Paying Attention to Attention - Part 1 02. One of the hard parts 03. The list, for now 04. (Morning Wake Up Wars): #1: The automatic timer scare yourself awake alarm method 05. More than 2 items needs a list 06. (Morning Wake up Wars): #2: The Ritalin Freight Train Wake Up Routine 07. (Morning Wake up Wars): #3: I used to set my clock radio to the wrong time 08. Other Clocks, Other Times 09. They say Energy Follows Attention 10. The clock tricks went on for years -- Theodor Seuss Geisel (Dr. Seuss) |
04. (Morning Wake Up Wars): #1: The automatic timer scare yourself awake alarm method(Paying Attention to Attention - Part 4 - August 1, 2011)Waking up in the mornings is tough. It's the foggiest time of the day. Just the opposite of the shiny whacked alertness that comes over some of us late at night, just when other people are falling asleep... Sometimes it takes both light and sound (a lot of both) to wake up in the morning. Even if you've had about 6-7 hours sleep in the night. Sometimes an obnoxious station on a really loud alarm radio (with tape wrapped around it to keep the volume from being adjusted by a noise crazed, hibernating bear) isn't quite enough. When i was in my early 20s, I used to hook up one or two of those hardware store appliance timers to a stereo with an old turntable, and a lamp with a hundred watt bulb I could see from the bed. I'd set set the needle in the groove on a record sure to wake me (my favorite was to set it right at the start of TIME, on Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, with all the awesome alarm sounds). When I had two timers and enough outlets to spare, I'd set the lamp to come on first, so I had a chance to wake and get up and disarm the whole evil set up before the stereo kicked on and the turntable slowly wound up into a frenzy of the loudest possible alarm clocks exploding at once, 3 feet from my head (which was only 4 or 5 feet from my wife's head, and she didn't have trouble waking up). So, it was in my best interest, and caused me considerably fewer heart palpitations, to see the light and lift the needle off the record before timer two clicked on. This method worked reasonably well for a couple years of switching from 2nd shift to third to days and struggling not only with waking up every day, but with going to sleep at a reasonable time in the first place. I had to give it up after our second daughter was born, because those alarm sounds set her screaming every time they went off, which, while helping make sure I got out of bed, got me in a lot of trouble, too. |
Copyright 1978 - 2024 by Randy Weeks
(This old site has been online since 1995... I'll redo it eventually, maybe...
Meanwhile, consider it a museum piece from the early web). :)
Thanks for visiting www.weeks.org
Your comments, questions, criticism, musings, yawnings and collaborative contributions are welcome.