bokov comments on Solved Problems Repository - Less Wrong

25 Post author: Qiaochu_Yuan 27 March 2013 04:51AM

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Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 31 March 2013 04:21:56PM 13 points [-]

At least for me, getting up when the alarm clock rings used to be almost impossible and I kept staying in bed for 12 hours a day unless there was something that I absolutely had to get up in time for. Anders Sandberg's caffeine pill trick solved that problem for me, and it has worked for over five years now:

This week I have experimented with a new way of getting up in the morning. My problem is that Anders-Sleepy has different goals than Anders-Awake, and is quite adept at resetting the alarm clock. Now I, Anders-Awake, has found a way around this self:

I set my alarm to 6:00 and 8:00. At 6:00 I go up, take a 50mg caffeine pill, and go to bed again. Then I sleep and wake up rested and energetic around 8.

In my case the time for the pill to start working seems to be 1.5 hours. A dose of one pill ensures that I wake up (but still yawning) while two pills makes me start the day much more quickly. The added benefit is of course a regular sleep schedule.

I ran into the problem of a late night one of the days, where I remained awake until 3:30. In this case I adjusted the program slightly, taking the pill at 7:00 and sleeping to 8:30, this seemed to work and the rest of the day was efficient. I became tired earlier in the evening, which was fixed by going to sleep earlier.

Using caffeine to combat sleep inertia is not my idea; a study has shown that it works for naps. Music may also help.

Comment author: bokov 11 September 2013 09:56:10PM 2 points [-]

What works for me in addition to my equivalent of the caffeine pill is:

  • An alarm that gradually gets louder. It's not even one of the traditional annoying tones, just kind of a gentle new-agey song. The key features seems to be the getting louder with time.

  • Putting my underwear, clothing, glasses, and the alarm at my desk, away from the bed, so that I have to get up to turn off the alarm and by then it's not that much extra trouble to also get dressed, and I tell myself that if I'm still tired after that I can sit down at my desk, which is still better than rolling back into bed.