WAKING UP

11 Tricks for Waking Up Earlier in the Morning

---

Stress activates areas of the brain that make you more alert. It also elevates production of hormones, including cortisol, that interfere with and disrupt normal sleep-wake cycles. Both chronic and acute stress and anxiety can cause you to wake early in the morning. Depression, too, often causes people to wake early in the morning. Depression is strongly linked to disruptions to circadian rhythms, which regulate our daily cycles of sleep and wakefulness. People with depression commonly have trouble sleeping at times set aside for sleep, and also feel a drive to sleep when they need to be awake, alert, and functioning.

And brand-new research has pinpointed for the first time the specific relationship between areas of the brain associated with memory, sense of self, and negative emotions, and sleep. When it comes to managing stress and sleep, I often remind my patients that it takes all day to create a sleep problem at night. In addition to the standard sleep hygiene practices, relaxation exercises, mindfulness meditation , and mind-body exercise all can help reduce your stress throughout the day, and in the evenings before bedtime.

Is your toddler waking up too early? Here are 6 ways to cope

Many of the natural supplements that help sleep also are beneficial for stress and anxiety, including magnolia bark , magnesium , CBD and others. Tell a friend or a family member, or contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at or text for the Crisis Text Line. If you are in danger of acting on suicidal thoughts, call Especially as people get older and life remains hectic and full, a lot of us like to retreat to bed earlier and earlier.

Most of us need somewhere in the range of hours of sleep a night, some a little more and others a little less. If your body needs 7 hours of sleep a night and your head is hitting the pillow at 9 p. This can be a particular issue for early chronotypes, starting especially in middle age. Lions, especially as they get older, often find themselves really tempted to pull their bedtimes back very early in the evening.

While our chronotypes generally remain stable for large portions of our lives, they do change. Most of us are Wolves in young adulthood, many of us become Bears in middle-age, and quite a few of us shift to Lions as we get older.

There are well-documented changes to the biology of our sleep that happen with age. The degree of that shift is different for everyone. Older adults who experience a significant shift to an earlier sleep schedule may be experiencing advanced sleep phase disorder , when the shift in circadian rhythms puts the sleeper at odds with social time, such as needing to go to bed at 7 p. Older adults face other sleep challenges that can cause them to wake very early in the morning.

As we age, we tend to spend less time in the deeper stages of sleep, which makes us more prone to being awakened by light, noise and activity. At its core, Waking Up is about mindfulne http: At its core, Waking Up is about mindfulness, and as a fellow atheist who has attended a fair share of Buddhist retreats including a recent one on Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction , I can relate to some of the conflicts Harris encounters. No matter how secular the retreat, I get nervous when I find myself in a room full of people following the direction of a group leader offering spiritual betterment.

Harris takes out the touchy-feely and goes straight for the scientific foundation of a mindfulness-based approach to life. The result is a book heavy on Buddhist philosophy and refreshingly light on bullshit. Beyond memoir, he explores the scientific underpinnings of consciousness and meditation, drops some knowledge about psychedelic drugs and, justifiably, rants on the silliness and scientific dishonesty of Proof of Heaven and other accounts of near-death experiences.

It read more like a collection of essays on a single topic—which is fine, just not what I was expecting. Not only do I agree with his observations and share some of his experiences , but Harris also challenges some of my long-held assumptions. All told, Waking Up is an interesting and enjoyable read. Nov 08, Morgan Blackledge rated it it was amazing. If we colonized the moon, people who lived there could ostensibly have a perfectly decent life. But based on our evolutionary inheritance as earthlings, we would, in all likelihood, crave gravity and greenery.

This is an interesting analogy to living life as an atheist. We can live quite well without religion. But because so much of our history as humans has revolved around spiritual pursuits, there may be something akin to gravity and greenery that we atheists lack and long for and even need.

P If we colonized the moon, people who lived there could ostensibly have a perfectly decent life. Personally speaking, there is simply no way for me to accept many of the core premises of the spiritual traditions. Particularly in light of evolutionary biology, neuroscience and psychology. But I still engage in contemplative practices, I still seek the renewal found in total engagement, I still love to meditate in a group, I still love yoga, I still find deep meaning and gratification in being of service to others.

There is gravity and greenery in these pursuits. But precisely, what is the spiritual equivalent to gravity and greenery.

What exactly is it that we atheists need and crave and more importantly, how can we get it without betraying our rigorous, critical, sceptical, monist selves. This book is Harris's stab at answering these questions. If you're interested in mindfulness or other forms of contemplative practice, and you want a clear, secular context in which to ground your experiences in, than this book may be good news. It certainly is for me. Unlike many other secular, rational presentations of mindfulness and meditation to date. Sam Harris goes for the gold by attempting to construct a secular account of "enlightenment".

Mindfulness Meditation

I personally can live without the whole business of enlightenment. At least as it is traditionally rendered. I actually think it's a pernicious myth.

Explore Everyday Health

But self transcendence for lack of a better phrase is something I can't live a full, rich, meaningfull life without. And as far as I can tell, plain old, nuthin fancy, butt normal, no magical powers, self transcendence again, an awful term without a better alternative seems to be what Harris is referring to when he uses the term enlightenment, and I'm unreservedly only moderately uncomfortable with that. If you're familiar with Harris's work, you may be as surprised as I was to hear him freely use constructs such as spiritual, ego etc.

His rationale was simply that there aren't good alternatives as of yet. Rather than try to create new words, he stuck with the old ones despite the problematic connotations. I nolonger believe in ghosts or souls. So needless to say the word spiritual has been awkward for me for a while. This book is helping me reclaim the word. And he is still all the way in the game. Attempting like many of us to make sense of our spiritual and psychedelic experiences based on what we currently know about the brain and psychology not an easy job.

Harris refers to this task as snatching the jewel i. I knew I loved this guy, but I had no idea how much of a bro he actually is. I have to give him huge props for risking everything and coming out in this way.

This is a huge move that will inevitably bring him a torrent of criticism from every angle. If for no other reason, this balls out move compelled me to give the book 5 stars. Harris does a terrific job of parsing out the spiritual use value of psychedelics with out overstating or understating their benefit. A subject I have been unsuccessfully wrestling with for years. I know there was immense value in my early psychedelic experiences. I also know they were limited and degenerated into vastly diminished returns by the end of my psychedelic carrier.

And I also know that I will not use them again, for various great reasons. Harris takes aim and clarifies this tricky subject in a seemingly effortless paragraph or two, tosses in a hilarious bad trip story for good measure and moves on. I love this guy! It's like the baby boomers had a huge and unsanitary spiritual drug orgy and their love child, Sam Harris appeared from behind the bong and cleaned up the intellectual mess without a shoveling all of it into the trash, or b framing it like it was fine art.

I have to say. I've been waiting for someone to write this book. It's not without flaws I think invoking the "hard problem" of consciousness is a major one, I think the very idea that consciousness is a special i. For now I'll simply enjoy the feelings I'm having after reading this awesomely interesting, sassy, and even lol funny book. Sep 12, Gary rated it liked it. The hard question is "what is consciousness". In the past we had Leibniz's monads and Descarte's homunculus unsatisfactorily explaining consciousness.

The author suggests another path for understanding the hard question namely gaining self awareness of our non-existence through meditation from which one can discover the illusion of the self which leads the individual to 'enlightenment' The hard question is "what is consciousness". The author suggests another path for understanding the hard question namely gaining self awareness of our non-existence through meditation from which one can discover the illusion of the self which leads the individual to 'enlightenment' and the realization that the 'self' does not exist.

The author puts his spiritualism without mysticism in to context by reasonably looking at how we think about thinking and gives the listener just enough names of the brain parts without overwhelming the listener, and all the time supporting his path to self understanding by learning to first deny the self. In the end the author thinks that the denial of self leads to a greater understandings about who we are and that a guru or some selective use of drugs will help the listener achieve enlightenment and lead to a more ethical person with greater appreciation for life. As for me, I think I'll continue learning about the universe by looking outside of myself and use reason, coupled with empirical data induction and properly constructed models and seek enlightenment that way and not get a guru or use drugs and spend too much time thinking about denying myself through meditation and self reflection.

Apr 25, Mohit Parikh rated it liked it. A book written for atheists in a christian nation. Sam wants to assure his readership that he still belongs with them - and with Dawkins and Hitchens and Sagan - even as he takes a step further and talks about Spiritual Awakening. He wants to suggest that there is nothing irrational about spirituality the way he defines it. He isn't the greatest explorer of spirituality.

The question for me was: Which is to say, why you are qualified to tell me the boundaries of what is irrational and what is rational to accept in spirituality? Sam Harris is smart. He is just lagging behind in the conversation. Also, I wish he was less self-conscious about how he will be received by his largely liberal atheist American readership. By the way, here's an awesome review of the book: Try devouring this Buddhist Parable: A surgeon rushes to his side to begin the work of saving his life, but the man resists these ministrations. The man needs to get his priorities straight.

His commitment to thinking about the world results from a basic misunderstanding of his predicament. And though we may be only dimly aware of it, we, too, have a problem that will not be solved by acquiring more conceptual knowledge. And in time, many presume that both are the two sides of a same coin. Astronomers and Astrophysicists, Physicists like Sagan, Neil Tyson, Brian Cox gets some of us 'spiritually' enlightened, getting awe with the depth of understanding which previously believed impossible, when they started talking about their specialized fields.

Some Writers like Shakespeare, Kurt Vonnegut personal option made many people realise that they could lead a happier life, prouder to be alive than previously believed possible. Musical artists like Beethoven, Mozart made the same using the tools and medium they knew.

Now, take a religious person listening to a 'Spiritual' Guru, he would feel connected and profound relevantness of his existence with respect to that Guruji's words and view of world. Sam Harris connects the word with understanding the brain and it contents both physical and emergent, of course rational content free of dogmas and bullshit stuffs, which is equally important to knowing the worldly facts and phenomena. The Book deals with signifying the importance of being "spiritual" which the author implies removing the illusion of self.

By "illusion of self" he meant that the illusion of inner-self, some kind of agenticity within our body having control over it which adds up concepts of soulful mind duality, and freewill stuffs. And breaking this illusion of the self, he says that our minds can have different and better 'conscious' experiences irrespective of our emotional states.

It's not a matter of thinking more clearly about experience; it is the act of experiencing more clearly, including the arising of thoughts themselves and the problem is not thoughts themselves but the state of thinking without being fully aware that we are thinking. Even though he explained things in simpler terms, I felt like I was listening to the most complicated man alive.

He explored the split brain phenomena, Nature of Consciousness, Contemporary meditation techniques as per the western as well as the Eastern cultural and psychological understanding, the yogis, gurus who were considered as enlightened still many consider themselves enlightened in context to the core objective of enabling the readers to understand about our mind a little better and more profound. He also had his exquisite intellectual ponderings on the effects and usage of 'drugs'. The term 'drugs' collectively defines a wide variety of neurotransmitters and chemical enhancers of neural activities in which substances in both category has both neurotoxic, epileptic as well as excrescence enhancing tool for consciousness.

Collectively labelling them as 'drugs' disables us to have intellectual discussion on the ethical, psychological, biological, legal effects amd usage of such substances like Psilobin, DMT, Ketamine, LSD, MDMA commonly known as Ecstasy , etc. It is also worth noting that some substances stereotypically labelled as 'drug' has lesser effects than widely legalised Alcoholics and tobacco.

As Carl Sagan once said, Brain is a small place with a very enormous space and capabilities. He used fluids to define the nature and physical foundation of consciousness, as emergent phenomena. His early life encounters with drugs, in search of his spiritual encounters inside USA. While he was in his 2nd year at Stanford, he took off 11 years to spend time in India and Nepal, trying to understand the case of which he described briefly in this book. Religion is a term like sports: To speak of sports as a generic activity makes it impossible to discuss what athletes actually do or the physical attributes required to do it.

What do all sports have in common apart from breathing? The term religion is hardly more useful. The same could be said of spirituality. The esoteric doctrines found within every religious tradition are not all derived from the same insights. Nor are they equally empirical, logical, parsimonious, or wise. The Conventional sources of happiness aren't always reliable depending upon various transient conditions. It is difficult to raise a family happily, to keep yourself and the people you love healthy, to acquire wealth and find creative and fulfilling ways to enjoy it, to form deep relationships, to contribute to society in ways that are emotionally rewarding, to perfect a wide variety of skills—and to keep the machinery of happiness running day after day.

See if you can stop thinking for the next sixty seconds. You can notice your breath, or listen to the birds, but do not let your attention be carried away by thought, any thought, even for an instant. Keep away from mobile or computer, and give it a try. Before trying this book, I've checked the reviews of this work and found too many negative reception about it. Sam did answer those things in the book itself, "Search your mind, or pay attention to the conversations you have with other people, and you will discover that there are no real boundaries between science and any other discipline that attempts to make valid claims about the world on the basis of evidence and logic.

Though the brief summary of the book is very simple but one has to go through every word vigilantly, to avoid confusion, to avoid misconceptions. So I wouldn't recommend it for all. Sep 26, Lena rated it really liked it Shelves: Ever since the planes crashed into the Twin Towers, Sam Harris has been making the argument that we can no longer afford the luxury of religious belief.

In his writings, he has explained his theories about not only why the unproven beliefs of dogma are so dangerous, but also how many of the benefits that religion provides can be found in secular places. In Waking Up , Harris addresses the issue of what he terms "spiritual" states - altered states of consciousness that can be spontaneous or induce Ever since the planes crashed into the Twin Towers, Sam Harris has been making the argument that we can no longer afford the luxury of religious belief.

In Waking Up , Harris addresses the issue of what he terms "spiritual" states - altered states of consciousness that can be spontaneous or induced by things like contemplative practice or drugs. Most religions point to such states as proof of their assertion that there is a world beyond this one. Harris, however, uses these pages to argue that a. There is a fair bit of neuroscience in this book as Harris delves into what we currently know about consciousness. He also discusses his personal experiences with transcendent states, first on an Ecstasy drug trip and later as a rationalist in deep study of Eastern contemplative practices.

He also discusses the risks of both of those paths, including the dangerously unpredictable impact of psychedelics and the hazards of attempting to learn about consciousness from imperfect human teachers. Despite the risks, however, Harris's book is an unapologetic argument that the cultivation and experience of spiritual states can drastically improve the quality of one's life.

I agree with Harris about a number of things, including that experience of such states can be potentially life changing. I also agree that there is an urgent need for people who experience such states to be given an opportunity to understand them outside the context of a particular religion or the New Age book aisle.

Where I am not totally on board, however, is with his assertion that people who have never experienced such states should try to do so. Harris believes that the cultivation of such states can reduce human misery and suffering. I don't doubt that's been true for Harris and for many others.

Navigation menu

What I question is whether or not consciously exploring such states can work for everyone. As I understand it, the current research on meditation as not sufficiently answered the question of whether people who seem to be experiencing the benefits of contemplative practice do so because the contemplative practice actually changed them or because they had brain chemistry that predisposed them to self-select for contemplative practice in the first place.

Harris himself acknowledges that traditional concentration practice has significant limitations, and the value offered by pointing-out practices is often lost on those who are exposed to it without previous context. The role of psychedelic drugs in Harris' own journey also raises questions for me - did that fundamentally alter his brain chemistry in such a way that he was enabled to have experiences he couldn't have had without those drugs?

Ultimately, I'm not certain someone starting from scratch could induce the kind of experiences Harris describes by following his instructions.

11 Tricks for Waking Up Early in the Morning | Everyday Health

I think it's a question well worth asking, and I applaud Harris for asking it. I'm just not quite as convinced of the answer as he is. Jul 29, Alex rated it it was ok. This book is extremely cerebral. Sam is a clearly a skeptic towards many things related to spirituality, which is fine, but his extreme judgment toward various religions comes seeping through his text. That is, except for Buddhism, which he often seems to put on a pedestal. I felt disillusioned by the book, based on the cover. It should have said this was a philosopher's guide to spirituality. And how true that is! Make sure you're awake and a pot of coffee before reading!

He writes in a fairly highfalutin way and certainly doesn't wait for you to catch up on where he is headed. He is very opinionated and had a haughty tone throughout. The majority of the book read more like a college textbook than a book meant for the lay reader. He got too bogged down in superfluous details about the brain and it got in the way. And many of the studies he referenced were irrelevant to his central thesis which that itself was unclear.

As a psychologist, I almost always find information on the brain interesting, but I can easily see how most people would check out with glossy eyes after the first few studies he cites. It got so intense, I couldn't help but fear he was writing a textbook on psychophysiology or neuroscience and accidentally wrote in this book instead!

This seemed to intensify around the midway mark. I also realized around this time that his description of spirituality, and thus the book, was really just a covert autobiography of his OWN route to spirituality; however, instead of coming clean and conceptualizing from this way, he came from a perspective of being judgmental and projecting his scientific skepticism to any other route to the Divine than what he has found.

I would have thought someone who is writing about spirituality would be more inclusive and open minded to how there can be a VARIETY of ways to the divine: Waking Up is also extremely theoretical and conceptual in nature. While he does offer a suggestion here and there, they're rare, vague, and not always practical. Toward the end he starts a discourse on mind-altering illegal drugs.

5 Reasons You Wake Up Too Early – And What You Can Do About It

I was appalled he would write such a thing so openly in a book! Then, later, he contradicts himself saying that there are natural ways to get every sort of synthetic high. Overall, the book left me feeling very unsettled, like a real bad taste in my mouth after a mediocre meal. At the end, I was still hung up on his viewpoints of frivolity with having his daughters take LSD, or how he'd repeatedly lump Spirituality into the Religion category. To quickly summarize his book in a few sentences: In order to be more spiritual and less religious, disregard all mainstream religions save Buddhism which I put on a pedestal because they are silly, trite, and filled with barely anything more than fanciful, imaginal, illogical, and mostly untrue ideas.

Practice mindfulness and follow most of what Buddhism says and call it a day. There were some valid points he touched on and some quotes I enjoyed. If you're a scientist or atheist who is allergic to any sense of religion, metaphysics, or modern sense of spirituality and are in the very first stages of "waking up" i. Apr 16, Adam rated it did not like it Shelves: Sam Harris felt the need to publish a book that states, without novel argument, what everyone already knew.

One that doubles as a guide to being a dipshit dogmatist on the irreligious side of the binary. He also deems it necessary to inform us right off the bat of his mind-expansion under the influence of MDMA. Which, man, at least begin the book by talking about a non-stupid psychedelic if you're going to rant about this transformative event in your life that pretty much exactly parallels e So. Which, man, at least begin the book by talking about a non-stupid psychedelic if you're going to rant about this transformative event in your life that pretty much exactly parallels every secular person's experience with psychedelic trips.

And if you don't know anything about mindfulness or meditation practices, information is everywhere. Sam Harris gives a half-decent overview at certain points, but you're better off getting your information from other sources. Most of which are freely available online. And I mean, shit, that Jack Kornfield guy isn't particularly invested in any religious doctrines.

If you come across evidence of doctrines that don't resonate with you, just ignore them. I know the covers of Kornfield's books make him seem pukey and the Spirit Rock website is laden with images of creepily smiling middle-class, middle-aged white people, but. And the guy's a legitimate authority in the Western Buddhist tradition.

I'm no friend of organized religion or woo-woo new agey shit, guys. Those of you who know me know this. But my position on organized religion does not create an obligation to take Harris at his word. In fact, basic examination of much of what Harris says in this book and in others reveals an extraordinary lack of basic scholarly skill and critical thought. Not that Joe Rogan is an idiot. Okay, so I dislike Sam Harris. But I'll give him some credit for writing a clear enough book about why meditating or doing something similar does not automatically render one a new age loony and about how valid and true many ideas from Buddhist thought are even in a scientific, rational context.

Finally, and this concerns mostly the "I'm going to meditate and not consider Buddhist thought at all " crowd more than Harris himself, perhaps: I think there is potential value in entering a sacred traditional practice with something resembling the mindset of people who actually believe the practice is "religious" if the meditation of Theravadin Buddhists is considered religious in the same way as prayer.

If you're assured enough in your agnosticism or atheism, entering practices with the traditional context in mind can help maintain the integrity of the practice itself. Otherwise, you end up with braided asshole stoners going to yoga class to hit on chicks in yoga pants and laugh at the teacher's accent and pay no attention to the fucking yoga. There are miles between "I'm going to ignore what yoga means and why it exists; this is just like going to the gym" and "I'm yoking myself to the gods and this area in my lower spine is going to cure all my ailments" or whatever the fuck.

Similarly, there are miles between "I'm going to do this weird meditation thing and it's not real anyway so I don't have to listen to the teachers and understand its foundations" and "meditation will bring about a good rebirth and help me attain literal nirvana. View all 5 comments. Feb 23, Hoz Kamaran rated it really liked it.

Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion

If you are looking for the meaning of spirituality beyond religion, this is the right book to read. If you find religious spirituality illusional, that doesnt mean spirituality doesnt exist. Alot of people think that with the progress of science religion dies, thus spirituality must also die. But once you realize what is spirituality and its independence of a religion or personal god, you will realize that its necessary for a better understaing of existence and science.

We often think we are a o If you are looking for the meaning of spirituality beyond religion, this is the right book to read.

We often think we are a one. And we think we have 1 soul. But, Sam harris amazingly rejects the idea of having a soul by presenting the split brain experiment in which the 2 hemispheres of the brain start behaving independently and unlikely of each other. It is like a person has 2 souls, because everything related to the human thought, brain, behavior You will better ubderstand the split brain experiment as you read the book.

Sam Harris thinks the spirit can mean consiousness, thus spirituality can mean contemplating at consciousness. Consciousness is not yet defined, but it can be contemplated and felt. Melanie Gushnowski, a Calgary parent educator and child development specialist, says: The most important question, she says, focuses on whether the child is getting enough sleep. A Swiss study found that at one year of age, some healthy, normal children slept a total of On the other hand, if your child wakes up cranky and mopes around for the first while, you need to investigate other possible reasons for her early waking.

Reached some developmental milestones such as walking? Had a new baby added to the household? Have you taken away his pacifier or bottle? Research shows that children who have accomplished new developmental milestones tend not to sleep as well, which can include early rising, and that the stress of a new sibling can also cause increased wakefulness. Whatever the cause, your first priority is probably reclaiming those early-morning hours of sleep. Here are some strategies to try when your toddler is waking up too early:.

• Dead Man Walking
• Limey and Proud of it!
• Dead in Dutchers Mountain
• The Collected Poems of Eric Muirhead
• The Ice Palace: Short Story
• Faithfully