I have a problem. I’ve always been a person who hits the snooze button in the morning. Usually three times a morning. Lately, I’ve been hitting the snooze button and not even waking up to do it. Like, I would wake up and realize it was 27 minutes after the alarm was set for. I didn’t consciously hit the button. It’s kind of a problem when you are responsible for feeding 3 animals and 2 humans AND dressing those two humans and getting them to school.
Once upon a time, a million years ago, I read that you can train yourself to stop the snooze button insanity. It’s sort of derived from the Pavlov’s dog experiments. At least that’s what the article said. I’m not really sure how you make the leap from salivating dogs to not hitting the snooze alarm, but that didn’t stop me from trying the method described in the article.
It is a very simple process. Set aside about 30 minutes of quiet time. Just once. This isn’t something you have to do for several days in a row. I don’t have the time or commitment skills for anything like that. Just thirty minutes one Sunday afternoon. Put on that cartoon you never let your kids watch if you have to. Set your alarm clock for five minutes ahead. Lie down in your bed and close your eyes. Don’t bring your phone. Leave the tv off. You don’t have to fall asleep, but if you do, the alarm will hopefully wake you anyway. When the alarm goes off, stand up, out of the bed and turn the alarm off. Walk away for a second. Walk back to the alarm and set if for another five minutes ahead. Repeat the whole process a total of five times.
I know it sounds ludicrous. I also know that I tried it and it worked. When I woke up this morning, I was sitting up and my feet were hitting the floor before I even reached for the alarm clock.
The funny story and probably further proof that this does work is that when I was doing the practice runs last night and the alarm kept going off, my fat cat would come running in the room and meowing at me. The first time it went off, I thought he was just being annoying, but as the alarm went off 4 more times in 30 minutes and he kept running into the room and meowing at me urgently, I realized that he was responding to the sound of the alarm. The first thing I do in the morning after the alarm goes off is feed the animals. So, he’s clearly programmed to eat when he ears that alarm. And, now I’m programmed to get out of bed when I hear it.