My morning ritual is the same as yours. I hate sticking my head out from underneath the covers. Most days my baby is what makes me get out of bed. I just don't go back in after I get up to take care of him or put him in bed with the wife.

I have found that if I put the alarm clock on the other side of the room, I have to get up to turn it off. Once I'm up and out of the covers, I'm less likely to get back in.

Like Tom, mine is the same as yours. You'll get no advice worth taking from me. As it is, I'm consistently five minutes late to wherever I have to go in the morning.

Three LARGE labrador retrievers.....in the habit of being fed at 5:00 am. Works like a charm!

solution to waking up: get pregnant

haha

my solution has been waking up to music. also, studies have shown waking up by a grudual alarm (volume slowly increases) is more effective.

i bought a $60 cd alarm clock that does that and wake up to Meatloaf every morning screaming, "LIKE A BAT OUT OF HELL!"

hope that helps :P

It's a tough thing to do. I just seem to be a night person. It is considerably easier for me to extend my nights as opposed to starting the day earlier. Now with that said, going to bed at the earlier side of your normal timeframe helps. I don't mean two hours earlier but something more gradual such as 30 or 45 minutes early. A shower more or less right after waking up really helps too. Finally building up to some level of consistency works too, even if it's a series of small steps.

housemates. loud ones.

the dog thing works, too.

or combine several of these ideas and have a roommate with one of those gradually-louder alarm clocks who is somehow capable of sleeping through it. this was pretty common in school with one of my then-girlfriend's roommates ... you wake up while it's at volume level 3 or 4 and start thinking "please wake up and turn it off, please wake up and turn it off" ... but no. the volume goes up to 7, 8, 9 ... its pitiful little internal speaker violently distorts, the cacaphony is unbearable, yet your roommate sleeps soundly ...

after about 6 seconds of full-blast, distorted jazz, you leap out of bed in a fit of rage, stalk over to the other side of the room and yank her stereo out of the wall socket.

the adrenaline alone will wake you up. :) okay: not pleasant. but effective.

Thanks for all your input, guys!

Correction: not tips on how to wake up, but I need tips on how to get my arse outta bed. :P

I agree, the early shower works, but only if I can get myself out of the covers. *That* is a whole other can of worms. I *would* try going to bed earlier, but like Andy, I am more of a night person and tend to stay up late naturally.

my motivation for getting up involves trying to kill both my clock radio and cell phone for making so much noise so early in the morning. both items require that I actually get up or feel their wrath for the next hour.

there really is no trick, well, for me that is ~ all I need is my trusty bady clock and that annoying, yet remarkbaly reliable, alarm that goes off without fail at 6:00 am-ish...the best part is that body clock alarm relatively silences itself on Saturday mornings, and is exactly set to wake my tired bones on Sunday morns just as the Sunday NY Times hits the porch concrete.....set your body clock and you will be satisfied

The comments on this site are cool to read, but they still dont seem to offer any solution to the
basic problem most people have i.e. how to prevent
ourself from turning the alarm off and and going back to bed ? anybody got some tips which really work?

1. Set your alarm far away from you so you have to get up.

2. Buy two alarm clocks and set them a couple minutes within eachother, the sound of two alarms going off will definately get you out of bed.

3. Have your spouse spray you with cold water