Rise and Shine (and Scratch and Cough and ...)

How do you get up in the morning?

It’s a nebulous question, I know; one that could be taken a number of ways.

“What does he mean by ‘how’? Does he want to know the physical process I go through to get out of bed?”

Fair point. Or maybe you’re asking, “Does he mean how do I get excited––how I get ‘up’ for the day ahead?”

Maybe you interpreted in an even more “Oh my God” way, like “How does he/she do it? If I were them, I don’t know if I’d have the strength to get out of bed every day.”

To clarify, what I’m talking about is how you react to your alarm or whatever device, person, pet or outside factor that tells you it’s time to get moving every day.

And I’m asking because this question popped into my head when I woke up this morning, two hours before I planned to start my day. And it’s what kept me awake for a solid 45 minutes before I went back to sleep, only to wake up again, 20 minutes before my self-imposed “rise-and-shine” time.

I get up early, usually an hour or more before the sun comes up. I’m not bragging (and frankly, you may think getting up that early is idiotic, and you may be right). I didn’t choose to be an early riser; it just happened a number of years ago, and I’ve been doing it ever since.

But I try to take full advantage it. I like the quiet, and I like that I can get things done (or at least “in process”) early in the day because if I get them off my proverbial plate right way, then they’re off my mind as well. And that’s important for me because having things simmering in my brain throughout the day is like forgetting you have a frozen pizza in the oven, and then later “remembering” it as the smoke billows out of the oven.

And yet, just because I’m a “morning person” doesn’t mean I’m leaping out of bed every day with a bushy tail, whistling a happy tune. (Again, I didn't choose the "early-riser" gene; it chose me.) When I get up, my mood is often dictated by what happens in hours and minutes before my alarm goes off.

If things go as planned, (about 60% of the time), I wake up five minutes BEFORE my alarm, a soft and soothing melody that emanates from my phone.

Waking up just before my alarm is the ideal situation for me. First, it’s close enough to “rise and shine” time (or maybe in your case, “crawl out, scratch, cough and squint at the clock” time) that I feel I’ve won the wakeup game. I need to get up anyway, and I didn’t have to hear my alarm. (Not sure if you’re this way, but no matter what soft and soothing melody I choose as my alarm, after weeks and months hearing it, it’s as jarring as the old, analog bell alarm I remember from my childhood.)

As I said, things go “as planned” about 60% of the time. The other 40% is a strange “cat and mouse” game pitting me against my alarm and the number to which it equates. Let’s say, like today, I wake up a couple hours before my self-imposed wakeup call. If I don’t have pressing matters at that point (like lying awake thinking about the million trivial––even senseless––things that I cannot in any way remedy at 2:30 a.m.), I usually smile knowing I can roll over and go back to sleep for a while.

The worst is when I wake up 20 to 30 minutes before my alarm, and maybe you’re already nodding in agreement. This is terrible because it means I can’t roll over and go back to sleep, yet I don’t want to get up yet. That leaves me with a decision: 1) get up and start the day earlier than I had planned (not a bad thing, but it makes me feel like I’ve lost the “rise-and-shine” game) or 2) lie there for another 20 to 30 minutes, allowing my mind and body to wake up gradually. This never happens because instead relaxing, my brain and body use the time to attack me like they’re binding my ankles and wrists, taping my mouth and throwing me in the trunk of a car.

Melodramatic? Yes. Accurate? 100%.

The “next-to-worst” situation is when my alarm wakes me up. Again, there is no tone, melody or chime soothing enough for me … it all sounds like crash cymbals and firecrackers.

And that’s what was behind my initial question, “How do you wake up?” Because for me (and maybe for you too) how we want to wake up and how we actually do  wake up are often two different things.

This morning, I was OK waking up several hours before my “rise-and-shine” time, until my brain fired up and started asking me all kinds of questions.

Yet, here I am, all risen and shiny … or something like that ... and everything is going according to plan.

But it’s early, and I’m sure at some point, long after the sun has come up, my brain will give me some other things––both important and senseless––to consider, and I may find myself in that proverbial trunk, bound and gagged. But that's really just a normal day, isn't it?

Now, I’m going to grab another cup of coffee and get to it. I hope your day started on a good note, without any loud noises (in your head or external) and it continues to get better with each passing minute.

© 2026 David R. Haznaw