What's the most effective at waking you up in the morning?

Cat vomiting somewhere in the room.

Panic.

Panic that I've overslept; that I'll be late and this will be the first and last straw; that I've lost my job; lost my house; that I've relegated my family to an existence at the fringes of society subsisting on canned beans, dandelions, and wild greens; that losing every shred of self-respect and all prospects of any improvement in my life.

Yep, panic is a pretty solid motivator.

I drink a decent amount of water before bed. It’s hard to oversleep when you have to piss

Alarm clock. The trick is to put it somewhere where you have to get up in order to turn it off.

My dog

I got a smart light that I have set up to turn on bright white about 30 minutes before my alarm goes off, that seems to help me wake up smoother and I'm not waking up in the dark so I don't accidentally fall asleep again. I also have 3 alarms that go off in increments.

My elderly pug getting up with a frantic look on his face that means we have under a minute to get him outside. Aging is not easy in a dog.

The work chat notification sound. Aka panic.

Looked after a friend's cat one time and was woken by it licking my eyelids. Very effective but not recommended.

Lately it's been whenever the temperature drops.

Gotta take a shit. Works 10 times out of 10.

Alarm.

I take like 20mg of melatonin 10 hours before I need to wake up.

Cat.

My internal clock wakes me up a little before 6am but if not, then it's the vibration of my phone prior to the alarm going off.

Lifestyle changes to where my weekend schedule looks like my weekday schedule, just with different activities.

I am at home and relaxing by 11pm. I am in bed by 12am. Then I wake up at 7:30am. That's 7 and a half hours of sleep every night, at the same time every day, 7 days a week.

And that's not just lifestyle changes around not going out as late on weekends. It's also a lifestyle change where I started steering my career and work towards never needing to have any meetings or be at any specific place before 10am.

I'm not a morning person so I got a job where I don't have to be a morning person. My whole routine on weekday mornings is designed to make it so that nobody at work can touch my morning until I've had a chance to settle into my day.

Reaching the end of the working day in my dreams.

😟

My cats. They want things and as soon as they know I am awake they will come get me up. Unlike an alarm clock they have zero snooze.

Slowly

I have a watch that literally shocks me. Zap zap, time to wake up

You're not going to like this, but keeping a consistent and healthy sleep schedule is highly effective. Going to bed at the same time, getting up at the same time, and getting a consistent 8 hours at minimum is key.

Good poo