Accidental Website

I have always had a problem waking up early. As far back as I can remember, I have been a chronic over-sleeper. I am the type of person who, before going to bed, has to set five (yes, five) alarms to ensure I wake up. I set my alarms for two hours before I actually have to get up because I know I will hit snooze for about two hours.

It is actually surprising to me that I have continued to be gainfully employed in my adult life. If I count the number of times I have been late to work, it would probably outweigh the number of times I have actually been on time. I have, rather than focussing on waking up earlier, made it my goal to become super efficient in the workplace. This way, when my boss tries to say to me, “You’re late and unproductive”, or, “Everyone else comes in on time and look how much more work they get done”, they can’t. I think my bosses have just marveled at the fact that I am consistently late, yet more productive and efficient than those who arrive at the office on time or even early. If that is the case, they probably feel that addressing issues of production and efficiency with their on time employees would be cumbersome and awkward, so in turn, they just leave me alone.

For what it’s worth, I do have constant bouts of insomnia and apparently lack the ability to sleep soundly for more than two consecutive hours. I think this has a lot, if not everything, to do with my inability to wake up early. This appears to be a genetic issue in my family as my mom and brother seem to suffer from the same sleep issues. My mother, formerly a chronic over-sleeper (for the first fifteen years of my life), now cannot sleep past 8am. Consequently, she now falls asleep at 5:30pm every night. My brother seems to share the same sleeping cycle I have, if not drastically worse.

The above being said, I vowed in the new year to try and change this trait. I searched the internet for articles and ideas on becoming an early riser and stumbled upon a blog by Steve Pavlina conveniently titled, “How to Become an Early Riser”. What I found most exciting about Steve’s theory, is that you don’t have a bedtime. In all of my other attempts in the past, I was going to bed like a sixth grader at 9pm because I thought going to bed early was the only way to wake up early. According to Steve, you can become an early riser in two simple ways; wake up at the same time every day and go to bed only when you are tired.

On Monday of last week, I started this journey. I have to say, it went pretty well during the week. I was awake at 7am each morning and went to bed at varying times depending on my level of sleepiness (but never later than 1am—which is big step up from my past bedtime of 3am). Today, I ran into a problem. I knew I was going to have an issue when I did not fall asleep until 3am last night. I woke up this morning at 9am and instead of getting up, I fell back asleep and woke up at noon.

So, for now, I am a sleep failure, but I will not give up - I will begin my journey, again, next week. This time, actually following Steve’s instructions of waking up at the same time for 30 consecutive days. Hopefully, this will be just what I need to become an early riser, once and for all. Or, it won’t and I will eventually lose my job and become a homeless woman living in an alleyway sleeping really late. One or the other…