How to Wake Up Without Feeling Like Crap Every Single Morning

The Problem

I have always had a problem ever since I was in high school, for some reason I always woke up extremely tired and feeling like my head would blow anytime.

The consequences were that I would always end up sleeping in the middle of classes, even when I was sitting in the front of the whole class so the teachers could even see me clearly, and most of my ex-classmates can account for that, they called it “falling into trance“.

So, I spent the rest of my high school life, university life and even professional life falling into unexpected trances every once in a while. Nobody really complained that much since my grades were really good and my performance in work was actually pretty good.

Also, I felt I couldn’t think properly and had problems to concentrate properly while studying or having conversations.

Sometimes I even felt like life was a complete pain because of this. I wasn’t feeling depressed or anything at all but certainly I wasn’t the happiest person in the world.

So It Got Even Worse…

The situation worsened when I got a job at one of these computer technical support call centers (that job was hell itself, if you have the opportunity to work in a call center just do it if you are enough a masochist). With completely irregular schedules that changed every month and having to work until 1:00 or 2:00 am I was feeling like crap even more. The situation continued even after I quit working at that hellhole.

Then I came to Japan, and I noticed that, even though I wasn’t feeling homesick or anything, I was feeling like crap even more and it looked like this would just get worse over the time and I didn’t know why.

The Quest for the Solution

Since something was definitely wrong I decided to try to do something about it, so I visited many web sites that talked about the same problem and how to solve it; none of them worked.

I continued trying stuff by myself and finally found something that worked for me, now I wake up feeling much better. Since I tried doing a lot of stuff gradually, I don’t know exactly what were the necessary steps to achieve this, but it definitely worked for me and now I share this with you.

Most of the sites I visited said stuff about quitting smoking or drinking alcohol. I don’t smoke nor drink so these didn’t apply to my case and therefore I can’t say whether these two factors affect this condition or not, but if you do everything I did and still feel like dying probably you should quit it as well just in case.

Experiment #1: Change Your Pillow

One of the very first things I bought in Japan was a pillow, since my dorm didn’t provide any. I thought it was a nice comfortable pillow (and kind of expensive as well), but after a while I noticed I was waking up with this horrible pain in the back of the head sometimes. I changed the pillow and the pain disappeared.

• Results: Completely effective in reducing pain in the neck and the head. I still kept feeling like total crap, but without so much pain.

Experiment #2: Don’t let Sunlight Get in Your Room

The room at my dorm was OK, except for the fact that at mornings too much sunlight gets in and I always woke up because of that. That’s alright if you want to get up early I guess, but if you want to sleep a lot because you are damn tired it is just annoying.

The curtains of my room were so crappy that a lot of sunlight could still get through them. A while back ago I got a much better set of curtains from a friend of mine. Now I can sleep until whatever time I feel like without interruptions.

• Results: A good idea if sun is always interrupting your sleep. I still kept feeling like crap, but for less time a day since now I could sleep longer.

Experiment #3: Avoid Coffee and Soft Drinks

This is one that is always being mentioned in other sites that talk about this. That caffeine interrupts your sleep and that, besides coffee, a lot of soft drinks contain huge amounts of caffeine, etc etc.

I was never too much of a coffee drinker, but I loved cola a lot as most of my friends can testify. So well, I just decided to quit cola and any other soft drinks and drink water, green tea and fruit juices instead. (In case you are wondering, quitting was really easy actually)

I was kind of happily looking forward to see some results from this, but shocking as it is, four months later I still continued suffering from the same problem.

One thing that a friend pointed out is that, when going to the gym I would end up feeling like dying sometimes and this could be because of soft drinks. I guess this is true since I haven’t felt that bad when doing exercises after quitting soft drinks.

• Results: Almost none at all, I kept feeling like crap as always and kind of disappointed as well. I continued avoiding soft drinks and that kind of stuff just in case.

Experiment #4: Don’t Use Painkillers (In fact, try to avoid all medicines if possible)

A couple of months ago I had a problem in my jaw that it would hurt like hell whenever I tried to chew anything or opened my mouth too much. I went to the dentist and he just gave me some painkillers.

After some days, the pain disappeared, but while I was taking the painkillers I noticed that I slept and woke up feeling much better. After I stopped taking them the problem reappeared and had even intensified.

• Results: Although taking them will surely help you sleep better, you cannot keep simply taking painkillers your whole life since it’s kind of freaking dangerous and it kind of worsens the problem if you stop consumption. So well, I still kept feeling like crap, but at least had a vacation of about a week from that damn condition.

Experiment #5: Avoid Chocolate

So, even after doing all of that, it seemed like death was the only way I could ever escape from this. I want to keep living as much as possible and I personally dislike suicide since that’s kind of a gay or emo thing, so instead I tried to gather more information on stuff that could possibly have something to do with this; I found the same stuff over and over, caffeine, alcohol and smoking.

As I said before, I don’t drink nor smoke, so my only option was caffeine. I got a list of most of the stuff that contains caffeine, and chocolate was in it of course.

I am not so fond of chocolate myself, but occasionally I would buy a bar or a cup of chocolate chip ice cream whenever I wanted some snack. My chocolate consumption was not so high but it still was worth a try; sadly, it didn’t work.

• Results: Almost none, still feeling like crap, but I never consumed too much anyway, so whether it has some effect or not I still don’t know. I kept avoiding chocolate just in case as well.

Experiment #6: Don’t Drink Green Tea or Any Other Kind of Tea

Next on the list of stuff containing caffeine was tea. Ever since I came to Japan, I had been taking at least one cup of green tea every single day because I had always been hearing about the benefits of Japanese green tea; that it will make your life span longer, that it prevents cancer, that it cleans your body, and all that nasty crap which I don’t know whether it’s true or not, and also because it’s Japanese tradition.

Since a long time ago I had been hearing of people that can actually sleep better after taking a cup of tea before going to sleep. Well, I can tell you now, and some people will most likely be shocked, but that’s just plain BULLSHIT.

The next day right after I stopped drinking tea I felt way much better, and I kept feeling better with each passing day. It kind of makes sense since my condition worsened after coming to Japan, the land of green tea.

• Results: The problem had mostly disappeared after the first day I stopped consumption. It might lengthen my life, but I personally prefer a nice short life rather than a long painful one, so it’s up to you.

Conclusions

If you have the same problem as I had, probably caffeine is what’s slowly killing you. Try to check up if the stuff you consume contains caffeine and try to avoid them.

Some people might actually have no problems at all with caffeine, but then, maybe it is that I’m more sensitive to caffeine than other people or something like that. Remember, each person is different.

Also, try to avoid any disturbances that could affect your sleep, like sound or too much light in your room.

Further Theories

As many people already know, the suicide rate in Japan is actually very high. This can be accounted to many factors like bullying in schools, pressure at work and stuff like that.

I, being a Chinese guy in a country filled mostly with non-asian people, was bullied almost everyday for 12 years by your average air head bullies, and did not commit suicide. Instead, I decided to grow powerful enough (monetary speaking) to make all their lives completely miserable. I don’t hold those grudges anymore, but I still want to grow powerful though.

Also, work had always been pressing as well, especially while I was still in the university with a full time schedule.

So, at first, it seemed to me like the Japanese were just looking for any stupid excuse to commit suicide.

But, what if a large part of the population was actually quite sensitive to caffeine and not aware of it, and thus, being this a country with lots of tea and coffee drinkers (there is a coffee shop in almost every corner), the high consumption of caffeine would actually induce them to commit suicide.

Believe me, when I said I felt like crap, I really meant it, so some people with similar problems might actually end up depressing like hell.

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