I have a tendency to stay up late, which then makes me sleep late. Over a long vacation, I can get my sleep wake schedule completely turned around. In a recent post I mentioned that on my last big vacation in Florida, I miraculously started waking up early, and was able to become a morning person. This Christmas vacation, I slowly evolved into the night owl again. Faced with having to go back to work, I needed to shift back to a reasonable schedule. Really, there are only two choices:

1. Go to sleep earlier. This one usually means I lie in bed for a couple hours trying to sleep, sometimes tossing an turning all night. Or,
2. Bite the bullet, and set the alarm for early and face a day or two of tiredness. Also, if you are like me, you can easily hit snooze or just turn off the alarm and sleep in.

Since I realized this situation a few days before having to go back to work, and since New Years Eve was my last night of freedom, I chose to start getting up earlier gradually. It worked for me.

What would you choose? Any other ideas?