canyontothesky - I hear you, I'm something of a sleep adict too!
Though I'm now an early riser and have been since I started the 9-5 lifestyle in my early twenties (nothing beats the Pavlovian conditioning of a 9-5 job
) Prior to that, I'd easliy sleep until noon unless dragged out of bed!
I managed to carry the early rising habit over to weekends by keeping my alarm clock set for the same time, keeping it on the other side of the room, and getting out of bed straight away (kind of have to in response to screeching alarm and sharing bed with a grumpy late-riser bear).
However, my weakness is naps. Basically, if I'm at home and it's day time, I'll give in to the temptation of a nice long nap. I've attacked this a couple of times but haven't quite beat it yet. A couple of things that helped were:
30 day trial - I recomend reading Steve's "early riser" article in your case (it's on the sidebar of his blog under the most popular articles). In my case I did a 30 "no daytime naps" trial, but caved on about day 21
Exercise - this is the perfect remedy for sleepiness, you can do this first thing in the morning by getting up and going out for a brisk walk or just jump around your house in your PJs (try it, it's fun
). I've had some success with exercising during my afternoon lull instead of napping.
Re-set your body clock - I read an article last year about how a night of partial sleep deprivation can re-set your body clock (and subsequently improve mood and sleep). I tried this by going to bed at 4am then getting up at 7am, then avoiding sleep all day (by exercising a lot, keeping busy and indulging in some coffee). I found that I was really hyper all day and woke easliy in the mornings for weeks afterwards. I now do this occaisionally, and feel that it kind of re-boots my brain and gets my sleeping habits back in order
Hope that helps, I think you've inspired me to attack my nap addiction once more, so thanks!