Ask HN: How do you wake up?

I used to be like that. What came to help is an Android app [1, 2] asks math questions to snooze or disable. Figuring simple ones like 9 + 4 = ? is enough to activate the brain into waking life.

Several surprises came to me with this:

(a) How hard it is to figure a simple one like 13 + 6 = ? when half-way asleep!

(b) Improvements in my mental math speed! My brain has started arriving at the answers without consciously calculating. Thankfully the app allows increasing the math difficulty levels. I am now at the level of 67 + 54 = ? LOL!

(c) After having used this for several months with a consistent wake up time, it is not painful to wake anymore, even without the alarm. I never knew I could get there.

[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.alarmclock...

[2] I am in no way associated with the above app. Plus, I am sure there would be many with the same feature.

My problem with sleep in general is that I need about 8 hours to function and to get the most out of exercise and studies, but I have a much easier time getting up if I'm sleeping only 6 hours or even less. Haven't found a solution to that.

But if I allow myself to get up after 6 hours of sleep a combination of having drank too much before going to bed and not closing the blinds works best. I know that sleeping in perfect darkness is supposed to be a good thing. But getting up in the darkness doesn't work so well for me. The need to pee is a strong motivator as well.

I avoid eating past 5pm. I wake up without an alarm around 7 to 7:30 in the morning, 6:30 in the summer. I get up and cook a big breakfast (my biggest meal of the day). This is the only thing that helped me get good sleep and wake up easily and refreshed. I have tried all the advice in the comments on this page, and more, but nothing helped. I used to sleep so deeply as if in a coma, and it took hours to fully wake up even though I could tell I was awake.

The only thing that works for me is to always wake up at the same time, every day (no snooze, no "5 more minutes"). Regardless of whether I went to bed early or was up until 3am. Of course, it does mean you need to listen to your body and actually go to sleep early when you need it.

if you have trouble waking up put your alarm and don't snooze it, just wake up. Drink a full glass of water and jump on the shower, a cold morning shower will wake you up.

A good "UPS Beep" ringtone never fails.