yah. me too.

but only 4 sleeps till Brandon’s birthday!

i often have people goggle at me and ask if i’m crazy to get up at 4am. yes, probably. i go to bed at a decent hour (10 or 1030pm) and the getting out of bed thing isn’t the problem. it’s the keeping eyelids open thing that is tough. this morning i snapped awake as my anti-anginal pham lecture fell out of my hand and clattered to the floor. i was sitting up on the couch at the time.

and i was glad it wasn’t a cup of coffee i was holding.

here are a few other ways to get going in those early AM hours:

save the coffee for a little later. i find if i go for the caffeine straight away, i end up drinking WAY too much. sometimes a warm cup in your hand can be lulling and soothing. definitely not the theme we’re going for here.

cold shower. yup, after all my whining and finally getting a hot water heater, i don’t always use it. i don’t hop in straight out of bed though. how crazy do you think i am? i usually wait an hour or two until the bed looks tempting. and then – BAM! awake again!

speaking of bed, Brandon likes to make his bed first thing in the morning so he’s not tempted to crawl back in. however, a freshly made bed still looks appealing to me. especially if the sheets are turned down just right and the pillow has been fluffed just so…

sit in the most uncomfortable chair in your house. do NOT lie on the couch. do not recline on the couch. do not even look at the couch.

write something. don’t fool yourself into thinking you can read or watch a Kaplan video without the eyelids drooping. there is no way anyone at 4 o’clock in the morning is mentally alert enough to focus for more than one sentence at a time. do something manual first thing and get the hand-to-brain flow going.

or talk out loud. i like flashcards, so when i flip through them first thing in the morning, i usually do it verbally.

it’s not impossible to fall back asleep while sitting in a hard chair that makes your back hurt and talking out loud to yourself, but it should get you at least an hour or two. then bring on the coffee. starting out at 4am might seem crazy and all of these convoluted techniques might seem over the top (i don’t usually employ EVERY technique EVERY morning), but starting that early really gives you a solid start on the day.

it feels good when 8am rolls around and you know you’ve already put in 4 hours when most folks haven’t stumbled sleepily out of bed yet.