How to get up early in the morning

The inability to wake up when needed is an issue I've dealt wih my whole life. However I've found ways to get around them.

Using a more natural method of waking up requires only three steps

1. Think about the time you want to go to bed.
2. Make sure you get a good amount of sleep (7-9 hours)
3. Count in the time it usually takes you to fall asleep

For example:

I want to wake up at 8 am. I want to get 9 hours of sleep. That means I have to be asleep by 11pm. It takes me about 2-3 hours to fall asleep. That means I should go to be around 8 or 9.

What if you're an insomniac?

Thenobviously the reason you can't get up is because you're not well-rested enough. Since going to bed at 9 isn't that big of a deal I don't mind the 2 hour wait to fall asleep. However if it had been 4 hours it would be a big deal - I wouldn't want to go to bed at 7. So, you need to learn how to fall asleep. Here are some good ways.

1. Think about the universe and how it came to be. That's a snoozefest waiting to happen
2. Pass the time by making up your own bedtime story. It's like a daydream you control. This does help to fall asleep. This is what I use, and considering that it used to take me about 5 hours to fall asleep - the new 2 hour gap is very much welcome
3. Use children's allergy medicine. This is one my doctor had recommended me. Children's medicine is usually lighter , and tastes better, than adult medicine. Considering I have no allergies it was logical I would need something that didn't affect my body much. The great part was that it was syrup so taking it wasn't too hard. The second part was that it was drowsy medicine. That's the part that makes people fall asleep. You do have to account for 1 hour to take effect, and the fact that drowsy means you fall asleep quicker not right away.

If I have an important meeting to attend, or school, I don't want to rely only on natural waking to get there. However alarms don't work for me - I learn to ignore them.

However alarms are the only thing that will wake me in time. So how to deal with that dilemma?

The answer: multiple alarms.We're talking anywhere from 3 to 10.

This is what I did to wake up at 7:30 am

1. Set my main alarm to 7:15 am. My main alarm has a LOUD setting so this is the one most likely to wake me up
2. Make sure my main alarm is far away from the bed. Sure sometimes I sleepwalk to turn it off and that doesn't help, but it's better than having it within arm's length.
3. Set up my phone alarm to 6:50 am. I realize that part of my waking up via a bigger alarm is that I need for my mind to already be somewhat awake. Even though I don't feel awake, the truth is a small alarm does open up a tiny percent of my mind - which will allow it to wake up fully later
4. Make sure there's a repeat system. Have the phone alarm ring every 10 minutes until shut off. Better yet, if your phone allows multiple alarms, do 6:50 to 7:20 in a 10 minute increment. This is better than an actual repeat because that way if you turn off the alarm in your sleep, a new alarm will attempt to nudge you. If you don't have a multiple alarm system but still want to use multiple 10min-incremented alarms try using multiple phone and devices. I once used 2 phones and a nintendo DS to do this.
5. Have a late alarm for 7:40. That's really in case I go back to sleep after waking up.

There is another method of waking up that I use and it's called pre-sleep-brainwashing. Basically before going to bed I keep telling myself :

"I want to wake up at 6 o'clock, I want to wake up at 6 o'clock, I want to wake up at 6 o'clock - not 7, not 5 , but 6 o'clock"

I keep saying that about 10 times and ta-dah, I'm awake at 6:50. It's not perfect but close enough.