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| That's a funny sounding dinosaur... |
It's a constant struggle for me to wake up in time for my 5 a.m. morning shift but after more than five years of careful refinement... I've created a wake-up strategy that's halfway reliable.
Baby steps.
Here's my wake up strategy using my iPhone alarm:
1.) The phone is always positioned in a hard-to-reach area, in this case, under the bed. The idea is that this requires a frantic morning fumbling that will shake my sleepy brain awake as I grope blindly under the bed.
2.) I use my iPhone's most jarring, loud and painfully irritating ring tones (shrieking at full volume), "Digital" and "Pinball" so that I won't risk incorporating the alarm sounds into my dreams.
3.) I use the snooze button at least twice. The reason is that my sleep self refuses to pay attention to the first alert, or the second. It usually takes three tries.
4.) I have a second alarm set as a backup.
This is my tried and true method to waking up. It's taken me years to perfect and there's nothing else that wakes me up effectively.
Because I sleep like a dead heavy rock. I sleep so heavily that when I was growing up my sisters used to make a game of waking me up, terrorizing me by rolling blaring Hess trucks into my room.
Anyway, this rigerous alarm procedure shocks and horrifies my boyfriend who recently moved in with me.
"I woke up at least four times in a panic yesterday," he told me. "At four a.m.!"
"Well how else am I going to wake up?" I asked.
"I'm changing your alarm sounds," he said.
I explained to him that my mind refuses to acknowledge alarms unless they're bloodcurdling and excessively loud or violent-sounding.
"Normal alarm sounds don't wake me up," I protested, " My brain just turns them into dream noises."
"Well then I'll hear it and wake you up then," he assured me.
He had a good idea, and so I let him take my phone and change the alarm sounds to "Xylaphone" and "Timba," which are both semi-pleasant soothing tinkly sounds.
We went to bed and I was so excited about my new alarm tones because I wouldn't have to wake up angry and full of hate for my shrieking alarm.
My alarm went off in the morning, a gentle soothing "Timba."
And I woke up an hour and a half late to work.
"SHIT!" I said, popping out of bed with adrenaline coursing through my body.
I poked my boyfriend to tell him how late I was and then flew out of the house like a tornado dressed me with unbrushed hair and an interesting outfit that I'd assembled in haste.
Obviously, this soothing alarm clock experiment didn't work.
I randomly remembered a Simpson's episode where Bart used an "old Indian trick" for getting up early and drank a ton of water before bed, so that he'd feel the urge to go in the morning and wake up. Then I got to thinking about alternative alarm clocks and if I should get one.
Deaf people use alarm clocks too, I thought to myself. I wonder what they use?
After some Google research, I found that there were tons of options out there for people who can't wake up to a blaring alarm clock.
For instance, there's a pillow that lights up when you want to wake up, assaulting your closed eyes with bright light. However, that shit won't work for me because I'm accustomed to taking sunny naps daily.
Or a Shake-N-Wake that straps onto your wrist and vibrates (get your mind outta the gutter!)
Or my favorite, Clocky, a cute little alarm-clock bugger that "wakes up" and runs around, forcing you to chase it until you're awake.
The most sophisticated option (already on my Christmas list) is the Lark, a vibrating and iPhone compatible silent alarm clock that guarantees to "Wake your potential, not your partner" for $99.
For the healthier types (e.g. for people who are not me) there's the Shape Up Dumbbell Alarm Clock, a heavy device that won't shut off until you've done 30 reps.
I'm ditching the screeching alarm clock for one of these. I'll send my boss an email warning of the "adjustment" period that will likely take place and we'll see how it goes... Wish me luck!