The End of Day Alarm Concept

Some people naturally wake up early. For others, its a perennial mystery.

I’ve always envied people who wake up early. Such a simple thing, but so difficult. But almost all my life, more than two decades, I’ve been the late riser. You know, the ones that never see the morning sun. I usually wake up around 11 AM in the morning. And go to sleep around 2 AM. In some cycles, it only gets worse (waking up at 1 PM, going to sleep at 5 AM!). But I never had any better cycles, only worser ones. Coupled with this — I can’t sleep immediately. I roll in bed for hours, my brain churning over hundreds of useless things. By the time I fall asleep, its almost waking up time!

I’ve tried so many ways to wake up — alarms with gently increasing sound, alarms that tune to your body clock, aggressive loud alarms, series of endless alarms, etc. Tried asking friends to shake me up in the morning. Even had water poured on me once! But waking up early was still Taboo. Even if I forced myself to wake up early — it was useless, I would just be straying like a zombie, or I’ll be forced to take a nap at noon in order to really wake up. So in a way, I was uncurable.

Until I took a totally different approach.

I started keeping Alarms to go to Sleep early.

That’s right. No complicated combination of things. This is the only simple thing to do, and it works like a charm for me. So without further ado, I introduce you to my technique:

The End-of-day Alarm

At this alarm, the day is over . Stash the gadgets, close the books, get in bed, dim the lights. Trust that there’s no use doing anything else today. Pending stuff are left for tomorrow.

. Stash the gadgets, close the books, get in bed, dim the lights. Trust that there’s no use doing anything else today. Pending stuff are left for tomorrow. End the day early. Really early . If you’re really serious about getting up early, then 9 PM is end of the day. At worst, it could be delayed to 9:30 PM. End of Day alarm is not a dinner alarm — finish your dinner before this.

. If you’re really serious about getting up early, then 9 PM is end of the day. At worst, it could be delayed to 9:30 PM. End of Day alarm is not a dinner alarm — finish your dinner before this. More than 10 PM — you’d rather not pretend to be trying at all. Probably good idea to send a mail that you’ll be late the next day, and postpone any plans.

Doesn’t matter how long you take to sleep (I take 2 hours). But what matters is mentally ending the day. A total belief that whatever is remaining is best taken care tomorrow. Don’t think “should I do just this one more thing?”. Tomorrow is the answer to everything.

No point in exercising your eyes and pretending to be falling asleep. Includes reading articles, watching movies, fiddling with gadgets, etc. None works. Don’t do any activity that strains your eyes. Its partially OK to do some boring things. Boring things stimulate sleep better than interesting things. Like talking on the phone, audio books, etc.

If you go to sleep early — you will now wake up early automatically. Without even needing an alarm. Just let your body wake up by itself. Usually I find myself waking up anywhere around 6 — 7 AM. Its like a blessing, waking up to mild orange instead of bright noon. At rare occasions, I even wake up at 5:30 AM, which is rather pitch black, but read the next point.

Here comes the important ending: When your body wakes up automatically, don’t go back to sleep. Just follow up with your body and wake up. If you think “ah, let me go sleep for half an hour and wake up at <some-rounded-off-time>” — well, see you late as usual, most likely you’ll end up sleeping for many hours.

By now if you have now woken up voluntarily, without having to force yourself out of your sleep, congratulations! Enjoy a truly happy morning.

All people are not built same. So this may or may not work for you. The timings may need to be shifted according to your sleeping habits. My case was one of the worst, and these are what worked for me. But I’d be very interested to know how this turns out for you.