I’m going to suggest a wild time (management) idea — for anyone, but especially for all of my remote / async peers out there.
Try ditching your alarm.
What I mean by that is, if you normally set an alarm to wake you up in the morning, try not setting it for a day or a week.
Instead, focus on getting in right relationship with your sleep cycles and circadian rhythms, and letting your body naturally attune to the solar rise/set patterns where you are.
We made this shift years ago in our house, thanks to Ixchel Lunar. Personally speaking, I was pretty Gregorian-alarm-on-the-smartphone dependent (and, confession, I still rely on the iPhone alarm when I’m working an event).
It definitely took a transition period of being OK if my waking time varied while I worked on my sleep hygiene and letting the sun’s natural cycles wake me vs. a device.
But my body attuned to it pretty quickly. Now I will never go back to using an alarm again. I feel better being in step with Earth’s rhythms.
A couple of caveats:
Your biology and where you are in the world are specific to you (more difficult to do this in the dead of Winter in Northern Minnesota or the heart of Manhattan, I’d imagine), so this method may or may not work for you.
We’ve lived in LATAM for 7+ years (in Southern Mexico right now and Nicaragua before that). It’s more consistently an even 12 hour day/night split, mas o menos, with that amount and the sunrise/sunset time shifting, depending on time of year.
We have 3 dogs that need to get up and out the door for morning business by around 6:30am, regardless. So I have that as a forcing thing anyway. But I know from experience my body just naturally wakes around sunrise, sometimes before the pups start stirring!
I might not use this method when I travel to do conference work or other business trips because I generally need to be up at a different/earlier time, people are depending on me to show up at a certain time, etc. Depends on setting and where I am in the world.
But, if you want to give this a try, do these things:
Equinoxes are a great time to test this out (more equal day/night splits in many parts of the world), but you can really start wherever you want in the calendar.
Start by committing to your sleep hygiene. It includes things you've probably heard like having a consistent bedtime, shutting off screens an hour or two before bed, not eating heavy meals too close to bed time, and practicing meditation or breathwork before bed. (I've put a couple of resource links in the comments below.)
Start by testing this out for 2 or 3 days, in a week where you have less first-thing pressures to be up at a specific time.
Make an agreement with yourself that it’s OK if you’re a little late to rise those first couple of days.
When you do wake up, get up right away. That might be a little before or a little after first light or sunrise. But it’s an important signal to your body’s rhythms.
If you can, get outside and take in some natural sunlight first thing. Helps with the body the attuning process.
Bonus: Try adding a grounding mat to the top of your bed, above the sheet. We have one and it's done wonders to help us get more grounded sleep. (I'll drop a link in the comments for that one too.)
For me, making this shift has led to a much more natural and ease-full entry into the day, and has set me up to be much more focused, productive, and sustained through the day.
Our ancestors thrived for a millennia letting their bodies be attuned to natural cycles and patterns. We’ve just forgotten how to do that.
Let me know what you think in the comments below. Do you have an alarm device co-dependency or did you already ditch the alarm clock? Curious to see who tries this out and what results you see!