This is probably a question best answered by zenpharaohs and/or wh0areume, but I'm going to throw it out there for anyone who might have a good idea.

I'd like to start monitoring my resting heart rate in the mornings, as recommended by many, but... no matter how gently my alarm clock wakes me up (the volume increases slowly), I wake up hard, the adrenaline starts going, and it absolutely freaks out my HR.

I'm thinking of sleeping with my HRM, but then I'd get a sleeping HR, and not a RHR...

I suspect if I lay there for 20 minutes, I'll be back to a "true" morning RHR, but I'll probably fall asleep again!

Argh.

Any ideas?

I'd like to start monitoring my resting heart rate in the mornings, as recommended by many, but... no matter how gently my alarm clock wakes me up (the volume increases slowly), I wake up hard, the adrenaline starts going, and it absolutely freaks out my HR.

OK there are a couple of things you can do. Even if you don't run the monitor through the night (which is actually useful) you can wear the strap, so all you do is start the monitor when you wake. Lots of people do that to avoid the bump up in HR from getting up and putting on the strap, and then having to wait for it to come back down. On the other hand, the 20 minutes of laying there normally works if you are in good shape.

But if you have a heart monitor that records R-R data and can put it on computer (Suunto T6 for example, I think some Polars do this) then can wear it overnight and split out the data from just before the alarm clock gets to you. If you look through a sleep cycle you can get an idea of the early RHR.

You can also try the last RHR before you fall asleep. I've actually found that one is pretty low and consistent for me.

OK there are a couple of things you can do.

Thanks for the ideas. I don't know why I didn't think of just putting the strap on and then turning on the HR in the morning. Also I could run it through the night (I've got a Garmin GPS/HR combo, though I don't expect I'll be traveling very far during the night). Is recording HR during the night really useful? In the same way as RHR, or other ways?

Unfortunately, I'm a rather fidgety person, so it's hard for me to stay stil for the 20 minutes needed to get a RHR unless it's somewhere around sleep-times. But, I think at least one of those ideas will work on a regular basis.

Thanks!