Never Hit that Snooze Button Again

No, this isn't click bait. 

I would love to be that person who wakes up at 5 a.m. and goes for a jog. But my usual morning routine consists of waking up and hitting the snooze button for the next 4 hours. I tried getting an early night in, tried using a heavy metal song as my alarm (Do not use death metal as alarm kids; did me a hecking scare), tried putting my phone out of reach, but no matter what I did, the result was always the same. I would hit that snooze button and go tuck myself back in.  

This ritual became a routine for me and every time I heard the alarm, my hands would automatically reach for the snooze button. Then one day I came across this blog run by a guy named Steve Pavlina. He is an American self-help author and has his own website which focuses on personal development. 

In one of his articles he talks about this particular problem, which is our innate urge to press the snooze button. His solution to this problem is a bit peculiar, but it works. It is based on a behavioural process called conditioning. In simple terms, conditioning is a form of learning through repetition. So, what we do is we learn to wake up by practising to wake up (which kind of sounds bonkers and maybe it is). 

The main problem is waking up as soon as the alarm goes off, right? So, we practice that but not in the morning. We do it before bed or just any other time which might be convenient. What you do is you set a few alarms some time apart from each other then get in bed and imagine you're sleeping. It is crucial that the environment of the room is just as it would be if you were actually sleeping. Now, as the alarm goes off, turn it off, and then do whatever you do after waking up from a real sleep. For me it is usually laying in bed for an extra hour but I would strongly suggest against it. Then you go back to bed and repeat the whole thing: turn off the alarm as it goes off, get up, do your routine, and get back in bed. Do this a few times every day and soon you will become conditioned to turning off the alarm when you hear it. 

This is going to be highly annoying but I assure you it is just as effective.