(Hooray for cheesy stock photos!)
A device to dump cold water on your head? Too messy.
Spring device under your bed to catapult you out? Too dangerous.
Hire someone to bang pots and pans in your ears? Not very cost efficient.
Marching band outside your window? Unless Nick Cannon is on drums, meh. (That's right...I liked Drumline).
How about a little imagination? That's the ticket!
A few weeks ago, I started having a recurring thought as I woke up. A sort of disconnect from reality. My alarm at home (different from the one I've used during my 4 years at college), is not very loud and the snooze alarm only lasts 5 minutes (whereas the other lasts 9 minutes). With the one at school, I can hit the sleep button around two times and the loud radio-set alarm, accompanied by the 9 minute interval of the snooze button is just satisfying enough to coax me out of bed.
My alarm at home, however, creates a much different routine. Instead of tolerating the alarm, it immediately makes me mad and, as a result, I play this sort of game with it, which, as I think about it now, is completely silly, but my sleep-dazed brain seems to think it is the right thing to do. The alarm has this weird effect on me when it starts going off; increasing its cadence and volume every 10 seconds. I quickly swing my arm over to smack the snooze button, then roll over, back to sleep, grumbling about how the alarm could possibly have the audacity to wake me up.
After I play this game about 5 times (I'm not sure who wins each time I do it?), my brain switches into a different mode. Instead of trying to beat the alarm clock, I bargain with it. The little good and evil cartoons pop up on each of my shoulders and tell me what to do. Unfortunately, like a pesky television-remote you aren't sure how to use, the good "angel" voice in my head is on mute, and I can't figure out what button to push to un-mute her. (Stupid brain-technology; all haywire in the morning.) So what does the evil voice sound like, and what does it say to me? It's very fitting: He sounds like the smarmy voices from TV commercials that talk quickly and try to convince you to buy those $19.95 products. In real life, I see these types of commercials for what they are (usually a rip off), but semi-asleep Derek buys into them every time. Another 5 visits to the snooze alarm then ensue.
Now, about an hour after I had planned to get up, I'm starting to get sick of the alarm clock, and out of pure despise, I turn the thing off and groggily roll out of bed to start the day, the war between man and machine over. One hour of my life gone, never to return.
One night I was thinking about how this particular morning routine has become, well, just that...a routine. I became mad at myself for not having the self-discipline to get up at the time I had decided on the night before. The whole summer thus far, the evil little salesman in my head has been swindling me out of my hard-earned dream money with the same ploys:
"Just hit the snooze button one more time and I guarantee, you will feel perfectly rested and ready to begin your day."
"Still tired? No worries! By wasting only 5 more minutes of your life, you will wake up feeling great."
"What else do you have to do? Just lay there a little longer, and I promise, by the next {beep, beep} you'll be raring to go."
Enough was enough! I decided to take action. What I saw as the root of my problem (the evil salesman) became my solution. By actually imagining that little thought in my head as a REAL salesman getting my REAL money by convincing me to hit the snooze alarm, could I effectively give myself a reason to wake up??? While the theory is still in testing, I am seeing some results. Perhaps its the increased brain activity I'm forcing on myself, or maybe it's just the fact I am very frugal, I've been finding it slightly easier to wake up. It's like a game I'm playing with myself really.
I'm thinking of adding a tangible incentive to the experiment now. Perhaps rewarding myself for getting up. A package of hostess mini-blueberry muffins on the dresser across the room; mine, if I can muster up the energy to get out of bed before I hit the snooze button for the third time. It's like the nicotine patch system that smokers use to ween themselves off of cigatrettes. I'm just using pastries to treat the addictions found in chronic snoozers.
To my fellow snooze dependent readers: Give it a try. Let me know how it works, or tell me what your morning routine is like. Any remedies I should try? Drop me a line.
A device to dump cold water on your head? Too messy.
Spring device under your bed to catapult you out? Too dangerous.
Hire someone to bang pots and pans in your ears? Not very cost efficient.
Marching band outside your window? Unless Nick Cannon is on drums, meh. (That's right...I liked Drumline).
How about a little imagination? That's the ticket!
A few weeks ago, I started having a recurring thought as I woke up. A sort of disconnect from reality. My alarm at home (different from the one I've used during my 4 years at college), is not very loud and the snooze alarm only lasts 5 minutes (whereas the other lasts 9 minutes). With the one at school, I can hit the sleep button around two times and the loud radio-set alarm, accompanied by the 9 minute interval of the snooze button is just satisfying enough to coax me out of bed.
My alarm at home, however, creates a much different routine. Instead of tolerating the alarm, it immediately makes me mad and, as a result, I play this sort of game with it, which, as I think about it now, is completely silly, but my sleep-dazed brain seems to think it is the right thing to do. The alarm has this weird effect on me when it starts going off; increasing its cadence and volume every 10 seconds. I quickly swing my arm over to smack the snooze button, then roll over, back to sleep, grumbling about how the alarm could possibly have the audacity to wake me up.
After I play this game about 5 times (I'm not sure who wins each time I do it?), my brain switches into a different mode. Instead of trying to beat the alarm clock, I bargain with it. The little good and evil cartoons pop up on each of my shoulders and tell me what to do. Unfortunately, like a pesky television-remote you aren't sure how to use, the good "angel" voice in my head is on mute, and I can't figure out what button to push to un-mute her. (Stupid brain-technology; all haywire in the morning.) So what does the evil voice sound like, and what does it say to me? It's very fitting: He sounds like the smarmy voices from TV commercials that talk quickly and try to convince you to buy those $19.95 products. In real life, I see these types of commercials for what they are (usually a rip off), but semi-asleep Derek buys into them every time. Another 5 visits to the snooze alarm then ensue.
Now, about an hour after I had planned to get up, I'm starting to get sick of the alarm clock, and out of pure despise, I turn the thing off and groggily roll out of bed to start the day, the war between man and machine over. One hour of my life gone, never to return.
One night I was thinking about how this particular morning routine has become, well, just that...a routine. I became mad at myself for not having the self-discipline to get up at the time I had decided on the night before. The whole summer thus far, the evil little salesman in my head has been swindling me out of my hard-earned dream money with the same ploys:
"Just hit the snooze button one more time and I guarantee, you will feel perfectly rested and ready to begin your day."
"Still tired? No worries! By wasting only 5 more minutes of your life, you will wake up feeling great."
"What else do you have to do? Just lay there a little longer, and I promise, by the next {beep, beep} you'll be raring to go."
Enough was enough! I decided to take action. What I saw as the root of my problem (the evil salesman) became my solution. By actually imagining that little thought in my head as a REAL salesman getting my REAL money by convincing me to hit the snooze alarm, could I effectively give myself a reason to wake up??? While the theory is still in testing, I am seeing some results. Perhaps its the increased brain activity I'm forcing on myself, or maybe it's just the fact I am very frugal, I've been finding it slightly easier to wake up. It's like a game I'm playing with myself really.
I'm thinking of adding a tangible incentive to the experiment now. Perhaps rewarding myself for getting up. A package of hostess mini-blueberry muffins on the dresser across the room; mine, if I can muster up the energy to get out of bed before I hit the snooze button for the third time. It's like the nicotine patch system that smokers use to ween themselves off of cigatrettes. I'm just using pastries to treat the addictions found in chronic snoozers.
To my fellow snooze dependent readers: Give it a try. Let me know how it works, or tell me what your morning routine is like. Any remedies I should try? Drop me a line.