Your alarm rings. You stirred. The alarm is still nagging at you, and it’s somehow getting louder. The ear is gaining consciousness. You rolled over. The alarm now is deafening. Your hand searches frantically for the “off” button. It’s no where to be found?!! With a great huff, you wrestled out of the blanket and rolled off the bed. “Where’s my glasses?” Your hand wanders around, searching not for the glasses, but the source of that relentless noise. “Ah, I see the nuisance.” Your hand slammed at the “off” button, and your body free fall back into the bed. Until you realised that you’ve overslept, again…

Do you fall into this cycle every morning? Knowing full well that it’ll repeat itself the next day, and yet do nothing about it? The only time I choose to do something about it, is to tell myself not to repeat this tomorrow. Of course, tomorrow comes and the wrestle-slam-sleep-overslept cycle is repeated day after day.

I think I’m looking at this the wrong way round. The action that can be done can only be done before you go to bed, not after. It’ll be too late in the morning to do anything about it, knowing full well that I will wake up a different person from when I went into bed, until the morning sun (or the caffeine) kicks in.

So, what are the things that you can do before going to bed?

Right before going to bed, I find reading something light helps. The words will start to swim in front of your eyes, and the mind will just wander off - you know it’s time for bed.

No visual stimulant. Any visual stimulant, like the screen you’re looking at now, is not very helpful before bed. This includes watching telly, web surfing, video games etc.

If you do any meditation, before sleep will be a very good time to do it. You can clear your thoughts and let the mind adjust to a more relaxed state. The relaxed state of mind can also be achieved if you write down what you need to do the next morning, rather than keeping your to do list always in your mind! By capturing your to do list somewhere else other than within your poor brain (which is trying to get some rest), you’ll do wonders to allow the brain to relax.

If you’re lucky enough to get sunlight at a reasonable time, leave your curtains open. The body likes sunlight. Feels like superman recharging. ;)

During the day, get some exercise. Walk, run, play sports, any sports, do some tai ji. If you do drive, park the car further away. Any exercise will tire the body, which in turn will tell the body to rest. Heed the body’s advice at night! And don’t try to fight it.

Balanced diet - less sugar in the later part of the day. Although some people do find eating more makes you sleep better! Doesn’t do well with the weight though. And the long term effects are actually less energy throughout the next day, which will increase the time to heave yourself out of the bed, not to mention heaving a heavier self!

You can actually train yourself to wake up when the alarm rings, as this article suggest.

Anymore methods you have tried to trick yourself to get up at the right time, please share it here!