Two mornings a week I’m resolving to cut out an old nemesis.
If you’ve seen “Groundhog Day” you may remember the song that’s always on the radio when Bill Murray wakes up in the same day over and over again. Could you place it? If you guessed, “I got you babe” by Sonny and Cher congratulations, you may be headed for trivial greatness yet, although I don’t know that greatness can ever be trivial but I digress. The point of this rambling is that no matter how much you liked this old mid-sixties chart topper, after several hundred (?) times it gets old. Waking up to any alarm does.
I’ve tried radio stations, white noise and cd’s galore and they all become like fingernails on a chalkboard eventually. Maybe it’s the associated activities that they are a harbinger for or maybe it’s the grogginess from too little shut-eye due to insomnia, whatever the case; I deplore alarm clocks. So, this Thursday I am resolving to stop waking up to an alarm on weekends. I hope I’ll get good at this and be able to do the same during the work week but I think baby steps are in order. I’m going to have get better about falling asleep and, in an odd twist, actually getting out of bed when I wake up. Both of these will require listening to what my body is telling me.
I don’t know about you but I’m frequently more tired at 8:30 than I am at 10:30. I’m certainly no circadian rhythm expert but I think this means I need to be headed to the barn earlier than I typically go. Too frequently, and I don’t think I’m alone in this, I push through this drowsy period because I think that I need to harness my sleep cycles to fit my life or I think I have to stay up to complete some task. The kicker is that if it waited until 8:30 at night it can probably wait until 5:00 in the morning if you’ll just get out of bed. But that’s not always easy, is it?
Too often I dread getting out of bed because it means I have to tackle something I dread. That “something” could be personal or it could have to do with work but it always colors my mood and makes leaving the warm covers tough. The fact is though that whether you rise at 7:34 or 5:34 the task, the job or the uncomfortable situation is still going to be there. If psyching yourself up for it or giving yourself a pep talk or achieving several small tasks before you tackle the big one is what you need, you’re better off having more time rather than less to prime the pump for the big one. I don’t anticipate bouncing out of bed ready to take on the world (I’ve never been a morning person) but maybe if I get up on my own terms and have more time to give my day a little structure and control, the thing that intimidates me might not seem so intimidating after all. I know that’s likely a big IF and it’s not the only one I’ll likely encounter.
I anticipate a learning process here. I imagine there may be instances until I get good at this that I may have to enlist the help of a friend to wake me up. I may even end up rising earlier if I abide by the whole “listen to your body” thing. Who knows? I sure don’t. What I do know is that eventually for those two mornings, Saturday and Sunday, I will enjoy the luxury of waking up when I’m done sleeping. I don’t expect to be good at it right off the bat but I do think it’s worthwhile to pursue getting good at it.
I’m getting sleepy just thinking about this proposition and it’s only 4:30! We’ll see how this goes. If this gave you some ideas about how you might tame your own alarm clock, please share it with a friend. Maybe it will do them some good too.
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