Here Tiffany - this one is for you. Another excerpt from "Never Hit a Jellyfish with a Spade"
How to Wake Up
Waking up in the morning is like a little birth: sometimes it's very quick and easy, and sometimes it takes many false alarms, a lot of pushing and hours of labour.
There is a very small group of people who love those quiet, peaceful moments just before the dawn. No one really knows who these people are because the rest of us are all
fast asleep. A clue as to who they are comes later in the day when, just after half past seven in the evening, they say goodnight.
Some lucky people have a body clock that wakes them up precisely on time; they then feel fresh as a daisy and spring out of bed. It's great if your partner is like this when they
bring you tea; it's not so good when they pull the whole duvet off and say anything which includes the phrase 'Rise and shine'.
People who have difficulty getting up have devised all sorts of foolproof ways of getting themselves out of bed.
Alarm clocks which would wake the dead are great, especially if you place them out of arm's reach. However, when these go off they give you such a profound shock you have
to go back to bed for an hour to get over the trauma. Lots of people have radio-alarms which wake you up to a tiny snatch of music before you hit the snooze button. You'll
know what that tiny snatch was when you're on the train an hour later singing 'A Little Bit of Monica' to yourself. Once out of bed, there are two approaches to the day. The first is getting washed, dressed and out of the door in fifteen minutes. The second is to have a leisurely bath, choose what you're going to wear, make a cup of tea and watch a bit of breakfast TV. The bizarre thing about the second approach is that you need to get up nearly two hours earlier to allow yourself time to be leisurely.
Of course, it all boils down to whether you're a morning person or a night person. Morning people are at their physical and mental peak between seven and eleven in the morning,
and night people are at their peak between seven and eleven at night. Sadly, the office generally isn't open between seven and eleven at night, so we all know which group are
keeping the economy moving single-handed. If you don't think anything will get you up in the mornings, simply have a small child. Then you will be able to get up quickly and efficiently, and you'll be able to do this six or seven times every night.
