Morning Motivation and Wakeup Strategies

Beave

Hi,

I have a serious problem. Ever since childhood I've been plaqued by tough morning wakeups. I guess I am an excellent example of a "night person". I can stay up late with ease, but when it comes to wakeups... Nope. Weekdays or weekends, if I can sleep for 10+ hours I will and usually do if I don't have something to do or somewhere to be. Before I had a vehicle, I used to commute by bike to work all the time and LOVED it. It is so much simpler when you don't even have the option of driving.

My job is hard work and my hours are a brutal 5:30am-4pm, 10 hour shifts, 5 days a week. This means I have to be out of bed by 4am to ride in to work. I've been trying hard to get up consistanly to ride in but have only managed hit-and-miss results. I go to bed early on weeknights (9pm) and have several alarms (a cell phone, an alarm clock across the room that makes me get up, and a fiance that also makes me get up when I don't shut off the alarms.) Seems like more often than not I can sleepwalk to the alarm, shut it off and only really wake up when it's time to drive in, saving myself a precious 30-45 minutes of extra sleep.

I hate it. I'm passionate about riding into work but my body just won't play along. I want to do better for the environment, be in better cycling shape and get out of my damn car-coffin.

So, my question to all early-AM bike commuters around the world, is how do you wake up. What are your strategies? What do you tell yourself in the morning that makes you scoff at car keys, layer up for the cold, and most importantly, get out of a warm and cozy bed, stoked to get out and ride!!

Thanks,

Craig

Timmer

I don't know beave, I used to be like you when I was young. Now I'm 42 and wake up bout 4 in morning. When your young you need more sleep, sounds like your getting good sleep though. Maybe you have that sleep aptna(spell sucks there) thing, if you snore alot that may be the case. Every person is wired differently. Try posting this question in the health forum you'll get doctors replying to you there.

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xchoosetodayx

I wouldn't be surprised if it was sleep apnea or something of the sort. Your situation sounds a lot like mine. I can get 10-12 hours of sleep and STILL not feel rested. My mom has sleep apnea, so after hearing about how crappy my sleep was she suggested a sleep study. She has basically the same symtoms, except she stops breathing in the middle of sleep. After her sleep study and using a sleep mask, she sleeps great now. While I didn't have sleep apnea, I found out I do have a "mild form of narcolepsy" they said in which I sleep, but don't get the rest my body needs. I don't just pass out randomly like regular narcolepsy, I just don't feel rested and have a bitch of a time waking up. The Dr. gave my Provigil to help kick start me in the mornings and it worked for a bit, but I build up a tolerance to it quick and didn't like how much I had to take. Then the Dr. suggested Ritalin and I didn't really want anything to do with that. I tried B-Vitamins and that helped a little. Overall, just about nothing medicine wise works for me.

I've recently found that for me to get up in the morning, I just need to force myself to either sit up and stay that way until I can get out of bed, or just get up and stay up. I consistently smack that snooze button until the very last minute, and even though I may get a few minutes of extra sleep, I almost feel more tired. If I just force myself to stay up those first few minutes, I'm usually fine. If I can get coffee ASAP, I'm even better. So I guess my advice would be if you've got great insurance, and a sleep study won't cost you anything, and you've got a family history, do one. If not, then I wouldn't worry about it, just force yourself to stay up those first few minutes and get some coffee. I've heard of some sleep watches that time your sleep cycles too, but I don't know how effective they are. Coffee's much cheaper anyways...

Hope this helps!

Beave

Thanks for the help folks. I'm hoping I don't suffer from sleep apnea although my fiance said she's heard me stop breathing at night and I've dreamt about being breathless once. Just these two occurences over the last 4 years of being together; But then, who knows what I do when we are BOTH sleeping.

I tried something new last night which was sleeping without a pillow. After relaxing my jaw it seemed to offer a more open airway when sleeping on my back. Although a bit awkward, I may continue this during the week to get some real feedback on if it makes a difference. A self-sleep test I suppose.

Funny you should mention B-vitamins as I recently began taking these nightly as well. I can't believe a doctor tried to give you ritalin; I wouldn't be ok with that either!!

I look very forward to the day I can wake up at 4am, w/o blaring alarms, feeling totally rested.

Thanks again for the responses,

Beave

Europa

Don't worry about sleep apnoea. I suffer from it. Had very similar symptoms to yours through my younger years but it reached the point where I was staggering around half asleep all the time. No amount of bed time helped. Got onto wearing the face mask and the improvement was almost instant - the most life changing thing I've ever done. I love the darned thing, even though the thought of wearing it scared me. Now I'll wake up in the morning and leave it on until I have to take it off to get out of bed.

I'm not saying you do have sleep apnoea but if you do, it is something that will ruin your lifestyle as it gets worse. As it gets worse, it can ruin your health (putting stress on your heart for instance) and the micro sleeps, which I suffered, can be killers (fall asleep at the wheel - it's happened to me). However, it is easily treated with the face mask. The face mask works well and for most people, not a problem to sleep with. It provides air pressure to your nose to keep your airways open. As your problem gets worse, the doctor simply dials up the air pressure. It's effective and save and believe me, being awake is far preferable to the being hung over all the time. Some people (like my mother) never come to terms with the mask, but most do.

Of course, you may not have the condition either, and that'd be even better

Richard

Jonahhobbes

I find getting up in the morning hell too! I have to be up at 04:30 by the latest if I am to commute in.

Sleep Apnea and the need for a CPAP mask aside, I went to a conference a couple of years ago that included the hazards of shift work and basically man finds it difficult to get up at that time because of our circadian rhythms. Biologically we are programmed to still be asleep at 04:00 in the morning as it is still dark outside and dawn has not yet happpened. So we suffer on dragging ourselves out of bed at that stupid hour. No matter how many times you try and condition yourself to get up, our original programming stays in place to a large degree.

The several times, for whatever reason, I went in later on the morning shifts and woke up when it was getting light a couple of hours later I noticed I felt a lot less fatigued. I never like early shifts.

The only advice I have is to get checked out by your doc to rule out abnormalities like sleep apnea. Also I normally go to sleep around 19:30-20:00 the evening before and try and eat a couple of hours before that if possible. Avoid alcohol, ( ), and caffeine and do everything to promote good sleep. Earplugs as well were helpful to cut out being disturbed when the wife came to bed. I also catch up big time on sleep on my first day off.

Early starts and shift work is horrible and I often think the unsocial payments we get as compensation just ain't enough.