So, how do you wake your sorry ass up in the morning? My job gets me up at 4:00 a.m., and although I don’t gind getting to work much of a problem, staying awake usually gets me. Coffee just gives me stomach problems, and cold showers are just unpleasant. I do do a little variation though, and find that cupping my hands full of cold water and bringing it to my eyes really helps me come to. But what are your methods?
Lots and lots of coffee. Or tea. Or hot chocolate. I’m trying to think of what I do when I have no caffeinated beverages handy, but I can’t, because I work hard to make sure that never happens.
Loud music.
My biggest problem in the morning is finding the energy to locate the stereo remote. If I can get to that in my few precarious seconds of consciousness right after waking up, I turn it up loud enough piss me off enough to get out of bed.
After getting ready and dragging my ass to school, I down 4-5 cups of coffee and take the express train to CaffeineLand.
I have cup of hot tea and take a bath. I know that sounds like a it’s a rocketship to Sleepy Town but it really wakes me up.
I exercise. It really, really does the trick.
As difficult as it sounds, Caricci is right on the money. I force myself every morning 3:30 ish to get up and hit the gym. Once you get the blood pumping, it’s amazing how awake you become. Only problem is, around 10 AM or so, I’m nodding off at my desk. Good thing I don’t have a real job.
I find that if I can get my brain engaged in some little dorky conundrum (sp?), like “Would I rather have wings or a prehensile tail?” I’m awake before I know it.
Then I start singing to the dogs, to make sure I stay that way, at least until I can turn on the television…
My alarm clock is set about 22 minutes ahead of real time. This means I have to do a little math problem first thing when I open my eyes. It’s just difficult enough with my sleepy brain to wake me up a little bit. Then coffee.
I get up at 5:00 am., shower (never miss this part) and get ready. I read email or the boards while drying my hair and at 6:00 get my son up, washed and dressed and we are out the door at 6:15 (he has breaky at the sitters). I pick up a coffee after that.
If it weren’t for the shower, I wouldn’t make it, altho sometimes I think I have a nap in there.
CRAP! You mean they still have a 4am? And people are expected to wake up by then?!?! There oughtta be a law.
Anyway, I typically roll into the office around 9:30 or 10:00, and as such I wake up around 8am, 7:30 if I need to shower. How do I get myself out of the bed at that ungodly hour? Simple:
Alarm goes off.
I lay there for ten minutes, listening to the radio, and slowly rising from my torpor.
I take a deep breath, cover my crotch with both hands, and yell, “Okay!”
My dogs (Flash and Two-Tone) bound out of their cages, and come running, having heard their release word.
Two-Tone usually leaps bodily onto the bed (hence the crotch-covering), and attempts to lick every inch of my face at ninety miles an hour.
Flash usually requires a bit of cajoling- he’s not quite as excitable as his partner in grime. Eventually, he ambles up the bed, and starts licking my face in earnest. He’s not as enthusiastic as Two-Tone, but he more than makes up for it in earnestness.
Eventually I lose their interest, and they start wrestling. On the bed- or rather, on ME.
I get tired of being wrestled upon, so I roll my lazy ass out of bed, and ask them rhetorically, “Anyone want to go outside?”
They trample me all the way to the door, and I let them out to terrorize the back yard.
Usually, by this time, I’m somewhat conscious.
I’m one of these people who can’t understand those who can’t wake up in the mornings when they HAVE to.
I can sleep in on the weekends til the cows come home. But on weekdays, I HAVE to get up at 6.30am. So I do.
The alarm clock goes off, I switch it off, and get up. That’s it.
I just make sure that I’m in bed with the lights off by 10.30pm the night before, and I’m fine.
So my question for you, El Elvis Rojo, is what time do you go to bed? Maybe the answer lies in getting a bit more shut-eye.
When my field season starts, like right now, the times I have to be at work can vary from 2:30 am to after 9 am. Tomorrow I have to be at the lab at 5:30 am. Since I just got home from work, I made sure I got a 20 minute catnap in the late afternoon. I feel rested enough hopefully not to fall into one of those sleep-of-the-dead sleeps and should be able to hear at least one of the three alarm clocks strategically placed just out of arms reach.
I’ll haul my cheery ass to the shower, catch the bird and put him in his cage, and stumble to my car. Blowing kisses to my blissfully sleeping fellow New Jerseyans (content in the idea that they will be gleeful travelers on Jersey’s roads in just a few hours), I’ll make my way to the local WaWa’s, and get a cup of their finest. I’ll skip to my car and drive off to work, belting out “The Happy Wanderer.” Val-de-ri, val-de-ra, Val-de-ri, val-de-ra, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!!!
Or something approximating that. Waking at 4 sucks. Catnaps help me.
typical for me is to have my alarm set to, say 8am. So I wake up at 7:55 automatically…rationalize that I don’t really need to get up…and turn it off before it sounds…then I am back in lucid dream land and may finally get out of bed by 10 or 11. Once up, I’m rarely back in bed before 2 am. hoot hoot. Good thing my job allows me such flexible hours…and I usually shut the place down in the evening. I’ve found that coffee and hot chocolate actually put me to sleep, so no help there. Also, I don’t like showering in the morning, so no help there either. I suspect that if there were, maybe 28 hours in a day, I’d be able to get up at a “normal” time.
I just…get up, more or less. My alarm clock goes off at 6:32 (I like to think the extra 2 minutes help), inevitably turned too loud, so I go through my morning routine after prying myself off the ceiling. The adrenaline keeps me going until about 8:15…but then, I’m in physics class with an extremely accident-prone teacher with a penchant for dangerous demonstrations. He really keeps everyone awake.
After that, it’s sheer force of will. I don’t know how I make it through school.
jessica
I have you beat. I have an alarm clock, a clock in the car, a watch and a clock on my computer, and none of them read the same time. They’re all 10-20 minutes ahead of real time. 
I usually get in the shower immediately, then once my hair is wet it feels so icky that I couldn’t fall asleep again even if I tried. (My hair is long and takes forever to dry.)
It cost too much, but I just love my Zen Alarm Clock ™. It chimes at gradually increasing intervals, sort of easing me into the day. Then yoga or a long walk or a half-hour at the gym, and a shower, and I’m generally good to go.
Ditto on the Exercise. I wake up naturally at 4, listen to BBC on NPR, get my butt out of bed at 5, at the gym or running or biking by 5:30-5:45am.
Wakes me up, only have to take one shower a day, and don’t need coffee to wake myself up. At work by 7-7:30 and feel great. I snicker at all the people rolling into work, clutching their caffeine and mumbling about everything.
I usually fall asleep by 10, not so bad.