HOW DO YOU WAKE UP?
Waking up in the morning affects different people in different ways. To some, it can be a pleasure. To others, a necessary chore. For Monte Irvin, who rooms with Willie Mays when the Giants are on the road, awakening is more like a crisis. Early in the morning Willie leaps out of bed, douses Irvin with a glass of cold water, whacks him hard enough to cave in a rib and jumps on the bed yammering "Say, hey!" "Just being around Willie keeps me young and full of spirit," says Irvin wistfully, "but I wish he'd let me sleep a little longer."
If it is any consolation to Monte Irvin, it is Willie's nature to act this way because he is what is known as a "Cheerful Rise-and-Shiner" (left, below). At least, he would be placed in this category by Peter Siegle, psychologist for the Englander Sleep Foundation, who last week came up with some eye-opening information on waking-up habits. After interviewing some 1,000 people, Siegle decided that the awakening human race could be classified into at least seven basic types.
At the top of the list is the time-stealer. This schemer sets his alarm an hour early just so he can turn it off and steal another 40 winks. Next in order are the griper, the grouch, the timetable planner, the automaton with the built-in alarm, the gadgeteer and, lastly, the evangelical rise-and-shiner.
During the past 20 years, according to Siegle, more and more people have become matutinal dullards. This, apparently, is the fault of society. On one hand, we believe in the puritanical dictum that lolling in bed is a sign of laziness. On the other hand, we fondly regard remaining abed as a symbol of leisure. Moreover, if in many cases we're not downright unhappy at the prospect of going to work, we are at least apprehensive about the uncertainties of the coming day.
SOMETIMES IT'S A PLEASURE
When the day promises to be pleasurable, however, there's no problem whatsoever in getting up. A case in point is the bearish fellow who can't be dragged out of bed to go to work, but is up bright and cheerful to get in 18 holes of golf before Sunday lunch.
Getting up on workdays can be made easier, Siegle says, by organizing the morning into a routine, allowing ample time for dressing, an unhurried breakfast and planning the entire day as much as possible. "But not too rigidly," he cautions, "or you will feel as much anxiety about this as you do about the uncertainties."
Actually there are physical as well as psychological complications involved. Some people, for instance, are constitutionally night owls. Others are early birds, and still a third type combines both, being happily able to arise early and go to bed late. These matters have been the subject of considerable study by Nathaniel Kleitman, the eminent expert on sleep of the University of Chicago, who concludes it is mostly a matter of the temperature of your body.
The "normal" body temperature is supposed to be 98.6°. Actually, if you charted your temperature every three hours for a week or so, you would see that it regularly shifts up and down during a day between 96.7° and 99°. When your temperature is high, you are wide awake and full of energy. When it is low, you are sluggish and listless.
The morning type bounds out of bed and arrives at the office bright-eyed because his temperature is highest before noon. But after lunch, it drops and his pep slowly cools off so that by night he's burned out. On the other hand, the evening type's thermostat doesn't begin to warm up until afternoon. This tends to slow him down until after lunchtime but brings him to a peak at night. That happy individual of the in-between group is blessed with two temperature peaks, one in the morning and the other in the evening. This starts him off bright and early, temporarily cools him off by mid-afternoon, then steams him up again for the evening.
Is it possible for one to change his temperature cycle to become, say, a night owl or an early bird? Dr. Kleitman and several other scientists believe so—and quite easily. It does involve a couple of weeks' effort. For example, 20 to 30 minutes of exercise in the morning can raise the body temperature enough to keep it up most of the working day. Ten minutes under a hot shower will do much the same. And caffeine in coffee proves an eye opener for many morning dullards. If you still can't manage in the morning, you can always consider becoming a night watchman.
ILLUSTRATION
PARADOXICAL COMPLAINER
ILLUSTRATION
GROUCH-POT
ILLUSTRATION
PLANNER AND ORGANIZER
ILLUSTRATION
SELF-STARTER
ILLUSTRATION
GADGETEER
ILLUSTRATION
CHEERFUL RISE-AND-SHINER
ILLUSTRATION
TIME-STEALER
How some wake up in the morning
Betty Hutton is a demon. Up at dawn, gulping burning coffee, cheerfully waking anybody else who isn't.
Lou Little sets himself like an alarm clock. Always works, too.
Dave Garroway really has to be up early. At 3:45 he starts the day with jazz and manages to be cheerful.
Marge and Gower Champion have it tough. She's a rise-and-shiner; he's an admitted grouch. So she's trying to reform him.
Shelley Winters can't open her eyes without coffee. She fixes a thermosful every night to put beside the bed.
Zsa-Zsa Gabor—she won't talk.