Dispatches from Philadelphia. Date: March 104th.
I’m mostly kidding, but…anybody else having a hard time with this What-Day-Is-It Quarantine stuff??
I’m not sure how much any of you really want to hear about the decade-plus process of removing “-slash-waitress” from my job description (especially since it might get slapped right back on there when this is all over), but I’m also working a day-ish job right now, and therefore feel unusually qualified to chat a bit about one of the most important adjustments in my day-to-day life: How to Become a Morning Person.
Some of you are already bright-eyed and bushy-tailed when the sun rises. This post is not for you, and kindly am-scray, because you’re making the rest of us feel lazy. Overachievers. You can come back next TueDuesday. This post is for the restaurant warriors, the college seniors, the touring musicians (Hi, Dad!), the copyeditors, and the Corona Quarantiners. For all of us who, for one reason or another, have had to forego traditional sleeping habits and who are now struggling to reform them. If you’ve ever found yourself on your couch at 3 a.m. watching Planet Earth for the umpteenth time, unable to sleep even though you know you have to be up in four hours, this post is for you.
(I know, I know; the birds of paradise are so freakin' cool!)
I’ve been mostly successful at rehabbing my sleeping patterns, mostly, although my many friends in the hospitality industry have always done their level best to thwart my evolution from nocturnal to normal (you know who you are, and I for one cannot wait to spend another late night at your bars whenever we’re allowed to do that again). Without further ado: here are a few of the sneaky, self-sabotaging tactics I turned to when it was time to start waking up with the day-jobbers.
Pick a song you Capital-H Hate and make it your alarm. For the price of a one-time download from the App Store, you, too, can be jolted violently awake by Katy Perry hooting “I’m wide awake!” (See what I did there??)
I will fly out of bed to make that sound stop.
There’s a second critical step to this trick, though: put your phone somewhere that demands you get all the way out of bed to shut it up. Tapping the snooze button is a lot less appealing once you’re already vertical, so move your phone as far from beside your head as the confines of your domicile (or the cohabitants thereof) will allow. Best case is putting it in the bathroom, which gets you critical steps closer to another favorite tactic of mine:
Get in the shower, and get your hair wet. Because you and I both know that you’re not going back to bed with wet hair. You’ll feel clammy, and when you do finally get up, it will have dried into something resembling a sea plant from the giant kelp forests off California’s coast. If you shave your head, well, lucky you – this one won’t work. But this will: buy a coffee machine with a timer, and set it for 10 minutes before your alarm. Amazon was made for this purchase at a time like this. The sweet, sweet smell of coffee brewing is God’s little reminder that mornings aren’t entirely hostile, after all.
“But Leah,” you whine, “it’s springtime! It's getting warm out! I don’t want hot coffee!” To which I say: put today’s pot in the fridge, take out the pot you put in there yesterday, and BOOM: iced coffee. God, I’m good. Still, even this entire sequence doesn’t always do it, in which case: bribe an early-rising friend to call you and wake you. And change their name in your phone to “The Boss” or “Chris Pine” or whatever name will make you most inclined to answer despite your foggy morning brain.
As for getting to bed the night before, well, that can be even more of a challenge. My brain still thinks it’s supposed to be entering tips and logging sales at 2 a.m., and I stopped waiting tables lo, these many years ago. The most important start is to get up early (um, see above), so that you’re tired at your new bedtime. Failing that, have a glass of red wine or chamomile tea. No judgement; and either one will help lull you back from the insomniac edge. This next one is tricky, but it really does work: stop staring at lighted screens. Yes, that includes your phone (which should be in the bathroom with the alarm set by now anyway; are you not listening to a word I’m saying??), your computer, and your TV. Pick up a book. Open it. Consider reading it. Finally, make your bed your favorite place to be. Order new sheets (you little one-man economic stimulus, you) or wash your favorite set and put them on fresh. Choose pillows that suit your sleeping habits. Get your partner a Breathe Right (or yourself a set of ear plugs). Splurge on air conditioning on hot summer nights, and a humidifier in the dead of winter. Some people are averse to strong smells, but to my mind, sweet-smelling sheet spray is a necessary luxury. Then, try to set a bedtime routine and stick to it. On evenings when I know I have to be up for work, I have a glass of wine, then wash my face and brush my teeth (and leave the phone in the bathroom, plugged in and alarm set). Next, I feed the cats so they’re not all up in my business at 5 a.m. I take the decorative pillows off my bed and use one to block the bright “on” light on my alarm, then tuck in and hope like hell I’ll be able to sleep, because that goddamned alarm is not going to shut itself off in the morning, and I have had just about enough of Katy Perry, coffee or no coffee.
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