Our internal clocks are mysterious, often frustrating biological mechanisms. While some folks pop right out of bed with a spring in their step, many find waking up early to be a daily exercise in self-torture. There are plenty of remedies that aim to shock you, such as Nanda's 'Clocky' alarms that run and roll away to lure you from bed, but I'm no fan of rude awakenings. Here are a few ways technology can ease you into becoming more of a morning person.
Ease into it
If you want to start waking up earlier, suddenly shifting your morning alarm back a couple hours may be as effective as running a marathon without training. We're creatures of habit, and your body simply may not be ready. Instead, try easing into a new schedule by setting your 8AM alarm back to 7:55 for a week, followed by 7:50 the week after, etc. Another important part is better understanding your personal sleeping patterns. For this, consider a JawBone Up — a simple, stylish bracelet that monitors your sleeping activity patterns and wakes you with a gentle vibration. The bracelet communicates with a companion smartphone app to help you learn about your body and tune your schedule.
Light up
We're biologically inclined to respond to the day's natural lighting cycle. Just as excessive use of glowing screens at night can keep us from falling asleep, a dark room in the morning can make waking difficult. Consider a daylight alarm, which simulates the sunrise to ease you out of your slumber. These lamps, such as Philips' Wake-up Lights, gradually illuminate your room before your alarm, and are an elegant ally against winter hours or gloomy skies.
Follow your nose!
Now that your ears and eyes are waking more gently, get out of bed nose first with an aromatic lure! If you rely on coffee for your morning jolt, try using a coffeemaker that automatically starts brewing on a schedule. The feature is practically standard on electric drip coffeemakers from most major brands. If coffee isn't your style, consider an aroma diffuser such as the Opus from MadeByZen. This little pod releases the scent of your favorite essential oil at a time you specify via simple touch controls. Now to find essential oil that smells like freshly baked bread...
Late to bed, early to rise?
Lets face it, the elephant in the room is your bedtime. You stay up past midnight watching late-night TV, then wonder why you can't wake up at dawn. Look, I love Comedy Central too — my college thesis was about Colbert — but with services like Hulu and iTunes, "time shifting" is easier than ever. You don't need to sacrifice comedy in search of a good night's sleep!
Are you a reformed over-sleeper? If you had tried jarring and blaring alarms in the past, what techniques or products finally worked for you? Let us know in the comments.
(Images: 1 & 3. Philips, 2. Jawbone, 4. Cuisinart, via Amazon, 5. MadeByZen)
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I'm a big fan of the light-alarm. I have the Moonbean alarm clock and find I don't hit Snooze when I wake up to a light instead of a noisy alarm.
re: late night TV. ...PVR saved my sleep. (it's the cdn tivo).
I had one of Philips' Wake-up Lights, although I ended up replacing it with an iPhone dock alarm and a bedside light which was setup with a timer. I found the Philips' Wake-up Lights did not have the audio-quality that I sought, although I wanted a light to help wake me up the mornings. This alternative ended up being less expensive and you could customize the look and feel with any alarm and light you choose.
Granted my light doesn't turn on gradually, however I am a heavy sleeper so the Philip's Wake-up Light never actually woke me up. I do like my alarm to gradually get louder, so I have this being done through my iPhone alarm clock.
There should be an app for that - iPhone wake-up light
The iPhone app Sleep Cycle has been helping me quite a bit. It analyzes your sleep cycle (quite similar to that watch mentioned, maybe a LITTLE less accurate) and wakes you in a 1/2 hour span from your alarm time, whenever you are the closest to "awake" instead of the closest to deep REM sleep. So if your alarm is at 6:50 and you're allowing it a 1/2 hour window, it will wake you up whenever you are at the top of your sleep cycle, with gentle increasing movement followed by vibration. You can set the window to as little as 10 min or as long as an hour or two, but 30 minutes is suggested, since it gives the ap long enough to find the right moment, without shaving off your sleep time.
It also provides a nifty little graph that's interesting to look at every morning, of when you were sleeping deepest, and when you were barely sleeping at all.
So far, it's been helpful. It doesn't help me get OUT of bed faster, since I'm a "lay around in bed awake and relax for a while" person in the morning, but it DOES make me a lot less grumpy about my alarm. The app allows you to use one of several gentle tones that are free with it (the app itself is around $1.99) but it also gives you an option to use any song from your ipod (an improvement over the iphone alarm itself, which only allows you to use ringtone-ized songs.)
I'd say the effect of this is similar to the gentle light, only with music.
Something that helped me was to find a morning activity that you _enjoy_ for which you *must* wake up early for and then keep it up. At the beginning, set an alarm at night for your bedtime - otherwise after a couple of days, no matter how much you love your chosen activity you will just be too tired to do it.
I have the Hammacher Schlemmer Peaceful Progression Alarm Clock - best purchase I've ever made. It has gradual light, one of six nature or zen sounds, as well as scented oil release - and you can have the alarm set to any combination of the three (I prefer light with sound, my coffee maker works as scent for me). Having a past of screaming shit-show alarms that made me stomp around in the morning (and likely for the rest of the day) this clock has literally changed my life.
Chispita - I love the suggestion to set an alarm for bedtime. I usually don't mean to stay up so late, but I don't have a regular evening routine and I lose track of time. I watch TV on Netflix or Amazon video on demand, but because the shows don't come on at a set time I have no idea what time it is after I finish a TV show marathon (just one more episode.....just one more episode....).
I have a Moonbeam alarm clock like CBReynolds, and I do like it better than a jarring alarm. Though it's invaded my dreams on occasion (cue my dreamself asking: who's turning the overhead light on and off?!), which is mostly funny I guess.
Making myself go to bed on time has been the most helpful thing ever. Being reasonably good about it even on weekends is critical, though. If you let yourself stay up late on weekends, it's just like jet lag on Monday morning.
The other most reliable alarm clock I've ever had is my cat. She always meows for breakfast around 6am. Saved me from being late a few times when I turned off my alarm on accident.
Gentle Alarm is an Android (and presumably iPhone) app that I LOVE. I sleep with ear phones and an eye mask on (thank you downtown apartment), so the gradual light wouldn't work. Gentle Alarm gives you an alarm that you can program to start out at a very low volume and gradually increase until you wake up at a natural point in your sleep cycle.
I've also found that making myself go to bed when I start to feel tired instead of pushing through for the second wind works wonders. My body knows how much sleep I need, and it tells me, I just need to listen!
Taking your sleep cycle back (i.e. waking up earlier) is VERY difficult, because our internal clock is actually running on a cycle that's closer to 25 hours than 24. If you're interested in the science: http://science.education.nih.gov/supplements/nih3/sleep/guide/info-sleep.htm (fig. 8 is about the circadian cycle).
I've tried a variety of "shock you awake" options-- from a clock radio set to static (on the highest volume) to an old-fashioned bell-and-hammer alarm clock. My problem is that I always hit the snooze button a few too many times. My boyfriend does not go back to sleep as easily as I do, and it drives him nuts (and puts him in a bad mood the rest of the day).
Now I usually set my phone's alarm to a nice classical music tune (I think it's called "Cello Suite") and put it in the next room over, on a middle volume setting. I also sign up for early-am yoga classes in advance (and pay ahead of time!!) which is usually the extra motivation I need to not crawl back into bed.
Natural light makes a HUGE difference to me. I have my husband open the curtain when he leaves for work (I'm a stay at home mom so no alarm clock for me). Makes waking up soooo much easier.
I second the Sleep Cycle suggestion. It's a great app, and after about a week of using it I did feel more rested (which I didn't actually expect). It also helps that I have a semi-pro espresso machine. A perfect cappuccino in the morning is an AWESOME wake up call! ^_^
I have three words for you: Wake-N-Shake. It's an iPhone app that's not peaceful nor remotely zen, but it works wonders. When your alarm goes off (one can choose from such sounds as "Lazy Bee," "War Horse" and "Latin Lover"), you have to violently shake your phone for around fifteen to twenty seconds to turn it off. There's no snooze button, and it disables the volume. It's sort of violent and whatever, but I am a totally reformed oversleeper, thanks to this app.
Gentle Alarm app for iPhone. Solid app worthy of $3.99 price tag.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-gentle-alarm/id382000168?mt=8
Read the science before suggesting a simple alarm clock or going to bed earlier can reset our bodies' circadian rhythms. Everybody is either classified a Night Owl, Morning Lark or the in-between Hummingbird. True Night Owls simply do not get sleepy early and no amount of wishing or gadgety alarm clocks are going to change that. It is possible, however -- with careful study, melatonin and an educated plan -- to move one's natural wake time two hours in either direction but no more. Same for sleep time. But it takes patience and research to do it right and get lasting results.
Funny thing is, "morning people" are always lording their superiority over "night owls" - as if there is only one "right way" to be and yet when overall productivity was scientifically tracked, it turned out that night people are actually productive for more hours per day than morning people. Early risers start with a blaze and burn out fast whereas night people start slow, warm up and keep going for a greater total number of hours. Turns out late risers aren't lazy slackers after all.
So please, let's stop adding to the ignorance that surrounds our circadian rhythms and stop suggesting that an alarm clock, however cute or techy, will reset our biology. Night Owls don't need to be guilted at every turn into feeling they are somehow lazy because they started later. Learn to love yourself and work with what you have. Treat your body with kindness and compassion.
I recently moved from a basement apartment, with a single north-facing window in the bedroom; needless to say I didn't get a lot of light in the morning. I got the Phillips Wake-Up Light Plus for Christmas last year, and I really like it. I used it in combination with my cell phone alarm, but the soft, gradual light made waking up so much more pleasant. The dusk simulator also made falling asleep easier -- I suffer from late onset sleep disorder, and it made a noticeable difference. That being said, I don't think it's for everyone; I'm sure the light doesn't effect everyone the same way. But it definitely lifted my morning moods this past winter.
Thank you GreenHeronFarm for your comments!! My husband and I are both Night Owls and no matter how hard we try, we just aren't sleepy before midnight. I've tried waking up really early and exercising to become a morning person but it honestly just ruins my whole day. I do much better waking up slowly and I hit my stride just when the mid-afternoon drowsies are wiping everyone else out.
Deaf people have been using Shake Awake style alarm clocks for years. You can set a VERY LOUD decibel alarm on several tones, attach it to a light to flash on and off, and put the vibrator under your mattress. I used to say that I didn't wake up so much as I levitated with shock and terror.
I use a light alarm clock now, and it usually wakes me up 15-20 minutes ahead of the back-up alarm.
I agree with GreenHeronFarm. Thank you for the thoughtful and empowering comment. The problem that many of us have is when we have early morning jobs. I work at my local elementary school, so have to be up in the morning. I have forced to wake myself up earlier throughout the years but, have had many late days! And when the weekend comes, enjoy sleeping in!
I also have a basement bedroom (never, ever try to sleep in a basement. btw) and my cheaper solution was to get a $15 digital lamp timer at Home Depot. I use it on a floor lamp on the other side of the room, set it just like an alarm clock, and that combined with my cell phone alarm was enough to get me out of bed before dawn all winter. Nothing is guaranteed to work without a reasonable bed time, but the lamp timer really was a life saver.
I am real night owl, and I think it's genetic, because my husband is not, but my children are. This has always been a source of frustration to me, since the world seems to be geared to early birds. I've tried earlier bedtimes and all sorts of alarms to try to make getting up easier, but none of that makes a difference, although that Wake-up lamp doesn't look bad. Still, it will never be easy, no matter what technology I use. Getting up early will still be just as hard, and loathsome, as it always has been. I get up because I have to, but nothing will ever make me enjoy it.
I'd recommend the Philips light. The only negative I have to say is if you have a larger bed (king) its a bit difficult for the person located farthest from the alarm clock to be woke by the light slowly turning on. Serves as a night light as well and radio.
For people who are harder to wake up or deaf/hard-of-hearing like me I recommend a vibrating alarm clock. It always wakes me up.
Smooth wake up with gradual wake up light. It saved my life
http://www.squidoo.com/gradual-wake-up-light
Setting my alarm for 45 minutes earlier than I need to wake up then hitting the snooze button every 10 minutes so I can gradually ease myself into waking up. Also do everything you possibly can at night( shower, lay out your clothing, etc...) to give yourself that extra time to sleep. The only thing I look forward to in the morning is my coffee so I set everything up @ night & I rely on strong coffee such as dunkin dark roast or Starbucks French roast.