The problem at hand: Sleep Inertia. Underlying problem? Impulsive behavior.
I have got heavy sleep inertia. For the better part of the last year I’ve been struggling to wake up early. I have failed most of the times to wake up at a previously decided hour if I didn’t have something that I absolutely couldn’t miss. Every night I decide whole-heartedly that I will wake up early. Seize the day and feel amazing while thinking about it. Then comes the next morning where I’m tried, the bed is too comfy and I want to sleep for another 10 hours. When I think about it, I can’t help myself from falling into a looping pair of questions. First of all this is a textbook definition of an impulsive behavior. Should I try to change the way I feel about waking up and what I feel after I wake up? Or should I change the way I act upon these feelings?
Acting upon good feelings or feeling good about your actions?
The loop emerges when I think to myself that I should be disciplined and do it. Even though I feel irritated and vastly uncomfortable I should keep staying awake. Then my inner voice says that the main foundational trait of a sustainable habit is being enjoyable. If you suffer through something long enough without positive feedback, eventually that will deplete your willpower. And that specific thing will never turn into a habit. So I say, I should make this thing enjoyable. But at the same time I don’t want my feelings to be the dictator of my actions.
The solution: brute forcing my way out of an impulsive behavior
Find a middle ground. Learn to do the thing irrelevant of how I feel about it. Suffer through the initial phase using my willpower. Then try to add something enjoyable to keep it sustainable. This way my feelings are not the sole dictator of my actions.
So to summarize my approach, even though I feel groggy about it I will stay awake at early hours. Then I will incorporate things to make it enjoyable. In time it won’t require any willpower at all to stay awake.
Step by step method
First I will re-teach myself how to use my willpower to do things I need to do, even though I don’t necessarily feel good about doing them. I will try to find scenarios where I have to employ my willpower daily for 7 consecutive days. During this time I will search for cues that will give me positive feedback after I wake up. Then I will combine the cues and willpower to try to stay awake. I will try to turn that into a habit in 14days of trial.
I will update this page to keep up with the experiment.
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