I’ve got a friend who has trouble waking up in the morning. Serious trouble. As an example, last night he fell asleep at around 10 in the evening and still couldn’t wake up at all until around 8am, 15 minutes late for work. He’s got several alarms on his phone, a loud-as-fuck siren alarm on his computer and me calling him in the mornings and he still struggles to get up in time for work. When he is woken up he isn’t really tired at all, so it’s not like he’s not getting restful sleep, he just can’t be woken-the-fuck-up. He suffers from other sleep-related problems such as rare sleepwalking (he’ll very occasionally sleepwalk if he’s told to, which is kind of weird- like if you tell him to stand he might stand up while asleep). He doesn’t have any trouble at all getting to sleep at night and doesn’t ever fall asleep during the day.
So I’m soliciting advice and I believe this is the correct forum for doing so.
What has he tried? I assume he’s tried turning up the volume on his alarm clock. Some other things to try:
“Sunrise” alarms - gradually make the room brighter before going off with a noise.
“Deaf” alarms - vibrate the bed.
“Old school” alarms with mechanical bells - louder/more startling than beeps.
He has woken up other people in the house he lives in with his alarms. So yes. (And yes, I’ve already considered having his roommates wake him up but they tend to be going to sleep at like four in the morning and waking up after noon so that isn’t really an option.)
Appreciated advice, especially the vibration alarm. I’d looked into vibration pillows and the “deaf” alarms in particular look like they have potential. He might try something like that when he can. At the moment he’s broke as shit so we need to see if we can find a free way to wake him up.
I agree that he should see a doctor (in addition to some of the other tools that have already been put forward), but if he’s not tired at all when he’s woken up and not tired during the day, I don’t know if apnea would explain it. Unless he’s just so incredibly used to feeling the way he feels that he doesn’t know what it means to not feel tired.
Yeah, I had thought of apnea, it’s why I mentioned him waking up well-rested. He isn’t overweight (he’s actually a skinny guy), which as I understand is a cause of sleep apnea.
It can be one of the causes, but if I recall correctly, there is an entirely different type of apnea that is related to a brain/chemical glitch and has nothing to do with the sort of physical obstruction apnea that can be brought on or increased by being overweight. Can’t remember what it’s called.
Probably not a good idea, but a former co-worker had success waking his roommate up by dripping ice water into one ear. I say not a good idea because it apparently hurts a lot* and the guy woke up swinging and chased him outside and around the apartment pool. Co-worker said that the only thing that saved him was being able to yell: “You’re naked!”
After that he could wake the guy up by whispering “ice water.”
Co-worker claimed that it was once used to test to see if someone was really dead. (Feel free to debunk any part of the above.)
He should drink a ridiculous amount of water before he goes to bed. I stopped setting my alarm about a year or so ago. Now I just get up when I have to pee. I mean, I have to pee.
I’ve got an alarm that, if you don’t turn it off, it jumps off and flies and rolls around the room. This makes my dog bark, and eventually…that is, sooner than with an ordinary alarm clock…I will get up just to make sure the dog doesn’t find and eat the part of the alarm clock that flies off.
So I would recommend that. And a dog. (Cats are no good; they will just sleep through it, and they probably wouldn’t destroy the flying/rolling part if they caught it anyway, so no motivation to save it. Admittedly there have been days when I thought “Oh, just let the dog eat that thing,” but I’m afraid it would hurt him.)
I have that, but my GP doesn’t agree with my diagnosis because I’m not a small, fat man with a short/thick neck. Which she admits doesn’t completely exclude the possibility, but … I’d suggest your friend get a cat
I have a friend who has one of those “fly across the room” alarm clocks, but the problem is that he stopped using it after the first few days because he’s afraid it will fly into his computer monitor or break other shit in his room.
Make sure to watch the video for full effect.