Take melatonin a half hour before your desired bedtime. Set an alarm on your phone so that you remember to take it at the exact same time every 24 hours. This gets you to bed at roughly the same time every night and establishes a steady 24 hour cycle, but requires almost no willpower expenditure since you are already awake and it’s just a matter of taking a quick pill. Worked for me.
Get in the habit of not turning off alarms unless you’re doing the thing you’re supposed to do. This sounds impossible for some people I know. I used to be one of those people that would set 10 snoozes. But simply doing what the alarm says immediately IS a trainable skill. Every time you set the snooze you’re reinforcing setting the snooze.
Yes! For example, if you have trouble getting up when you hear an alarm, you can repeatedly practice lying in bed and setting your alarm for one minute from now, then immediately getting up when you hear it.
While you’re at it, you might as well practice getting up, getting dressed, making the bed, starting the kettle (or whatever you would do for breakfast), etc.
(Disclaimer: I haven’t done this; I’ve only read about doing it.)
Take melatonin a half hour before your desired bedtime. Set an alarm on your phone so that you remember to take it at the exact same time every 24 hours. This gets you to bed at roughly the same time every night and establishes a steady 24 hour cycle, but requires almost no willpower expenditure since you are already awake and it’s just a matter of taking a quick pill. Worked for me.
My upvote goes mostly to the “set an alarm on your phone” part. So boring; so useful!
I can confirm this. I set alarms for the most ridiculous things—eg, “Umbrella” 5 minutes before I leave the office so I don’t forget it.
Set double layers of alarms. I’ve turned off the first one and slept another two hours, way too many times!
Get in the habit of not turning off alarms unless you’re doing the thing you’re supposed to do. This sounds impossible for some people I know. I used to be one of those people that would set 10 snoozes. But simply doing what the alarm says immediately IS a trainable skill. Every time you set the snooze you’re reinforcing setting the snooze.
Yes! For example, if you have trouble getting up when you hear an alarm, you can repeatedly practice lying in bed and setting your alarm for one minute from now, then immediately getting up when you hear it.
While you’re at it, you might as well practice getting up, getting dressed, making the bed, starting the kettle (or whatever you would do for breakfast), etc.
(Disclaimer: I haven’t done this; I’ve only read about doing it.)
You might want to make the habit a bit shorter than that so that it is easier to practice and repeat a lot.