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YOUR FIGHT WITH the snooze button is won, not when you wake up in the morning, but in the work you do to prepare the night before.
Before you try to get up with your alarm here is your Snooze Academy homework to set you in the right direction.
Starting each morning on your own terms and in a relaxed manner can have a big impact on your general well-being, rather than spending each morning chasing your tail and rushing out the door. It’s important to work out why you want to stop snoozing. Is there an activity you could do instead of snoozing?
Action: Take some time to think what difference stopping snoozing would make in your life. Write down what you hope to achieve.
If you have snoozed for the last 5 years, at an average of 30 minutes per day, roughly 300 times a year, with the alarm going off every five minutes, you would have hit the snooze button 9,000 times. You have been training your body to snooze.
Action: Practice your ‘getting up routine’ during the day or early evening. Get into bed and practice getting up. This may sound like an odd thing to do, but it works. We are retraining our minds to get up when the alarm sounds.
Research into sleep fragmentation and sleep cycles carried out by Dr Edward Stepanski of the Rush University Medical Center in Chicago indicates that fragmented sleep like that carried out during snoozing does not provide any additional rest, and may in fact reduce your levels of rest. If you still feel tired when you wake and think that you need more sleep, then you can only fix it by going to bed earlier or setting your alarm later, but snoozing isn’t going to help you out here.
Action: Remind yourself before you go to bed that you won’t get any sleep benefits from snatches of 5 – 10 minute snoozes.
Make sure that the first thing you’re doing in the morning is something you actually want to do. This positive thing might take only 5 minutes, but will get you started and out of bed.
Action: Decide the night before what the first thing you’ll do in the morning is. For example: Write a few pages of diary, have a nice long shower or send an email to a friend overseas.
Your alarm, if used correctly can be a key component of your stop-snoozing arsenal.
Action: Put your alarm clock across the room so that you have to get out of bed to turn it off. Disable the snooze alarm on your phone or get an alarm clock without a snooze alarm. Get an alarm that lights up your room in the morning (we can’t overstate the importance of this, particularly in winter). Keep a glass of water beside the alarm and have a drink as you turn your alarm off.
It is cold. I still feel tired. It is raining outside. I feel like sleeping more. It has been a long week. I’m not a morning person. It is still dark outside. The alarm is really annoying.
Action: Choose which is more important to you, snoozing or getting up with your alarm.
You know why you want to stop snoozing and you’ve followed all the steps above. Now is the time for you to commit to your goal and declare it to the world.
Action: Find a friend who also wants to stop snoozing and text or call each other in the morning. Track your progress in a notebook and stick with it through the initial difficult period.
Darren Ryan is the Founder and ZzzEO of Snooze Academy. Snooze Academy provides support to people who want to stop snoozing, through workshops and online programmes. Find out more information and join the Academy by visiting www.snoozeacademy.com.
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I’m disgusted with Met Eireann , no drizzle warning issued this morning , I went for a walk in the Phoenix Park and wasn’t prepared at all . Now I’m mildly damp . I’m lucky to have survived .
I’m still waiting for that “polar vortex” they promised. My tins of beans are starting to go off.
I have a vacuum cleaner in the house you can have if it’s any help as it’s just gathering dust.
Next we’ll be getting warnings about the warnings. Someone in Met Éireann loves their new toy far too much.
Was thinking same thing. Some one having way too much fun with theses warnings. It will soon be a case of the boy who cried wolf !
Loved the headline, “HISTORIC STORM EXPECTED TO HIT NEW YORK”.
As I said to my missus, “How can it be historic, it hasn’t bloody happened yet”.
“HYSTERIC HEADLINE TO HIT IRELAND” would be a good forcast for this winter. We have had our share.
Weather’s not been bad though.
Let’s cut to the chase. Is it gonna be in Dublin?
Hopefully for you not in Kildare as you won’t be able to find your sheep
Actually more likely to be Horses as there are a large amount of Studs in Kildare….
There mustn’t be too many studs, all the women come up to Dublin.
@Stephen…Are those studs the two legged version or the four legged version?
Hey ewes
Sno snice to snee snow.
3CM …..OMG thats over an inch in fact worse nearly an inch and a quarter rounded up were in for two inches of snow YIPPEE
Unfortunately many industries that rely on accurate weather forecasting don’t use Met Eireann. While I like the idea of having our own forecasting system and enjoy the presenters we need to move on towards a much more accurate and localised weather forecasting service for Western Europe and that is best achieved by integrating our Met Eireann service with the UK and Europe. I know many will not appreciate these thoughts but when vital industries subscribe to international weather services its time to overhaul our own inaccurate service. Btw does anyone know how much Met Eireann costs and how much does it earn from subscribers.
There full of wind.
Where?
Der! Can yew naught sea dem?
Ok….so they’ve given us a snow/weather warning….me thinks I’ll just get my shorts ready…normally opposite happens so I’m expecting a HEATWAVE!!!! Woo hoo. Getting the BBQ out now as I speak!!!
And we will still panic just as much as the ppl of New York! The cheek of us!
If we got what they got in New York we would be talking about it for 50yrs – and at a standstill till next week
3CM versus 3 FEET?
We as a nation can’t cope with snow…
Seems like the amount of snow due for New York was slightly exaggerated but get this. We have just had 4 inches in just 2 hours ! 4 inches of peanuts eaten from the feeder that is, plus a full days ration of sunflower hearts and the fat/seed mixture is getting some welly from the birdies too. Caught two mice in traps last night so they are heading in for a bit of heat too and I guess we are in a little cold spell of our own, never mind NY NY :-)
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