A Beginners Guide to Waking Up
The first, most important, and most difficult part of getting up in
the morning is moving from the asleep state to the awake state. Most
people like to move from one state to the other based on a clock, and
that will require an alarm. There are two schools of thought about
alarms, the heard of mice and the heard of elephants.
Heard of mice practitioners like to wake up
slowly. This is generally done with music, or an alarm that
crescendos slowly from the edge of hearing to rattle your fillings. The herd of mice prance slowly through your mind, bringing you kindly and gradually from sleep to wakefulness. In this
way, you can make the waking journey slowly and be in a better state of
mind once they arrive.
Heard of elephants practitioners
like to move from one state to another instantly, without all of the
wibbly-wobbly half awake that comes when a heard of mice wanders through
your dreams. Loud buzzers, jackhammer recordings, or attaching your
house to a train track tend to have the appropriate heard of elephant effect, and will allow you to awaken quickly, promptly, and with no muss or fuss.
The next step after waking up is easy, and only requires
moving your feet from the bed to the floor. It is the last step, the
standing up bit, that can cause true problems. You must first query
your legs and feet and be sure they are also awake. A simple, out loud,
"feet, are you awake?" tends to be effective, but can bring your sanity
into question. A test step, where you stand upright, wobble around a
little bit to test the levelness of the floor, and then begin moving will tend to save many questions about your sanity. However, if your feet are not fully awake, this method can cause problems with the arrangement of your face.
At this point, you are awake! Welcome to the day, and make sure you make the most of it!
