How to Stop Hitting Snooze and Start Waking Up Early at College
You wake to the annoying sound of your alarm. Moments later, you’re back asleep. You wake up again to the same beeping sound. You roll over and tap your phone screen. This repeats 5 more times. Before you know it, you’re practically running to your 8 am class. How did this happen again?
For most college students, this is an everyday occurrence. You wish you could get out of bed earlier. You want to get up, but you just can’t. How can you wake up on time at college? Discipline yourself to wake up each morning with these 5 steps.
5 Steps to Get up and Get Going
1. Go to bed by a specific time every night.
Believe it or not, the best way to ensure you wake up each morning is to go to bed at a consistent time. Many college students, especially freshmen, fail to go to bed early enough. Yes, you’re busy. Yes, your homework is demanding, but you actually can sleep at least 6-7 hours each night.
If you don’t get enough sleep, waking up on time will be almost impossible. You will be groggy and sluggish. Try to get in bed and put your phone away by a specific time each night. Don’t waste hours scrolling Instagram when you could be sleeping. You have to get your rest, otherwise you’ll struggle to wake up the next morning.
If your roommates are loud at night, consider having a conversation with them. Ask them to be quiet by whatever time you aim to be in bed. Be considerate, not demanding. Most of the time, your roommates will be fine with this. But if you have issues, consider talking to your RA. After all, a good morning’s start begins with a good night’s rest.
2. Motivate yourself to wake up every day.
Sometimes students struggle to wake up, because they don’t have anything exciting motivating them to wake up. If your first thing every day is speech class, you probably won’t be motivated to get up any earlier than absolutely necessary.
Find something to help motivate you. Maybe it’s exercise or grabbing breakfast with a friend. Whatever it is be sure that you enjoy it. It should make you want to wake up each morning.
Also be sure you have rigid wake up schedule. You should wake up around the same time every day of the week. Even if you don’t have class, force yourself to wake up by that time. This will help you have a consistent sleep pattern.
3. Get accountability.
This step can make or break your morning wake time. While needing accountability may seem embarrassing, it is better to form this habit now than to wait until later. Don’t let your embarrassment keep you from forming this key habit.
You need to figure out what motivates you. Sometimes the best motivator can be your money. You can test this in a few different ways to see if this is the case for you.
For example, if you don’t wake up each day by a certain time, you have to pay your roommate or a friend $5. If you’d rather use an app (like these), you can have it charge you for hitting snooze.
Maybe you’re motivated more by shame—other people knowing you’re being lazy. Thomas Frank, founder of College Info Geek, suggests scheduling a social media post for each morning. This post should say something like, “I’m lazy and still haven’t gotten out of bed.” If you don’t wake up by a certain time each day to reschedule the post, the information will post automatically.
Maybe you’re motivated by spending time with people. Try scheduling a study session, breakfast or exercise with a morning person early each day. If you consistently show up late, the other person has permission to confront or penalize you in some way.
While these ideas might sound extreme or far-fetched, do whatever it takes to help you get out of bed on time. You’ll wake up if you want to badly enough.
4. Be active.
Don’t stay in your bed! This is a recipe for falling back asleep. Your bed is warm and cozy, but your room probably isn’t. As soon as your alarm goes off, turn on a light and get out of bed. Walk to somewhere—the bathroom, the end of the hall and back, etc. Whatever you do, get moving. This will prevent you from falling back asleep.
An easy way to do this is to put your alarm somewhere out of reach like across the room (If you do decide to do this, ask your roommates first. You don’t want to cause tension or conflict.). You could also try apps that require you to solve a puzzle or walk several steps before the alarm turns off.
Another way to do this is to stretch or exercise first thing in the morning. While this might sound miserable, doing something active can help you fight the urge to sleep more.
Don’t allow yourself to stay inactive. Of course you’ll have a hard time waking up, if you lie in bed for another 10 minutes. So, get up and get going!
5. Form a consistent morning routine.
Every school day looks slightly different, but your mornings should keep to a consistent routine. Take time to write a detailed plan for weekday mornings. Be sure you schedule out every minute. It could look something like this:
6 am: Wake up and turn off alarm
6:01 am: Get out of bed.
6:02 am: Get changed for exercising.
6:05 am: Go for a run.
6:30 am: Arrive back to my room and shower.
6:45 am: Make a cup of coffee.
6:50 am: Look over my homework/notes for today.
7:05 am: Get dressed.
7:10 am: Get breakfast.
7:45 am: Leave for class.
While this may look like overkill, it isn’t. Routine is very important if you’re trying to form a habit. Over time you may need to tweak the exact schedule, but try your best to be as consistent as possible.
The goal of these 5 steps is to help you discipline yourself. Relying on a person or a gimmick to wake you up won’t help you long term. You have to train yourself to get up for yourself. You can stop hitting snooze and get up early each day!
