, or spilling hot liquid on my chest - both works.

Answer 5

Is there anything that will keep you awake? For example, put your favorite game open on your computer before you go to bed and put it by your alarm, which is further away from your bed. Then when you wake up to turn off the alarm, you'll want to play which will wake you up more.

Answer 6

It may be the case that you are not getting enough and/or good quality sleep. [I've found out that I need to sleep a certain amount of time and if I don't I want to snooze for the rest of the time I've missed sleeping (and this has nothing to do with what time I go to bed).] Maybe what you need to do is reschedule your inner clock (there is a lot of useful information on the internet on how to do that) so that you go to bed earlier and get the actual amount of sleep you need, or reconsider you overall sleeping routine so that you get better quality sleep (there is a lot of information on that, too), or both.

Answer 7

In addition to the other's advices, I think it's important to consider another aspect of the morning routine : being rigorous and forcing you to do stuff to wake up might not be the solution for everyone.

You need to give yourself the WILL to wake up, by setting everything you need in the morning the day before, at bedding time.

For instance set a timer on your coffee machine if you're a coffee lover, the smell can help, use a nice sunlight dimmer lamp, set all your clothes for the day ready to wear, keep your place clean and things easy to find.

Answer 8

Another thing you might want to try is opening a window/curtain. Having sunshine directed at you right after the alarm clock, can really help for waking you up.

Also, the urgency trick and allowing enough sleep time and quality works well for me too.

Answer 9

If you are running late then make your bed in bed.

.First pull your covers to where you want them to go.

.Then roll out of bed

. Fluff your pillows

                  > And you're done!!!

Answer 10

I use a wake-up light without a snooze button. Now, I built mine myself and the plans aren't ready yet, but I suspect you can get something like that on the market.¹ It's not necessary that the unit fully wake you up—if it does not, it will still make your body more prepared to be awake when your other alarm rings.

Speaking of which, an older trick is to set a very loud alarm to ring 5 minutes after your primary alarm. You are supposed to want to wake up at the first alarm, because the second is so loud and annoying. You need to turn it off before it rings. This should be a different device than your first alarm, so it acts independently and can be placed outside your room—all the better to motivate you to take care of it before it rings. Put it in a window, and you'll know you're annoying neighbors if you don't turn it off.

[1] For the wake-up light, I suggest a unit with LEDs, because an incandescent unit will show different brightnesses depending on which bulb you buy. Or to imitate this solution, put a lamp on a timer, but it will induce a degree of discomfort which isn't present in a light that brightens according to something like brightness = (minutes until alarm / 20)³. I had a Philips light, but didn't like it much.

Answer 11

Firstly, there should be in your mind that how much sleep do you require in a day. -there should be at least a gap of one hour between your taking dinner and going to bed. -Before going to bed, drink some water. -There should be suitable temperature and air crossings in the room. -Ensure that there is not any kind of noise or disturbance. -Make an alarm of 15 minutes before the getting up time. -Not total darkness, a very dim light should be there in your room. -Go to bed 15 minutes before your sleeping time. -You should awake up on the alarm ring and be in the sitting position immediately and should be out of the bed well before 15 minutes of the alarm ring.