Tools For Waking Up?

My mum often remarked that it was like trying to wake me from a coma and kept wondering if I was ill when trying to wake me up for school. She did get very worried.

Now I am in my 30s and I am still the same. I seem to just need more sleep. I don't know if it's to recover from burnout, or due to neurological differences in the brain (e.g. autistic people have more grey matter and more cerebrospinal fluid, which is what cleans the brain during sleep).

I am notoriously difficult to wake up. One time I was camping in a tent with someone and there was an enormous thunderstorm with lightning outside, and because she was afraid she tried to wake me, but she couldn't. Shaking me, shouting my name, even lifting my eyelids up. She said it was like I was dead and it scared her, but that's just what I am like when asleep.

I am replying for this as an autistic mother of an autistic adult who I have struggled to wake up since he was about 11. He is now twenty and struggles to go to bed and then sleeps like he is in a coma so is very hard to wake up and it is soooo stressful for me. I am the opposite and find it hard to stay asleep! It is nice to know that this is an autistic thing 

I do a lot of exercise, but not in the morning. If I could do exercise first thing in the morning, then I wouldn't have an issue with waking up, so it's not really a solution to difficulty waking up, more of a symptom.

I'm so exhausted and tired and sleepy for the first few hours after waking that it's very difficult to get out of bed, let alone exercise. If I could exercise first thing in the morning, then that would mean I didn't have the waking issue to begin with. It's like asking if someone in a wheelchair has tried walking - if they could walk then they wouldn't be in the wheelchair.

I'll share some things that have worked for me, yet I do still struggle with this sometimes. I go through phases of it being harder and easier. When it gets harder I try something new. Here's some of the things I've explored that have worked:

• If it's cold at night, I set the central heating for the house to come on about 15-30 minutes before I need to wake up. The temperature change helps.
• 10 minutes of laying flat during the day (once or more) to increase restfulness during the day. This isn't exactly instead of sleep, but I read that naps can help some people, and on many levels, and that seems to apply to me. (Getting myself to lay down and rest during the daytime is another issue though haha!)
• A wake-up light that gradually increases in strength to wake you up naturally would probably work. I currently can't block out natural light, so I am waking with the sunrise. What I do instead during summer months is grab an eye mask (super soft) for after I wake with the sunrise which helps me then get back to sleep until a normal hour. Then I raise the eye mask slightly, shifting it toward my forehead, after my (first of may) alarms go off. This seems to be a good equivalent to the wake-up light.
• What I've eaten in the hours before bedtime seems to impact my sleep. If I've been snacking on high glycaemic foods (sugary things or crisps) then I can sleep 'stiff' and find it hard to wake. So if I notice it's getting harder to wake, I'll adjust this habit. If I'm hungry in the evening, instead I'll make sure it's a high protein snack. Plenty of plain water all day as well as this also helps.
• I am going through a tougher phase at the mo and I'm contemplating letting myself sleep in for 1-3 days to see if I simply need extra sleep for a while. Dreams have been especially intense, but I've been processing a lot during the day, so maybe it's that.
• Could try a brain dump in a journal, just in case this helps get subconscious thoughts out and help the sleep experience be a little easier. Or talk it out. I usually do the latter with my spouse.

Not sure if any of these will work for sure for you, we're all different, but I hope it gives some ideas. Good luck.

I sometimes have this problem too. One thing I found really helpful is L-theanine - I swear by that stuff. It's an amino acid that helps improve mental function. I put it in my morning coffee because it's more effective mixed with caffeine.

Have you tried excercise?:

https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/exercise/5-minute-wake-up-workout/

I have the opposite problem.

My nightmares wake me up several times a night.

My latest wake was at 1:45am.  I was being hunted by a giant red spider, who with his millions of spiders had taken over the world and most of humanity was in a spider induced coma. Water levels were rising, so I was almost in waterworld.  I was trying to lure the red spider into an electricution trap.  Then I woke up.

I wish I had an answer. I have never managed in my entire life to get up easily without feeling like I am being raised from the dead. My overwhelming urge is always more sleep. Within the first hour of waking up I can easily go straight back into sleep, and even resume dreams where I left off. I can do this after a shower or breakfast, or even on public transport on the way to work. It takes me a couple of hours to feel properly awake.

I didn't realise it was an autistic thing, but I've always thought there must be something wrong with my sleep or my body's ability to produce and clear away sleep and wakefulness hormones.

I've tried everything - light-based alarm clocks, alarms with puzzles in them, alarms on the other side of the room. I think all of those things are designed for normal people who have a slight displeasure at getting up in the mornings, but they do nothing for me. I can just solve the puzzles easily and go back to bed. Going across the room makes no difference, I can have been awake and walking around for 45 minutes and still have the overwhelming urge to fall back asleep.

For some reason I seem to need more sleep that other people. When I have no responsibilities and can sleep ad libitum, I tend to sleep for 10-11 hours per day and always get up in the afternoon. But that is incompatible with the world of work and interacting with normal people.

I don't usually have a problem getting to sleep but I wake up in the middle of the night and analyse conversations, think about what I am going to do the next day, listen to my breathing which seems very loud and I sometimes can't lay on my left side because my heart beats so hard thumping against my chest.

Do NTs have these thoughts and feelings as well?

I'm currently working from home and my morning routine has become awful. Although I want to go back to the office as soon as possible I am actually kind of dreading it because I won't be able to roll out of bed 5 minutes before I start work!

I've always had trouble getting to sleep, because my brain doesn't switch off at bedtime so I just lay there thinking about everything and anything (usually analysing a conversation or event from far too long ago for it to be relevant today), and I get tinnitus as well which doesn't help when it's playing up. 

I set multiple alarms on my phone, too. When I was a teenager I used to have a radio next to my bed that I would turn on and listen too when I woke up so I wouldn't go back to sleep. Can't really do it now because I don't think my partner would be too impressed by that!