How do I get myself out of bed in the morning?

I find that in these situations I'm usually fine once I actually get up and moving. So, here's what works for me:

• I make sure to get enough, high-quality sleep.
• I eat protein before bed. (Waking up with low blood sugar is not a good experience.)
• I schedule something I really look forward to first thing in the morning so I feel deep down that there's a good reason not to stay snuggled in bed.
• I have a small child who invariably pounces if I'm not up early enough.

I had the same problem a few weeks ago. I usually felt very tired in the morning and when I didn't have anything urgent to do I saw myself sleeping for too long.

3 weeks method

It's said if you want to estabilish a routine for yourself, 3 weeks is the minimum time you have to repeat a given habit in order to make it feel natural.

My sleeping problem was solved by using the 3 weeks method. The cellphone allarm was set to remind me I had to sleep everyday at 10pm in order to get the body used to it. For the first 2 weeks it was very hard to sleep at that time but after trying several methods of relaxation, I eventually felt drowzy when it was close to 10pm.

Results

It feels great to use only a few minutes to fall asleep instead of roll over the bed for hours. I never thought it would be so easy to wake up in the morning like it was just a regular nap.

Simple trick that works for me - put the alarm clock on the other side of the room, preferably in a high place. This forces me to get out of the warmth of the bed to turn the thing off. Getting up out of the bed also usually causes me to need to use the washroom. Once that starts going my brain kicks on somewhat. Having the snooze button RIGHT THERE is a dangerous temptation.

This is what I do almost every single day:

• Sleep earlier
  
  Waking up refreshed is the best way to combat oversleeping, because you won't actually go back to bed and sleep

• Look forward to the morning
  
  Make a scrumptious breakfast or submit an answer on StackExchange, and look forward to all the rep you will gain (heheheh)

• Use 2 Alarms
  
  Place one really far away from you and another one nearer to you. This will prevent you from subconsciously snoozing your alarm clock.

• Use someone's help
  
  Get someone to do something to you (etc. splash some water onto your face, using a bright torchlight and shining at at your face)

• Have an iPhone/Android Phone?
  
  Try using [Sleep Cycle Alarm Clock][1] (iOS, $0.99) or [Smart Alarm Clock][2] (Android, donationware). The makers claim that they will wake you at your lightest point of sleep bla bla bla, but there are quite a few rave reviews about them.

• Don't close your curtains
  
  The sun can wake you up. But if you are paranoid about your privacy, then don't do it.

• Make sure it is quiet
  
  Sleep in a quiet area and close your windows. You wouldn't want to get waken up by some random hooligan shouting in the middle of the night waking you up.

• **Move your clock 10 or 5 minutes forward **
  
  This never failed me before. Waking up thinking that I would be late will always make me very awake. Put a clock (not alarm clock) somewhere where you can and set it so it would be 10-20 mins or more, and make sure you actually follow that timing.

• No alcohol or sex before sleeping
  
  Alcohol or sexual intercourse with an orgasm release endorphins which will make you too much relaxed thus making you want to sleep more. Instead you can have sexual intercourse during the day.

Trust me. It works :)
[1]: http://www.sleepcycle.com/
[2]: http://www.smart-alarm-clock.com/

Have you tried accountability? Find a partner who wants to wake up at the same time, and agree to try and call each other as close to the hour as possible. (6:00am or 6:01am). You may want to continue these calls every 15 minutes until you are both committed to being up and running.

Snooze is your enemy! Disable the snooze function on your alarm clock and then you don't trust yourself to wake up again.

If you are able to wake up for specific things, then give yourself specific things to do - make appointments with friends, etc.

One thing you could try is to plan an important task on the mornings when you think this might be a problem. For instance, if you have pets you could intentionally not feed them the night before you're afraid of sleeping in as an incentive to get out of bed the next morning.

If you're anything like me once you're up you're up for the rest of the day, it often just takes the initial willpower.

Here are some tips that could be of benefit to you:

1. Sleep earlier

   If you can't get awake, you might not be catching enough sleep.
   Get to bed earlier one or two hours earlier to see whether this helps you wake up more properly. Make sure you don't take in food the hour before you go to sleep as this can keep you awake in bed, also don't use your bed for other things than sleeping. Well, there is one exception... :)

   Check whether you might have a light Circadian Rhythm Sleep Disorder and try to read up on it.

2. Sleep well

   Check that your sleep environment is fine: Noise, temperature, light and your bed make a difference.

   My nightly habit is to open up the valves of my roof windows to have fresh air during the night...

3. Get a proper alarm at a proper place

   1. Set an alarm before you have to wake up and make it repeat every X minutes.

      This will ensure that even if you fall asleep again the first time you will be awake when you have to, having it repeat will make sure that you don't sleep for another Y hours.

   2. Place the alarm out of reach, so that you literally have to stand up and walk to it to turn it off.

4. Force yourself to get out of bed

   Try to stay awake, perhaps set up some music and get busy. (Breakfast, coffee, ...)

   You should be able to do this given that you can sleep earlier and well...

Hunger could help to bring yourself out of bed, so trick is to stop eating 12–16 hours before you want to be awake. Following excerpt from this article:

Researchers at Harvard Medical School
and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical
Center in Boston have now pinpointed a
second clock that is set by the
availability of food. Their study,
published today in the journal
Science, is based on research on mice.
But they believe all mammals,
including humans, possess an internal
food clock, too.

Clifford Saper, the senior author of
the study, said this second clock
probably takes over when food is
scarce. It may have evolved to make
sure mammals don't go to sleep when
they should be foraging for food to
stay alive.

A really loud alarm clock worked well for me. But I had to place it so that I had to physically get out of bed in order to switch it off.

I have an alarm set on my smartphone far away from may bed, so I must get out of bed to turn it of because I use annoying waking sounds. Also, with some apps you can set easy math problems that you need to solve in order to turn off the alarm, very effective!