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Getting up and staying up without coffee
Captain Ultra
low resolution pictures of birdsRegistered User regular
low resolution pictures of birdsRegistered User regular
Okay, so my new job (which I love btw. I don't get the chance to say that really) has had one downside compared to my last one. My last job I worked afternoons and nights (from 1:30-10:30) and so I could sleep in. But now, my current job starts at 8. (well, its an office job and the doors open at 8, but if I come in at 8:15, 8:30, no one cares) The issue is that I'm so not a morning person, and I feel at least kind of groggy until lunch.
I tried drinking coffee, but until now, I just didn't realize how much caffeine was in a cup of coffee, and maybe I just have a bad Constitution score, but it really started to affect me, drinking it everyday, to the point where I started getting really bad headaches on the days that I didn't drink any.
I figure that at least part of the equation is making sure I'm getting enough sleep, so I've been trying to go to bed earlier and earlier, but its been an effort changing my sleep schedule like that. Any tips on how to wake myself up without caffeine?
I tried drinking coffee, but until now, I just didn't realize how much caffeine was in a cup of coffee, and maybe I just have a bad Constitution score, but it really started to affect me, drinking it everyday, to the point where I started getting really bad headaches on the days that I didn't drink any.
I figure that at least part of the equation is making sure I'm getting enough sleep, so I've been trying to go to bed earlier and earlier, but its been an effort changing my sleep schedule like that. Any tips on how to wake myself up without caffeine?
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Like anything else, if you're going to quit, you're going to have some withdrawal symptoms for a while. I am entirely caffeine free, and now getting up for me isn't an issue. If you feel groggy try just a little bit of exercise in the AM. Like 5 pushups or something. It usually helps me
Are you eating a healthy breakfast? A sensible lunch? Your diet week influence your sleep.
Your best bet is to reset your sleep pattern and look at what you consume.
Coffee isn't necessarily bad, but to much consumption can be problematic. Personally I make it a rule not to drink it after two in the morning.
Satans..... hints.....
force yourself into bed earlier
no computers or phones around bed or sreep area
Now I do drink quite a bit of tea, but what really helps me is sleeping as late as I can. So I shower the night before I have class. I pack everything I'm taking with me the night before. I have my clothes ready. That gives me over an hour of extra sleep time and is the difference between me waking up at 6 am or earlier, and me waking up at 7 am.
Also, doing things that get my blood moving, or adrenaline up help keep me alert. So like, getting up and walking around when I can helps a lot. Drinking cold water. Talking to somebody/participating in class. Doing the stressful part of my coursework. That sort of thing.
Secondly, be sure that you go to bed at a consistent time every day, even the weekends and vacation. If you flip your schedule on Saturday and Sunday then you will be constantly dragging the first half of the week.
Next, give yourself some time to wake up in the morning before work. Get up, have some breakfast that is high in protein to get you full and ready for the day and try to stick with the schedule and in a few weeks it will become normal for you.
lastly, its got to be important for you to make this happen. If you don't care if your there on time, then no amount of advice is going to keep you from hitting the snooze button.
Ah, my brother Child of the Night. I feel your pain. I worked overnight for about a decade and when an opportunity for advancement came up my real big serious concern was that it was an 8 am* job. I had to break some long standing habits and inclinations. This year I was out from work for a few months because of health reasons and sure enough, without keeping to a schedule I was up into the wee hours of the night and had to break myself back into schedule.
Welcome to addiction. If you're going to use caffeine this way remember that it is easy to get acclimated to it. The more of it you drink the more of it you need to get it's attention increasing effects. If you keep using it then for the love of Jeebus be sure to drink some on your day off. Caffeine withdrawal sucks, with headaches and light sensitivity and all that shit. If I have to break a heavy habit I usually plan on that being my weekend activities while loading up on painkillers and trying to be alone because I am a jerk during that period.
Amount of sleep is a trap. I can sleep ten hours and not feel any more awake or rested then eight. In fact, the opposite can happen. At a certain point more sleep just leaves me more groggy and lethargic. I wake up feeling the most alert around seven hours of sleep but that wears on me if I keep it up long term.
Wake up at a given time everyday. Saturdays and Sundays as well. No exceptions. Do this consistently and build up the habit for like a month or so. Grind it into the soul of your being. You do this right and you should be waking up before your alarm anyways. Once you've got it well established you can sleep in on the weekends though if you really have your own clock set this "sleeping in" is gonna be like an hour or two at most.
Does your bedroom have windows? Make sure light can get in and give you a sort of subliminal feeling of time.
When your alarm is set for is when you get up. Break your snooze button. When you get up do something that wakes you up.
This is mainly about forming a habit for yourself. Once you do it, it will be effortless but forming that habit takes a lot of hard work and willpower.
* With 6 am Saturday overtime. Fuck you, that is the opposite of what Saturday is about!
Try having a hot quick breakfast when you wake up. instant oatmeal or grits..Something you can just boil some water in the microwave, pour it on top of, and scoop it down. the warm feeling inside gets me going just as well as coffee or tea.
You could also try cocoa instead of coffee.
I mean if you want to stop drinking coffee as a general thing that's fine, but like... coffee's kind of amazing. It really does help attentiveness, it helps your metabolism, and the best part is that it doesn't really have any negative side-effects. For how dependent people can get on coffee, really the only negative effects are some mild withdrawl headaches for a day or two, and obviously no longer having the positive effects. Like it's a super, super mild withdrawl compared to any other drug.
Now, if you're not sleeping enough just because you're playing video games until 3AM or something then that's definitely something to change towards a healthy alternative.
Coffee's kind of a miracle drug though
While I love coffee and agree it has a lot of benefits, bolded is just plain wrong.
The typical withdraw pattern for someone with a caffeine dependence is about 14 days, with day 1-3 being mild headaches and day 4-9 day being nearly non-functional hangover-like symptoms (photo-sensitivity, nausea, dizziness, irritability, debilitating migraines, etc.) before the issues tend to wear off. If you only drink a cup (8 oz) a day, your symptoms are likely not terrible. For someone who drinks 1-3 coffees actually poured by most coffee stores you are typically looking at the 14 day issue with cold turkey.
Typically the best plan is gradual reduction with small amounts of caffeine taken during the worst symptoms as needed until your body is down to drinking almost no coffee a day, and then cut entirely. That usually is a 1-2 month window.
Where are you getting the "typical" withdrawal pattern from?
Judging from an (admittedly) short googling of caffeine and coffee withdrawal, I'm seeing numbers ranging from what you're saying to "About 50% experience any symptoms whatsoever" to "Can last as little as 2 days with mild headaches". Nothing I saw said that typical withdrawal was 14 days of debilitating hangover.
I mean I know personally I've had times where I suddenly can't or just don't have coffee for weeks on end, or heck, just forgot to stock up and have been out at home for a week or two and the only proble I have is that I'm a little slower waking up. And I drink somewhere in the vicinity of a metric fuckton of coffee per day.
Obviously if you have horrible hangover symptoms then, like, ok, yeah, maybe don't just try to cold-turkey, but I haven't seen anything that suggests that a typical response to suddenly cold-turkey quitting all caffeine is that severe
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/press_releases/2004/09_29_04.html
My institution did a similar one last year for a master's thesis, which ended up with the 14 day timetable with a 4-9 day peak and day 14 being the average of no symptoms reported. But if you look at the data you will find a range of dates from 3-30 depending on the study.
If you already have an exercise routine, try doing it in the morning for a week or two. If you don't, but want to, this could be a good reason to start one. And if you don't, and don't want to, maybe just do something light in the mornings, like a few minutes of stretching or walking.
Now I wake up before my alarm automatically every single.morning.
This.
Im up between 10-30 mins before my alarm every morning purely out of the constant habit. Daylight savings will mess it up a bit a couple times a year but the body adjusts.
Just give yourself time, OP
After your shower but before you leave for work.
Will wake you right up.
As long as it's real fruit juice, which can get quite expensive depending on personal preference and usually isn't located in the juice isle of grocery stores.
That isle is just the fruit flavored soda isle.
Chiming in to second this. You may not think someone cares. But if the other people are there already, trust me, someone notices... and if they don't care, they won't stay that way for long.
Don't be that guy. Show up on time, be ready to work, if you aren't, it's got a decent chance to impact your ability to stay at that job or advance.
Sorry but this is a misconception. You should only go to bed when you are tired. If you "force" it, all you do is lay awake in bed and you weaken the association between your bed and sleep. So your body becomes practiced at thinking that bed time is awake time.
Ever been really sleepy, then as soon as you go to bed you're wide awake? That's because your body has come to associate your bed with being awake. This would be counterproductive to the OP trying to feel more rested.
I second doing some small exercise when you wake up. Some stretches and a good breakfast might help.
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If your wake-up time is predictable, use this site to determine when you should aim to be 'asleep': http://sleepyti.me/
It calculates the best time for you to be asleep so that you wake up during the light stage of the sleep cycle and feel refreshed. It gives you lots of options so you can try to sync it in with the time of night where you begin to feel tired and should go to bed.
I use this site a lot, I have it on my top bookmark bar. It is very helpful.
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