Be aware that current medical research shows the importance of sleeping in a dark room, because of light's key role in setting hormonal cycles and many biological clocks. For example, exposure to excessive light at night has been associated with increases in breast cancer, likely because of effects on estrogen production.

So use lined curtains, blinds, and sleep masks. Forgo the open or mechanical blinds. Then get up when your alarm rings and pull back the curtains.

We used to shoot them with BB Guns.

Our streetlight is approximately 6' outside of our rowhome's bedroom window. I make my husband sleep on that side of the bed :) I hope spring comes soon...the leaves block out all of the light. Summer is blissfully dark in the bedroom.

where is this current medical research about sleeping in absolute darkness? more than two people have mentioned it today... anyone?

I had that problem, and I started wearing a sleep mask to sleep in. The beauty of it is that by the time morning arrives, I've usually moved enough to not be wearing it anymore, so I can wake up to the light.

Well, research may say sleep in absolute darkness - and I do agree it is what I prefer when going to sleep at night. But if I'm in a room that does not let natural light come in as the morning progresses, I awake with a heart-pounding start and then get a headache. And usually sleep too late too. I may be a medical wonder, but all I know is what I need - sunlight in the morning. I LOVE the idea of putting blinds on a timer.

Sleep masks are cheaper than motorized blinds. I like the idea of breaking the lamp with a brick though. Or use a BB gun like Fink suggests.

For less than $300, you could get a BioBrite alarm clock. They slowly start to lighten the room about half an hour before they ring. We love ours:

http://www.google.com/products?client=safari&rls=en-us&q=bio bright alarm clock&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=4_tES7PsBdKk8AaB_snWBA&sa=X&oi=product_result_group&ct=title&resnum=3&ved=0CB8QrQQwAg

Whoops. That link doesn't work. But Google "Bio Brite alarm clock" and you'll get a choice of places to buy one.

We have a 10,000 lux light therapy lamp on a timer. It comes on full strength at 6:00 a.m. As bright as it is, it still takes us another 30 minutes or so to really wake up. I don't think I could get through the winter darkness without it.

I've tried the dawn simulator lamps, but they weren't bright enough for me.

My hubby wanted to foil the lamps...I finally convinced him to wear a sleep mask until we could find a dark enough curtain. You'd be surprised how many of them look dark but don't block more than 20% of the light.
We use these in conjunction with the light shade the apartment gave us, leaving a crack. This blocks more of the light, but satisfies my need for sun in the morning.
Sources: West Elm, Z-Gallery, Target (blackout layer to use with other curtains).

I was just thinking of this last night with the bright light casting even brighter off of the new snow. I really like the idea of a brick though I am leaning towards curtains lately (though I am really not a fan of curtains).

There was research that came out about 4 or 5 years ago. Basically, ANY exposure to light during the night (say, if you get up, and open the fridge to get a glass of milk) immediately turns off the production of melatonin. Low melatonin levels are implicated in breast cancer, prostate cancer, diabetes, heart disease, depression...

"Experts think that's probably a good idea (to limit light exposure at night), though you certainly don't need to go to extremes, like wandering around a darkened house after sundown. You should, though, try to avoid bright lights, the kind you need for knitting, jigsaw puzzles, or other hobbies within three hours of bedtime, recommends Mark Rea, director of the Lighting Research Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y. And keep computer time at night to no more than 15 minutes. Sitting in the glare from the screen for prolonged periods of time could suppress the release of melatonin. On the other hand, he says, watching TV is fine since the amount of light exposure you get sitting several feet away is minimal. In the bedroom, use room-darkening shades or curtains to block out the glare from streetlights. Plus, you might want to leave on a night light in the bathroom for those 4 a.m. visits, since flipping on the main bathroom light for even a few minutes, Brainard says, could disrupt melatonin production. "I recommend using one with a red bulb," he adds, "since light at that wavelength has a lower intensity and is less likely to interfere with melatonin.""

I was going to suggest a wake up light but Lisa (Montreal) beat me to it. Anyway, here's another alternative
http://www.consumer.philips.com/c/wake-up-light/26471/cat/us/#filterState=WAKEUP_LIGHT_SU_US_CONSUMER%3Dtrue

y bedroom growing up had a streetlamp right outside that was never addressed at all ... now, I work nights and have no problem with light. or so i think i have no problem, sleep masks seem comforting to me sometimes.

I love my light alarm clock. A lot of them are super ugly (round up here: http://findingmykd.blogspot.com/2009/09/waking-up.html)

but I found a great/cheap one that you plug into your own bedside lamp, which avoids the cheap-plastic crap that most of them are. And it's only $30. Bonus!

http://www.amazon.com/Homedics-SS-5500-SoundSpa-Radiance-Projection/dp/B001707TOC

Call the city or the electric company that maintains the light-if they are nice, they will come out and put up a shield that will block the light facing your window, or spray the globe with paint on that side. I asked a truck that was in my neighborhood doing repairs if they would put up a shield to block out the light for my baby's window. 'Baby' is actually my husband, and we both sleep better now.

I have streetlights in the front and back of my rowhouse -- right at eye=level on the third floor. Very annoying. Plus headlights coming into my kitchen every morning where a parking lot faces the back of my house. It was driving me crazy, but now I use blackout fabric (from any fabric store, the brand I get is RocLon, it costs around $5.00 per yard) and sew it into the lining of my curtains. I have a pitch black bedroom, even though it's quite bright outside with the streetlights.

My cat lovingly wakes me up at between 4:45 and 5:00 AM, so I'm awake before the sun and don't have the issue the original questioner asked about. Maybe they should get a cat :)

I have this problem in my bedroom, and I used aluminum foil to block the light out. Light can't pass through foil so it works well. It looks crappy from the street, but I don't mind...

Here's what I did: A blackout roll up shade inside the window, with venetian blinds over it.

The blackout shade is extremely effective, and I really like it because I often take a glorious nap on Saturday afternoons, but of course I can just roll it up when I do want light in there.

The Venetian blinds of course can be adjusted for shade/light levels.

With both of them the room is very dark, but easy to adjust.

There's also added benefits. The roll up shade is white and reflects bright sunlight making the house cooler in summer. In the winter it adds an extra layer of insulation. With both the shade and venetian blind air seems to get trapped in the middle layer, thus the house stays warmer, and the set up also acts as a noise buffer.

One roll up shade costs about $10 at Home Depot or Lowes. Venetian Blinds are $29.99 at Ikea, so it is also very cost effective

Cheap, clean looking (no bulky curtains), effective, and easy.

put a plant or something between your bed and the light -- and make sure it lines up so that it blocks the source of the light when you're in bed. That's what I've done. It doesn't solve the issue of a somewhat less-dark room, but at least I don't have to deal with a severe, contrasting bright light, as if staring into a flashlight.

It sounds like the "link" between cancer & less-than-absolute-darkness is a piece of fiction. Hogwash. Damn the stars and the moon!

Get a good sleep mask - not the ones they give out on airlines. I find them very comfortable and have been sleeping a lot better since I started using it. And when I wake up in the morning and take it off, I'm surprised how bright the day is.

I have six windows facing the street. Bedroom is level with the street light. The night after we moved in, we knew we needed help. We also had no money. I bought these roller shades at Ikea, http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/00119909 then white "black-out" fabric from the discount fabric store. I removed the ikea sheer fabric, cut the black-out fabric to size and rolled it on. Worked like a charm ever since. We roll them up in the morning, down at night for 5 years now. The idea of a motor opening to allow natural light sounds good in theory, but unless your job is so flexible that you can get up at varying hours, that doesn't work (I wish!).

I have long vertical blinds. They came with the aparment. I leave the two turned to open (father away from my bed) and it lets light in the moring and not alot in at night!

Wow, AT you read my mind. I was Searching for posts on this yesterday. I’m switching apartments in my building to a quieter one, but the adjacent building, managed by the same company, has a bright light shining over the parking lot there, directly into my window. Yes, you can read by this light. I'd ask them to move it but they’re already irritated by my switching apartments, and I think they would just start ignoring me. Screwed if the toilet floods or something.

I’ll choose light pollution over noise pollution any day but if I can’t afford those $300 blinds, I’m really going to miss light streaming through the window to wake me up on Saturday morning. We’re not allowed to have pets. The dark curtain suggestions above are great, but so far having a cat and getting automated blind$ seem to be the only ideas that allow you to have it both both ways. I would shamelessly ask someone with good aim to take the lights out with a BB gun but there’s another apartment’s window right underneath it! So I can’t do it.

The first apartment I lived alone in had a streetlight right outside a window that was across from my bed. There was no door to the "bedroom" (it was more of an open space hidden around the corner from the kitchen) just an archway, AND the place came with sheer curtains and my landlords asked me to keep them up because they wanted the building to look uniform from the outside. I was used to blackout curtains and blinds so it was a bit of an adjustment.

I tried the sleeping mask but it irritated my face and I never got used to it. Finally my mom found long dark purple fabric to make curtains out of and her and my dad hung them inside the archway. I just clipped them closed each night and voila! I suddenly didn't care about the streetlight anymore! I still wish I had known about it though, I went a few months without any solutions.

I have a programmable dawn simulator that my bedside lamp plugs into. The simulator is set to gradually brighten the lamp over 30-45 minutes. It's close enough to the real thing that I actually wake up peacefully and before my alarm, even in the dead of winter. I bought mine on amazon, about $140, so less expensive than the motorized blinds.

I had both a streetlight and a security light that was set to a setting I called "nuclear" when I was in a grad school dorm. Loved my room, but after a month of sleeplessness, two of us broke the hallowed "screw nothing into your walls" law and bought blackout blinds.

I also invested in a "sunrise" clock which starts a gradual sunrise. The light is enough to wake me up enough to open the blinds and let the sunshine in. Though in northern climes, I don't remember right now what sunshine IS let alone when it streams through my window in the morning. Aren't most of us waking up in the deep depressing frozen wasteland-like dark right now?

Go for the heavy curtains to kill the streetlight light. Put a small lamp with a 40 watt bulb in the corner of your bedroom, or just outside it, and put it on a timer set to turn the lamp on about an hour before your alarm goes off. We started doing this when we lived way far up north, and hated waking up to a pitch dark room at 7am.

For me I would get drapes lined with blackout material its more important for me to sleep in total darkness and be well rested than be concerned if there is no light in my room when I wake up. If you cannot wake up with out light set an alarm then open the drapes first thing in the morning.

I accept my street lamp outside the window as an unnatural light source as if I were on another planet. That seems to work.

Ben G., I really like your suggestion best of all. Power of imagination. Except it looks like you made your post at 1:00am which suggests maybe it's not working.... Do aliens sleep?

This sleepmask sound blocking pillow is the first one that comes up on Google for the term 'sleep mask'.

It also has this interesting related story on the website:

About two months ago I purchased two Dreamhelmets - one for me and one for my boyfriend, Dave. We both think they are terrific!

I used mine on a recent business trip from Baltimore to Toulouse, France. In addition to making my airline travel more comfortable, my Dreamhelmet proved a godsend during my three night stay in Toulouse. I was unfortunate enough to have a hotel room which backed up to a very noisy street, which also happened to sport a flashing green neon sign in close proximity to my window! Were it not for the Dreamhelmet, I know the sound and the light from the street would have left me sleepless and ill-equipped for my meetings - and perhaps driven me to do something that would later on be characterized as an ugly "international incident!"

Dave also gives his Dreamhelmet a rave review. Dave is an airline pilot, and he regularly uses his Dreamhelmet when he must go to bed before sundown or sleep long after sunrise to prepare for his flying schedule. He also uses his Dreamhelmet to get a refreshing snooze on "deadhead" legs. The Dreamhelmet should be standard equipment in every pilot's flight bag!

The Dreamhelmet always arouses curiosity when people see it - and we always offer an enthusiastic review of the product. We hope this positive "word-of-mouth" advertising translates into additional sales for you.

Thank you for your excellent product. We wish you continued success!

Ms Daryle L. - Bowie, Maryland

Am I the only one here who wakes up before daylight? I'm starting to wonder. So I wake up in the dark anyways...so it wouldn't matter if I had heavy curtains on my windows.

I think the best idea I've seen on here that won't break a budget is just a good quality sleepmask - unless you sleep almost absolutely still, it'll come off your eyes before morning.

I actually like the streetlight I can see from bed. I have no problems falling asleep and when I do wake up to outdoor sounds, I simply have a quick look to check the weather... (snow, rain, wind)...illuminated by the streetlight, then I just hunker back down in my cozy bed...happy to be warm and dry and I fall asleep again! I guess I'm lucky that way.

I was using a sleep mask, but (in line with the other post about old t-shirts) I now use an old t-shirt to cover my eyes. It's more comfortable and comes off easily during the night.

Jeanine, Thanks so much for the information. I have a nasty street light too. Like yours, it makes my bedroom too much like daylight -- exacerbated by cats looking out and under the blinds.

I always wished there were a way to hook up light-blocking curtains to a timer, as it's such a PITA to access them in a timely manner.

I'd like to hear more about what you did with curtains and timers etc. (I'm not interested in other irrelevant ideas etc.--glad you're happy, but no thanks) so I can hook up something similar.

Thanks.
P