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scientism comments on Procedural Knowledge Gaps - Less Wrong
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When you are getting into the routine this one of the hard parts. So use whatever assistance required. For me that has included a bottle of energy drink and a modafinil tablet sitting on top of the alarm clock. Sure, you can turn it off but it isn't much more effort to down the stimulants at the same time. A sledge hammer approach. It more or less guarantees you will be able to get up 30 minutes later. I often deliberately allow myself another 30 minutes to sleep after I've taken the stimulants so as to cooperate more effectively with my instincts. They don't like me @#$@#$ing with them and forcing them up but they don't care at all if I give them stimulants and let them do their own thing.
(The above is not something I tend to use long term.)
At about this time you can also take a dose of melatonin (which is essentially what you are doing with the light manipulation anyway). I have found this useful from time to time.
Put your alarm clock far out of reach so you have to get out of bed to switch it off. Put everything you need for your morning routine next to the alarm clock. This will make you much less likely to go back to bed.
I did this when I was a teenager. A few months later I found myself regularly jumping out of bed, taking two long running strides across my room, hitting the snooze button, running back to bed, and getting under the covers without ever properly waking up.
I solved this problem by maxing out my alarm's volume and putting it in the shower.
That is...genius. And hilarious.
That'd be a good fix for one or two people living in an apartment, but the shower was at the other end of the house and was used by everyone in my family.
When you have a spare hour, set your alarm to go off every five minutes and practice 'being asleep', hearing the alarm, jumping out of bed, turning it off, and running to the shower. After 20 repetitions, the idea is that the next morning, when you hear the alarm, you'll run to the shower without needing to get fully conscious first. I dunno, something to try at least.
Good idea -- I'll do that.
Did you keep everything you need for your morning routine next to your alarm clark? I found that was the key element to stop me from jumping back into bed. It's habit forming. You get to the alarm clock and then go through your routine. Otherwise, if everything's out of reach or disorganised, it's easier to just go back to bed than deal with it.
The next step of my morning routine was to stumble down the hall to the bathroom. There wasn't an additional object necessary to do that. Or one could say that the next step was showering, but I couldn't physically move the shower next to the alarm clock.
My brother does this. Personally I've never had trouble waking up...if anything my problem is falling asleep and staying asleep all night. I tend to stay on an early-to-bed, early-to-rise schedule, which is convenient for work and class but inconvenient for social life...overall I think I prefer it to constantly having to fight my internal clock. My main problem is mid-afternoon sleepiness on the days when I don't quite make my 8 or 9 hours.
That might still be an improvement over hitting the snooze and rolling over. I would intuitively expect someone to wake up faster if they had to keep jumping in and out of bed.
I use this technique from time to time. But as Cyan suggests it isn't a reliable long term solution. It still amounts to trying to bully yourself into compliance. And that just isn't the best way to deal with allies - be they internal or not. I know myself and know how I respond to attempts at dominance. I'll do it if necessary but it rapidly burns out any sense of loyalty. And I want myself on my own side.