How to wake up on time?

<p>I have the tendency to set the alarm clock, and when it rings, turn it off and go back to sleep. I've tried to put the alarm clock farther away so I'd have to get up and turn it off, but I get up, turn it off and go back to bed!</p>

<p>Today I did the same thing and missed one important event.</p>

<p>I guess just try to go to bed earlier so you don't get tired when you wake up.</p>

<p>haha...I know what you're talking about. It's like you know it's bad to go back to bed, but you just can't help yourself. </p>

<p>What I've done is have a really reliable friend who has the same morning class as me call me over and over again until I meet her to get breakfast. It's worked so far...</p>

<ol>
<li>Get your Mom to call and wake you up every morning. Talk on the phone with her until you are fully awake.</li>
<li>Get a coffee machine that has an alarm. Hot yummy coffee might motivate you to wake up.</li>
<li>Hire a personal servant to wake you.</li>
<li>Pay a roommate to make sure you get up on time.</li>
<li>Get an iPod alarm clock. Get up each morning and force yourself to sing through the whole song before turning it off.</li>
<li>After you turn your alarm off, do ten jumping jacks.</li>
<li>Hire your own marching band to wake you every morning.</li>
<li>Don't fall asleep in the first place. Spend all night with a pack of Red Bull and then you won't have to worry about falling asleep again.</li>
<li>Febreze your bed right after you turn your alarm off...People can't sleep well on a wet bed.</li>
<li>A nice scream at the top of your lungs each morning does wonders for waking you up...And everyone else on your floor.</li>
</ol>

<p>Or you know...don't crawl back into bed after you turn the alarm off...</p>

<p>Get a roomie.</p>

<p>Or, get a new alarm clock with a different sounding alarm.</p>

<p>Or, set like 6 alarm clocks, each within 5 minutes of each other, it will be like your snooze button :)</p>

<p>Or, learn to GET THE **** UP :)</p>

<p>Tell your roommate that he/she is authorized to do whatever it takes to get you out of bed, including and not limited to poking, hitting with a pillow, dragging, etc. </p>

<p>Set multiple alarms (one for five minutes after your first, then another for ten minutes after your first, etc.)</p>

<p>If you have a very important event (e.g., flight, midterm), ask a friend or parent to give you a wake-up call. In fact, ask multiple people. </p>

<p>[I've done all of the above. Although I still miss the occasional lecture, I have yet to get in trouble by missing out on something important]</p>

<p>Set multiple alarms all set within about 20 seconds of each other, because it gives you enough time to turn one alarm off, and then the next goes off, and the next and so on. Put them in a sort of trail to your door, or the bathroom, or whatever it is you usually do after you wake up. The you'll be there, and you're closer to your next thing to do than your bed, which gives you a reason to keep going rather than go back to bed.</p>

<p>the multiple alarm clocks works like a charm for me. i sometimes have my mom wake me up but that doesn't always happen. usually what i do is that i set my radio alarm on for a certain time and then put the alarm on my cell phone for 6-10 minutes later. here's the trick though make sure that the alarm on your cell phone is the latest you can get up. and i also set my radio time to be 20 minutes advanced. you don't have to do that though.</p>

<p>example:
i have to get up at 6am some days to get to class at 830a. 1 hr to get ready and 1 hr to commute. the half hr in between is for any delays in between. delays always happen whether it's getting ready or in traffic. so what do i do to get up?
first off, i have my radio actually set 20 minutes in advance. why? everytime i look at it, i automatically think OH CRAP! I'M LATE. (Doesn't always work because I have cable ditigal time in my room too that is also visible but it's not like the first thing i see when i look at my radio.) so when it's really 6a on my radio it says 620a. So what do I do? I set the alarm on my radio for 610a (which would really be 550a). Then I set my cell phone to ring at 6a.
So naturally I got three things that will wake me up, the sight of the time and being late to class. Really makes me jump out of bed. In the event I'm too tired and that doesn't work. The alarm itself will go off and that should wake me up. Sometimes I don't turn it off and it goes off by itself but even then it comes back on a couple of minutes later. If that doesn't work, my cell phone will go off and by then I'm definitely up. Once I get up I tend to get something to drink as well like orange juice. Gets me going in the morning.</p>

<p>be<em>a</em>star: i'm not too sure how well that 20 second rule works. it seems to quick. but i do like that idea that you set one real far or in the location of where you have to go which is within hearing distance. you'd have to be real knocked out and dedicated to going back to sleep if you get up to go to the bathroom to turn off an alarm only go walk back to bed and sleep again. if it gets that bad then the person is helpless i'd say.</p>

<p>K, setting up all these systems is fine and dandy, but the real thing that needs to happen is a change of priorities, if you are waking up but choosing to miss out on events because sleeping is more important you made a decision</p>

<p>It is called being an adult...when you have a job, living alone, you won't have mommy to help anymore, so you need to learn to get up when you need to without other people helping </p>

<p>"just can't help yourself"- well that just shows you didn't care enough about the event to me, because if really did care, you would have pulled it together to get up after being woken up</p>

<p>do some of the suggestions, but you really need to change your habits if you don't want to count on others to wake you up for the rest of your life</p>

<p>You are very clearly sleep deprived! All of these "tricks" might help treat the symptoms of your problem, but they won't fix the underlying cause. If you have that much trouble getting up in the morning, then you are not getting enough sleep at night, and you are hurting both your body and your mind. Make it a priority to go to sleep earlier every night -- I promise, you can do this if you care about your health enough. If you're consistently getting enough sleep (college students need about 8.5 hours per night), your problem will be greatly reduced.</p>

<p>For more information on sleep deprivation and its effects on your body and mind, check out my posts on the other sleep-dep thread or feel free to pm me.</p>

<p>citygirlsmom- I agree 100% with you.</p>

<p>ILoveBrown- Are you involved in psychology in any way? Meaning, psych major, done research with psychologists, etc.? I want to talk to you if you are.</p>

<p>I work two jobs and go to University. </p>

<p>I have three alarm clocks in my bedroom which I set within a few minutes of one another, like how one of the other posters said. </p>

<p>THere are also, and I have not had to do this in years, wake up call services which one can subscribe to. </p>

<p>I like what ILoveBrown said. You really have to think of the underlying cause of your sleeping in, OP. Try to work towards sleeping more or scheduling things better.</p>

<p>"i have my radio actually set 20 minutes in advance. why? everytime i look at it, i automatically think OH CRAP! I'M LATE."</p>

<p>LOL, I do this too. Somehow, in the early morning, my brain is incapable of remembering that my clock is set ahead- even though I have had it this way for several years. So I wake up every morning, thinking I'm running late, and end up (usually) being on time.</p>

<p>I've never done what the OP does! Sometimes I even wake up before the alarm and lie there in bed waiting for it to ring (if I get up early it'll throw off my entire day).</p>

<p>smurfette -- I'm not a psych major, but I took a psych course on sleep last year with one of the world's leading sleep experts (Dr Carskadon at Brown University). I'm currently taking a neuroscience class as well. I don't think my taking Psych AP in high school counts for anything since that class and the exam are both a joke.</p>

<p>The only "research" I've done with psychologists involves helping out my mother, who is a research psychologist, with her project, but I don't really count that, either.</p>

<p>IloveBrown- I'm in psych 101 right now and I love my prof! I just signed up to take cognitive psychology with him and I've never been this interested in psychology before. I only took one semester in hs and the AP class was not offered.</p>

<p>Very cool -- stick with it! I'd really encourage you to take some neuroscience classes to supplement your studies in psychology. It'll really open your mind, so to speak.</p>

<p>I set the my cell alarm to ring and vibrate about 5 minutes before the alarm goes off. Ikeep my cell in my pillow so it definately wakes me up. also have my mom call every morning. So far I haven't slept through any classes and have only been late once (only by about 5 minutes).</p>

<p>well i usually have just my clock alarm, but if im tired and there's an important event i set everything i have (computers, phones, mp3 players, clocks) and then they all go off... XP that works for me i think.</p>

<p>(bad for your roommate)</p>

<p>see don't fall back to your bed. sit for a second and rub your eyes and immediately go to the bathroom...</p>