For years and years now I've been having great problems in waking up on time in the mornings. I get a free taxi service to school, so i have to be on time and recently I've holded them up by at lest ten minuites at a time while I franticly pull on my clothes and splash water on my face. My work isn't suffereing, since when I'm up I'm up, but I can never seem to wake up when I want. My family all enjoy long-lie ins, but no-one else ever seems to have this problem. I never stay up past 1 in the morning, and most of my friends seem to never have more then 4 hours a day and are allways absolutely fine. It's begging to piss me off royaly. My alarm is loud enoough, but never seems to work. I'm on quite a lot a medication due to disability, but that shouldn't cause a problem. My Dad is getting really pissed off with me. I would greatly apreciate any and all advice you gould give.

Go to bed earlier and don't use an alarm clock.

Whenever I set my alarm, I always sleep until it goes off, then I hit snooze several times.

Going to bed earlier will get you up earlier.

Or if that's not an option, keep a box of whole roasted coffee beans next to your bed, and chew a couple as soon as your concious.

Maybe accumulated sleep deficit? If you get less than 9 hours of sleep for, say, a week, you're body's going to say to itself "We've gotta catch up on 7+ hours of sleep" and it's going to do that best it can to catch up on that. The more sleep loss you have accumulated, the more it's going to fight you on that.

I place my alarm cloclk far enough away from my bed so that I actually have to get up to turn it off.

Also, if it's possible, place your bed in such a place that the rising sun (depending on time of year) hit's your face. Or, get one of those light-alarm things, that shines a really bright spotlight on your face at a specific time.

See, I tried that. And I had a loft bed. So I had to climb down, stumble across the room, fumble blindly on the dresser for the clock, and beat it to death... After which I immediately crawled back into bed and slept for four more hours.

But of course, I've been known to sleep for days at a time if no one wakes me up.

*shrug*

Get rid of alarm clocks.
When you go to sleep mentally prepped knowing that you will HAVE TO wake up on your own... you will find you will wake up a full hour before you have to. When you do that, check the clock, and sleep some more, but that mental knot will wake you back up every ten to twenty minutes... and if you're tired, every forty-five. I would know. I have not been late for a single day at work, and my schedule flipflops back and forth. So my sleeping habbits are jacked to the extreme. Once your body realizes there's no mommy wakeuper device to do its chore for it, it will work on its own. I always wake up at eight... and nap for another hour before I get up to go to work.

That mental habbit SUCKED in the army. Because they only let you sleep for so long in training, I got into this fit where I'd wake up at O Dark Hundred and look around, find my watch, and check the time. That whole 'damn only two more hours to sleep and I'm awake here' anxiety can make for a secondary alarm clock that works a bit on the TOO WELL side. Anywho, I was always awake prior to our alarm going off. (Ten man room. Three alarms at least.)

Another one that helps, if you can find some kind of X-10 unit and a rudimentary programmer system (X-10 control clock)... you can put a heater in your room. What you do is set it to turn the heater on at X time. When that room heats up, you'll get up. Especially when it gets up above eighty degrees and you're under the covers. X-10 home automation units are dead easy to instal, they just plug into wall sockets, and then you just plug stuff into them. This is of course, if you can't find a natural way to heat the room up to 'too uncomfortable to sleep in' temperatures... which is another annoying thing that wakes me up at Seven thirty. See, I have the sun coming in my window, I keep my door closed, I have the smallest room in the house, and I have two computers running in here at all times. My room averages six to eight degrees above house temp. It can get... how can I put this? WARM.

Roomates + cold water.

Get new alarm clock; your brain'll ignore the sound of the old one if you hear and ignore it often enough.

Try and schedule something pleasant to do first thing in the a.m. to encourage you to get out of bed.

Me: Keep in mind you have something important to do tomorrow. You'll wake up.

However, I also have my Palm to wake me up. The vibration sounds wake me up more than the actual alarm. Alarms that make...I don't know... 'physical' noise, or something simular will help. Music is good, so long as it's not sleepy music.

Remember the wisdom of the Indians. When they were priming for an attack, the braves would drink water before bedding down. In the morning, they'd be awoken (and very alert) by urgency in their bladders. This would let them get the drop on their enemies, attacking in the very early morning when most guards are very very sleepy.
I've done it. it works. you should see my scalp collection.

His Scalp collection IS pretty mighty.

Theese are all good, thanks guys. I plan to use a diferent one each morning this to see which is best... allthough I might substitute the coffie grounds for gummie bears. So keep 'uk coming, and I'll let you know how they work out, if for nothing more then the comedy value

i do that and set my phones alarm on... actually works for me

Ok, as promised, I tried nearly all of these suggestions.... with some mixed results which I'll report here.

1) Regards to the go to bed earlier idea, Have been constantly going to bed earlier, the effect is minimal at best, but will continue due to the accumulated sleep deficit theory

2) Regards to the raw coffe grounds when you wake up theory, Decieded against the coffe beans, and substituted skittles. In my half dazed state I ended up choking on them, spraying colourful treats all over my room. It's a week later and I'm still finding them everywhere, allthough admittedly I didn't miss my ride. But I think the cons outweigh the benifits on this one.

3) Regards to the moving alarm clock theory, Placed alarm away from bed. got up, turned it off, went back to sleep, overslept.

4) Regards to the sunlight/llight theory, Tried to manuver my head so sunlight woke me up, woke up with my ride at the door and my head under my pillow.

5) Regards to the Mental preparation theory, Tried mentally remiding myself that I needed to get up.... and It worked. The FIRST time.

6) Regards to the timed heater theory, Overslept, but was very sweaty when awoken.

7) Regards to the cold water theory... NEVER EVER TELL YOUR OLDER BROTHER TO WAKE YOU UP WITH COLD WATER!!!! He wakes up and goes to work an hour after I leave, and he STILL woke up to do it!! And the git did it AN HOUR EARLY!!!!!! I did make my ride, but again, the cons outweighy the pros.

Regards to the indian bladder theory, Woke up at three A.M DESPERATE for a whizz, relived my self, drank more water, Woke up at five a.m, whizzed, decied to just wait for the the ride. Theoreticly this could work on a regular basis, but I'd have to get my timing right, and I don't really want all that hassle.

So I'm going to continue with the going to bed earlier, mental preparation and maybe try the bladder theory once more, but apart from that, there was no real change. I'm still open to new ideas, allthough I reserve the right to veto some.

What if you set your alarm to the time you need to get up at in order to catch your ride and get into the habit of simply turning off your alarm and getting up rather than hitting snooze and going back to sleep?

do u actually fall asleep when u go to sleep or do you 'toss and turn' (till lets say the normal time you sleep before) for a few min/hours then sleep?

Snort crack, but only in the mornings, at the same time each day.

Cold coffee by your bed, really strong. Wake up, snarf it down (carefully!), and go back to bed - it'll kick in before too long, if strong enough. 'course, only problem here is, after awhile you develop a tolerance to the caffine, and it acts as a sophoric rather than a stimulant.

Jolt espresso may be substituted for better results than cold coffee though... hmm...

You wake up, you're not REALLY awake, concious thought has yet to set in, so you simply follow what your body wants to do. "Sleeeeep..."

How about, pry out the Snooz botton, and make it so that it's a bit of a task to turn the alarm off. That way you have to boot up your Operating System to get 'that annoying noise' to stop.

Also, try combining timed heater with timed lighting. How long will you sleep roasting with your head buried under a pillow? If you have to, combine a whole bunch. Usually my ideas never strike as one... but in twos or threes at once. Mental prep combined with hot room, with sunlight pouring in...

But I did have ONE surefire way to get up in the morning back in the day when I missed my first alarm.

My computer was programmed with three seperate MP3s at three times.
I had my volume up every time I went to bed.
One song at normal wakeup time... get up, hit spacebar to turn it off... sleep for some more. The second an hour later... time to get up. It shut off after ten minutes just incase I wasn't there.

Final alarm...
Metal Gear Solid. The ALERT sound when a guard spotted you, and subsiquent music. With volume up and you missed the first two alarms... you would be across the room in less than two seconds. I only got hit by it once... and let me tell you... HOLY SHIT. This was set with twenty minutes before my bus picked me up... Trust me... as fast as you move after this alarm gets you up... twenty minutes is all you need. That opening exclamation sound scared the living SHIZNIT out of me.

After that wakeup a few times... while it may suck... you won't be sleeping in anymore.

You had 20 minutes at the lowest end before you got up for school? Amazeing, I think I toped out at like 5 mins and the normal was a loud honking sound. ^_^ Now that I've gotten longer in the years tho just get something you really look forward to in the morning and concentraite on that before you go to sleep, its just like when your a kid and its christmas your up at like 5 am every time. I choose a yummy breakfast to get me up in time for collegein.

*edit, attocious spelling, but when I'm sick all words look wrong so I fixed what I could see.

*edit 2 re read and it seemed like I was being a little jerkassish no offence meant the lack of awakened time for me is a choice that way I'd have a nice adrenal rush and not fall asleep again during class.

I'm odd. I can't eat... ANYTHING for the first hour after waking up. No appetite.

What I've done is set my alarm for 30 minutes before I really need to get up. That way, alarm rings, I hit snooze, alarm rings, hit snooze again, alarm rings, and I finally get up.

Maybe I'm just lucky, but I just use my alarm normally. It sits right next to my bed, and I guess I just wake up really easily. Of course, 10 years of getting up before six am will get you ready to go really easily.

Tried something new - set my cellphone's alarm to sound like my Dad's ringtone.

It works too: I shot out of bed, lurching for the phone to answer the "call". Wide awak in less than 2 minutes.