Friday open thread: black coffee in bed

[dolorosa_12]

Today's Friday open thread is brought to you by the increasing number of posts I keep seeing on social media trying to lift the spirits of people exhausted by the darkness of the northern hemisphere winter. Cheer up, they say, it's only one month until the sun sets at 7pm. For me, however, the time that the sun sets isn't the problem. I'm all about the sunrise: I am a morning person (when I was an undergraduate I frequently got up at 5.30am, went for a run, had a shower, and wrote 1000 words of my Honours thesis or whatever essay was due that month, and was completely finished with the day's university work by around 8.30 or 9am), and my energy is at its peak when it is a daylit morning. So the thing about the long dark winters that saps my energy and lowers my spirits isn't the early sunsets: it's waking up at 6 or 6.30am in complete darkness, or not being able to tell whether it's 2am, 5am, or 7am without checking my phone. I never feel properly awake when I have to get up into darkness.

In that spirit, then, today's question is: what are the things that wake you up in the morning (other than alarm clocks)?

Other than daylight, the things that clear the morning cobwebs away for me include going for walks in cold, clear air (walking in warm weather makes me tired), and going swimming — whether that's lap-swimming in a pool, or swimming in the ocean. (I've very rarely had the opportunity to swim in lakes or rivers but I imagine the effect would be the same.) Coffee and tea work, and I do need to drink something caffeinated before about 9am or I get a raging headache, but waking myself up with caffeine never feels quite the same.

What about you?

Comments

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

I'm here from followfriday where a couple of folks mentioned you.

>> it's waking up at 6 or 6.30am in complete darkness <<

There are sunrise alarm clocks that gradually brighten to daylight levels. It's supposed to help light-sensitive brains wake up.

Me, I have about 5 minutes to get food in the morning or my body gets cranky. It still takes an hour for my brain to boot up.

Re: Thoughts

[dolorosa_12]

You're the second person to mention those sunrise alarm clocks — I will have to investigate!

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

There's a whole genre of "gentle" alarm clocks that try to work with your body instead of against it. The sunrise branch is among the most popular, and often includes the sound branch as a subfeature. Like daylight panels, they can be very helpful for light-sensitive people.

https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/home-products/g35972337/best-sunrise-alarm-clocks/

I used to use daylight CFC lights, but now it's getting hard to find lightbulbs that are usable at all. We've hit ones that are orange or underwater blue. :P And I can't see by the LED ones; they shine but do not illuminate.