No Alarm, No Anxiety

I’ve never been through something so traumatic, that my body would suffer from PTSD, yet it feels like it whenever my alarm goes off, letting me know when it’s time to wake up. The older I got, the more I hated the feeling and idea of waking up by an alarm.

I would find myself sleeping, not even dreaming most of the time. Just knowing that my body is in a subconscious state, floating somewhere, at peace. And then suddenly it gets dragged back to a hard, concrete, cold floor and I’m shaking, confused. A spike in my cortisol levels and my heart rate somewhere in space. Like I mentioned, “not even dreaming most of the time,” so no I wasn’t waking up from a nightmare. This is how waking up with an alarm made me feel.

I wanted to wake up without the feeling that I’ve forgotten my eight-year-old child, back home in Chicago while I was on the plane with the rest of my family on our way to Paris.

But how could a person possibly achieve that? Going to bed early? Having a solid night routine? Use a different sound as an alarm? Those morning sunrise lights? Unfortunately.. I do have an answer to those. I’m a night owl, I’m sensitive to noise in the morning—while coming to the realization that I’m a morning person as well—and I sleep with those 3D sleeping mask that blocks out light. Still, I managed to achieve waking up naturally, early and without an alarm. Even when I slept badly, for a short time, or had, indeed, a nightmare, I would wake up feeling… new.

I wasn’t doing something productive in the morning; it was either getting ready for the gym or getting ready to go to the office. It was the feeling of how I had to start my morning. It wasn’t just anxiety, discomfort, or sleep inertia. It was all three of them due to that sound of my alarm.

One day I decided to change that. It was a conscious and subconscious decision at the same time. I can’t tell you exactly when it happened. All I know is that I started waking up before my alarm. I didn’t know what it was. Who was protecting who, in this scenario? Was my body protecting my nervous system, or was my brain protecting my body? I was able to get up, have breakfast, get ready for the gym, leave the house around 5 a.m. to make sure I got to the gym around 6 a.m.—all this without my alarm going off because I woke up before it. Yes, I did set an alarm, because you never know, right?

Do keep in mind that this was a conscious and subconscious decision. I didn’t want to feel anxious, discomfort or like I had sleep inertia. I was conscious of that, and subconsciously my body or brain registered that and made sure I woke up without having to feel like that. 

Does this sound floaty or hippie? Or is this how manifestation works? I didn’t write it on a piece of paper 55x that I wanted to “wake up before my alarm.” I simply made a conscious and subconscious decision.