"I’ll wake up refreshed and alert. I do not hate mornings. I’ll wake up refreshed and alert."

If life was a video game I would’ve shot morning in the head. A clean headshot - just like that. I hate mornings and mornings hate me back. As long as I can remember I have woken up with a big woolly finger in my throat thinking that my gag reflex in some way has been triggered by the alarm clock. I could go on with parables all day long but they all amount to the same thing: I am not a morning person. We make a note of that and move on because I have found a trick that works sometimes. By “sometimes” I mean it works every time I do it but I forget to once in a while. Okay. I'll admit. I remember once a month maybe. But it ends with me the morning after waking up as if I were a the pearly polished smile of a monarch. Poor analogy. I’ll go again. But it ends with me the morning after waking up as if I were the laugh of a turtle baby who’s celebrating his fifth birthday and all the presents are Transformers.

The trick is very simple. When I go to bed at night I turn out the lamp, get in bed, close my eyes and imagine that it is tomorrow. I imagine that the alarm clock rings and I wake up. I'm trying to build the scenario inside my head; of how I stand up and how the alertness rushes to my head. How I smile and think: Wonderful. Morning. How nice. I play the scenario in my head. Go through it step by step. Maybe five times. That's it.

And it never goes wrong. The next morning when I wake up, the brain will remember how waking up should be. So it makes it so. Now I know that there are many doubters out there. I was one of you. Remember what I told you about headshots, woolly finger in the throat and vomit. Try it.