One of the things I hated the most about our old unit was the lack of morning light. For me, natural light in the morning was either one of the things I never knew I needed until I didn't have it or something I've needed more and more as I've gotten older (or both). I've never really been a "morning person" (something I would love to change) but I used to be able to get up to alarms instead of being in a hibernation-like sleep all morning.
The old unit faced west so it had great afternoon light but it was so dark in the morning. It was on a low floor so that didn't help either. We tried leaving the blinds open at night, but since we were on a low floor, we had a streetlight right outside the window. I thought maybe being exposed to light all night made it more difficult to get up because the sunrise didn't make much impact. We tried closing the blinds and using a light alarm, but that didn't work. In the old unit, after the first winter set in, I think I was only able to get up early when I was coming off a welcome European jet lag or during the weeks we slept in the living room (which faced east) because the bedroom A/C was broken. What a backwards unit. Bedrooms should face east! We both were in such deep slumbers in that old unit.
We made some changes with the new unit. Hopefully some combination of them is making a difference, because it would be really great to feel like a "regular" person, not to mention the fact that I desperately need this "getting up early" thing to stick.
So, what changes did we make?
First, our new unit gets a ton of natural light in the morning. It was a big reason (in addition to increased space) why we liked the new unit better. The sunlight comes streaming in through the window. We face south but we still get a lot of light. I've always loved southern exposures. We're also high enough that we can leave the blinds open at night with relatively little light coming in.
Second, I read somewhere that snoozing your alarm is one of the worst things you can do. I think I always knew that, but I was so tired that I didn't particularly care. Now that we have sunlight, which seems to raise my energy levels (and is why I hate going to my office which lives in the shadow of another skyscraper and has no light), I thought we might try to set our alarms for the time we actually want to get up, instead of letting them go off for an hour before that in the hopes that maybe we would hear something through the fog. If your brain knows there's no time for snoozing, hopefully it will respond better and actually just get up.
Third, and I discovered this by chance, we set the TV to music choice instead of NY1. I love NY1 and I love the news but I kind of just keep sleeping when it's on. I noticed that one day when we forgot to change the channel to NY1 that I got up in the morning a lot earlier when the music was on. I wonder if it makes a difference. I used to get up to the radio all the time when I was younger so maybe that's what I've needed all this time? We didn't use a music wake-up in the old unit for the past few years, ever since my clock radio broke.
Last, we got a new bed. It's really comfy but perhaps it also just provides better sleep.
I've been trying with Project Life Improvement to get up earlier in the morning for the longest time (and to go to sleep earlier since after 2 am isn't really a great bedtime). I really hope it will actually stick this time.
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