Can’t get up

[jetadore]

I’d like to get up daily at 6am and do something productive (exercise, meditation, housework, life admin, …). I can wake up early no problem but I have real difficulty getting up out of the bed in the morning. I just can’t seem to prize myself out of the cosy embrace of the duvet. Even if I do somehow get up my brain just doesn’t feel “ready” so I still can’t get anything done. I am naturally a night owl and my mind it’s most alert/active in the evening. My ideal sleep routine would be 1am-9am. Unfortunately this isn’t compatible with family/work life so have improved my sleep hygiene so that I sleep by 10. Even though I can easily wake up at 6, I can’t get out of bed so I’m losing 2 hours a day. I wake up and lie there for 2 hours doom scrolling and telling myself to get up. Even if I put the phone away, I just lie there daydreaming and thinking about all the things I could be doing. How do stop thinking and start moving? DH and DS both just wake up and are up within minutes, when I ask how to do it he says “stop being lazy”. I’ve always been like this, is it a habit or is it your nature, is there some technique I could use or some supplement/drug I can take? I feel like I’m always fighting my brain. Our house is a tip and life is completely disorganised so I really need to make this change.

Following. I’m normally a morning person but spent years trapped in bed with a sleeping baby and then toddler who would move if I woke up. Now I can move I can’t bring myself too. Maybe we need nicer things to get up for?

Maybe! I used to get up super early to binge watch shows or play video games before work. But no time for try one things now and getting up to hoover or sort paperwork doesn’t have quite the same draw, but desperately needs doing.

Could you go to work earlier so you get that time in the afternoons / evenings instead.

If you're just lying in bed till 8 anyway, why not go to bed at midnight and do those productive things before bed?

Following as I’m exactly the same. My friend picks me up at 6am to go to the gym but she’s been slacking off a bit lately and I just can’t do it. I can’t seem to get to sleep before midnight either.

Cut yourself some slack as it's way harder to address this problem in the winter months than in the summer.

In terms of breaking the phone-in-bed habit, the way to address this is when your resolve is strong (in the evening) putting your phone in a different room to charge. Use the times when you're motivated to set up a situation where it's harder for you to adopt bad habits when you're demotivated.

Put your phone in a different room and put a list of things you want to do in the morning with the reasons why, and 2 pints of water by your bed. Drink them when you wake up, you'll need the loo soon enough. Lay out your yoga clothes neear your bed.

I think you are quite normal. Daydreaming, stretching and lazing about for 30-40 minutes a day should be a part of everybody’s daily routine.
There is this trend that we should be always busying ourselves, be productive every minute of the day and rush from a to b while multitasking. To be realistic, you can’t do this from your waking moment till you fall asleep. Or at least you shouldn’t. Give yourself a break!
Why do we have to cram so much shit into a day? I think that’s why some people are stressed and burnt out, because they can’t relax and let the shit go.
And even celebrities are promoting it: “I wake at up at 5 am, read the news, go to the gym, then shower, have my super-healthy (tasteless) kale, ginger and avocado juice, drop the kids off, go to my office, make phone calls, have meetings, have my tasteless lunch, yoga class, more meetings, pick up kids, take kids to swimming lessons after beating their brains out in school all day, then homework, make dinner, put kids to bed, write e-mails, check latest news, fall asleep at 11pm. Well done, superbusy me!” Fuck it!

Fellow night owl forced into early rising by life, children and the absolute unfairness of it all. If I could sleep in till 11 every day I would.

I use the tried and true piss alarm clock. Down a massive glass of water right before bed. I inevitably wake up at 5:30am busting for a wee and have no choice but to get up. Once I'm up it's easy to stay up!

I read your post. I have exactly the same problem. I am retired so all those years of leaping out of bed at 6am are gone but chronic insomnia took there toll due to the hormone changes etc etc. Now I just love my duvet and having breakfast in bed (dh is more lively). My ritual is the New York Wordle, the Wordle App, emails, Gransnet and Mumsnet. Now I must get up and have a shower. There is the shopping downstairs which was delivered at 9am.(dh brought it in). I will then put the washing on, tidy up as it will be about 12 pm. Crumbs, I am wasting my life. This has to change. I have work to do, a painting of a cat to finish, a walk to do, cooking, etc etc. Now you have heard how awful,I am be warned and be assured it’s better in the warmer weather.

Put an alarm clock on the other side of the room.

Would work for the life admin but I’d also like to get more exercise and meditation into my life and that’s best done in the morning.

Funny enough I’ve trained myself to wake up without an alarm clock, it’s not waking up that’s the problem it’s the getting up. Even if I have to get out of bed for a wee, to get phone or turn off alarm clock, sliding back into bed always feels less painful than staying out.

Pull your duvet right off onto the floor when you get up for that wee/to turn off your annoying alarm clock that's the other side of the room. Have a big snuggly dressing gown and furry slippers ready to put on too so you'll feel cosy even though you're 'up'. Alternatively get straight into the shower. I should imagine once you're showered and dried you won't be so tempted to go back to bed.

Do your meditation in bed. Have your earphones and a guided meditation ready on your phone the night before.

You could definitely do your meditation in bed, I often do that when I wake up. Sometimes for 15 minutes, sometimes an hour, depending on how early I wake up. I put my earphones on and use the Insight Timer app. (I saw the app recommended on here last year, thank you whoever recommended it!)

You might also find it easier to get out of bed early in a month or two when it's warmer and lighter in the mornings. Once you are in the habit, it'll just be what you do every day and will require little effort.

Get a personal assistant and a cleaner. Stay in bed.

Being a member of a sleep phase minority group really sucks.

I mean, I think we're all fighting our body rhythms to some extent, what with very varying day lengths even in the most southern parts of the UK, living in an industrialised and timetabled society with rigid year-round workdays, international travel, shift work, artificial light and a twice a year clock change, and then busy-culture, phones, and all that stuff on top. But for those who naturally have a very late or early sleep phase, it's even more of a fight to conform, for decades and decades of your life, and I think it can be harmful.

I've never been to a sleep clinic or had any diagnosis, but from teen years onwards my natural sleep phase was around 4am to midday. Obviously that's not practical, so I tried with varying levels of success to force it closer to the norm, for years and years. And at some point, after all those years of trying to force myself to sleep 5 hours earlier than my body/brain wanted, something seemed to just break, and for years now my natural sleep schedule has been almost entirely random.

Now, when left entirely to my own devices (have tested this for a couple of months), it's anywhere between 0 and 5 sleep periods a day, of anything from ten minutes or so to about 16 hours, but usually between 2 and 4 hours, and averaging out over a week at ≈8h per day.

Living with my partner, I can sometimes force "normality" for a few days if I do lengthy or tiring prep for it, but I usually just simulate normality by going to bed when he does, and if some sleep happens within that time, great, if not, have a long lie-in or some naps or push through. If I absolutely must be awake/asleep at certain times, large doses of certain medications will do it, but I don't like doing that.

Don't break your sleep, MNers. It's very annoying. I don't know how you avoid it if you're a sleep phase minority, mind, just… don't break your sleep. I'd guess that finding a sleep schedule that lets you live your life but which is as close as possible to your natural sleep phase would reduce the chance of this shit happening, but not being a sleepologist I have no idea TBH. I don't know whether there a diagnosis for this or if doctors know how it happens, but it's a right PITA. At this exact moment, I've been awake for 44 hours straight.

Delayed is an arse but it's less of an arse than chaotic, so… be nice to your minority brain

You can do some exercise in bed, I have a yoga strap in my bedside cabinet and often stretch my lower body with it in bed and then find I'm awake enough to get up.

I'm a definite night owl morning snoozer so I can attest to this!

Great post. I think deep down this is what my brain is thinking first thing in the morning: “Get out of this comfy bed to do some tedious busywork? Fuck that!”

I wonder if that's partly why some people seem to love running so much — the only way they can make an excuse to carve out time for their minds to meander chaotically around within themselves and let disparate or incongruous or tangential thoughts run past each other, fade to nothing, clash up against each other, melt into one another, and generally do daydreamy-thought things is to simultaneously violently hurl their bodies along the tarmac.

Love this!

Even if I have to get out of bed for a wee, to get phone or turn off alarm clock, sliding back into bed always feels less painful than staying out.

I hear you, but at least once you’re up it’s that little bit easier to stay up. Somehow psychologically I feel worse about getting back into bed having got up, than I do about staying in bed. So making myself get up helps me. (I am also a natural 1am-9am person).

That’s true, I used to get up with the dawn, which was great in summer, not so great in winter. But these days I’ll be tucked up even when the sun’s blazing the curtains. I’ve considered one of those daylight alarms but at 6am it would disturb DH, just as going to bed late disturbs him. We’re have opposite sleep habits - him early, me late - and seem to have settled on his, admittedly this does fit better with ‘life’. We could have separate bedrooms and I’m considering suggesting it as it would solve a lot of problems.
I find meditating in bed less effective but is a compromise that could work too.

Some great post thanks to all. @JarByTheDoor post about sleep phases chimes with me. Unfortunately, despite it not being fair, that’s the way modern life is and shows no signs of changing any time soon. It’s a double edged sword - I need time to exercise & meditate to maintain my mental health, so I can function in the world which operates in such a way as to mess with my sleep and negatively impact my mental health!
Anyway, what I think I’ll try is to force myself to get up every day in March. Without having to “do” anything in particular once I’m up, simply to get up out of bed early. Hopefully if I can do it for a month it’ll form a habit, and if it doesn’t I’ll just give up and accept my lot.