channging sleeping patterns

wijcc · 22 Dec 2006 at 23:57

I need help and advice on the best ways of changing my sleeping habit/pattern. I used to work flexitime, so could go in later and finish later as long as i did my hours and work. But however that has changed now. I have always been a late riser. But now need to change this. I have tried going to sleep early but can not fall a sleep, just lie in my bed with the lights off staring into the black ceiling into the wee hours. And when i do go to sleep i am a very heavy sleeper. I have 5 alarms, 4 on my mobile and 1 on my alarm clock but they don't always wake me up.. or when they do i just switch them off after each one goes off and head back to sleep.
Does anyone have any advice for me how i can go about to change my sleeping habits??
Thanks in advance guys

Efour · 22 Dec 2006 at 23:59

when i worked shifts i did it in one go, stay awake all day/night then collapse after work.

not the best but worked for me.

paradigm · 23 Dec 2006 at 00:02

Depends on what time you have to be awake by, but one of the best things for waking me up is natural light.

Not so good during the winter for me though as I have to be out of the house before its light (out by 7am) at this time of the year.

Eventually though your body will just adjust to it if you stick at it. This is why I wake up no later than 8am on a weekend, just to keep my body used to the early rise.

Vixen · 23 Dec 2006 at 00:04

Efour2 said:
when i worked shifts i did it in one go, stay awake all day/night then collapse after work.

not the best but worked for me.

That's how I've always changed mine. There's no point in lying in bed when you know you won't fall asleep.

Jotun · 23 Dec 2006 at 00:08

wijcc said:
I have 5 alarms, 4 on my mobile and 1 on my alarm clock but they don't always wake me up.. or when they do i just switch them off after each one goes off and head back to sleep.

I used to have this problem, and I read somewhere a way to get around this (lost the link unfortunately)

What you need to do is get your body used to reacting how you want to react when the alarm goes off. What this means is set your alarm for 5 minutes time, get in to bed, and dressed as you normaly sleep, and when the alarm goes off, stretch, get up, get dressed. Then repeat this, I did it about half a dozen times and it did the trick for me.

I use my stereo as my alarm, and I now insitinctively stretch and get out of bed before I know whats happening, and that is just from the cd spinning up.

Might not work for everyone but it does the job for me.

Need to get back in to the habbit though as recently due to having time off over christmas I've stopped doing this.

wijcc · 23 Dec 2006 at 00:16

ideally I'd like to get up about 7 - 7:30am

I have done the staying up all night trick doesn't seem to work with me :mad:

Jotun · 23 Dec 2006 at 00:27

Did a bit of digging and I found the blog I read a while ago, which IMO is definately worth a read if you want to change your sleeping habbits.

It's StevePavlina.com, a couple of his posts you may want to look at are How to Get Up Right Away When Your Alarm Goes Off and How to Become an Early Riser.

I found them to be a great help

bornslippy · 23 Dec 2006 at 00:35

I can completely relate to this. I'll read the forum posts first and see if I can gain some knowledge and provide some advice!

wijcc said:
I need help and advice on the best ways of changing my sleeping habit/pattern. I used to work flexitime, so could go in later and finish later as long as i did my hours and work. But however that has changed now. I have always been a late riser. But now need to change this. I have tried going to sleep early but can not fall a sleep, just lie in my bed with the lights off staring into the black ceiling into the wee hours. And when i do go to sleep i am a very heavy sleeper. I have 5 alarms, 4 on my mobile and 1 on my alarm clock but they don't always wake me up.. or when they do i just switch them off after each one goes off and head back to sleep.
Does anyone have any advice for me how i can go about to change my sleeping habits??
Thanks in advance guys

wijcc · 23 Dec 2006 at 00:40

Thanks guys its much appreciated

Lord_Kokain · 23 Dec 2006 at 00:45

put the alarm clock away from you so you gotta walk to it(which will pretty much wake ya up completely)! Does the job for me though Im not too bothered with my unorthodox sleeping patterns. In fact, I still remember the staff at my kindergarten(wa**ers!) putting me to sleep every afternoon which annoyed me big time so now I got my freedom to choose what to do. :rolleyes:

Dr.EM · 23 Dec 2006 at 00:50

Yes, also leave lots of lego bricks, toy cars, a collection of starfish etc on the floor. That way you'll need to concentrate as you walk to the clock, and if you don't, you'll really get woken up :eek: