The only way to hit snooze on this alarm is to catch the rocket flying around your room and stick in back on the base. I can’t decide if that’s clever or insane. Check out the full list of annoyingly creative alarm clocks. Nothing like being irritated into alertness to start your day off right!
Things that keep me up at night: Blogging. The latest Smash episode. (Am I the only theater nerd still into that show? Seriously, tell me this song is not gorGEOUS.) The Internets. Bills. Work. E-mail. Laundry. Blogging. Kids that reappear like groundhogs every 5 minutes after bedtime until I threaten to play whack-a-mole with the next tiny head that pokes out that door. Writing. And especially those weird spiders in Pakistan that have engulfed entire trees in their apocalyptic webs that I can’t even think about without doing a full body shiver. (Seriously, click that link at your own risk. Supposedly the spiders are good ’cause they eat mosquitoes and lessen malaria but holy crap Nature, could you not have found a less creepy thing attracted to blood suckers? Hugh Hefner not available?)
My point: there are lots of things that keep me up at night. But only one thing wakes me up in the morning. Me.
This was not always the case. One of my most memorable Christmas gifts as a child was an alarm clock. I know, I was a weird kid. (Mom, Dad, I’m sorry.) It wasn’t just any alarm clock though it was the super deluxe alarm clock with dual alarms, a battery backup and even those slidey thingies to adjust the bass and balance and Josh-Groban tenor and whatever other random music words I can think of. My favorite part was the massive snooze button that took up so much real estate I could basically slap my alarm any which way and still manage to get an extra ten minutes of pillow time. Exactly what an AP junkie dreams of! My parents specifically told me, “We got you the best alarm clock at the store, honey! We know how much you love your alarm and this one should last you ’till college!”
And it did. That baby not only got me through 4 neurotic years of high school – I had to get up crazy early so I’d have enough time to meticulously apply all my heavy black eyeliner just in case Robert Smith happened by my cafeteria at lunchtime – but it lasted through college, graduate school and the first five or so years of marriage. I loved that thing. The kids broke it. Of course they did. They hang from chandeliers until they pull them right out of the ceiling and then chase each other with steak knives – how was my alarm clock supposed to make it through that gauntlet?
But the kids broke me of something else: my alarm clock dependence. When you’re getting up at 2 a.m., 4 a.m., 4:30 a.m., 4:44 a.m., and 5:30 a.m. with a cranky baby, who’s to say when the day really starts? So I forgot about the alarm clock and instead changed to waking up whenever I woke up. I know this sounds very decadent but what I discovered is that I sleep better and feel better upon waking if I allow myself to wake up naturally.
And it turns out that I wake myself up pretty consistently about 7.5 hours after I go to bed. (Assuming no one barfs in my bed in the middle of the night which happens more than you might think. Kids do not like to vomit alone. They will hold it in all the way up three flights of stairs, wait until they’ve shaken me awake and then upchuck all over themselves, me, my bed and the floor. And yet they say they can’t make it to the toilet in time.)
And new research supports this theory pointing out that one of the worst things you can do for yourself is to hit that big ol’ snooze button. This delightful YouTube video from asapSCIENCE explains exactly why you’re not doing yourself any favors by trying to sneak in some extra shut-eye this way.
Most of us know that our bodies follow natural circadian rhythms that follow the daylight and that when we do sleep it follows a cyclical pattern between stages 1-4 and REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. What a lot of us don’t consciously realize though are the consequences of disrupting our natural rhythms. That brain fog, grouchiness and mid-morning slump may make you think you aren’t a morning person but they may just be the result of being jerked out of a very deep sleep. (Or it could be because your favorite morning radio show will not stop plugging a certain diet pill every 10 minutes despite the fact that their only support for its effectiveness are random people who call in and cry a lot and claim to have lost 500 pounds on it until I want to find every last one of them and shake them. ANYHOW.)
And not only does interrupted sleep make you grouchy and unfocused, it also makes you hungrier to the tune of several hundred calories a day, says a new rigorous sleep study out of the University of Colorado. Participants gained an average of two pounds per week when they slept five hours a night. If that’s not enough for you, the scientists added that the extra food intake was mainly in the form of simple carbohydrates as people seem to crave sugar when they’re tired. (Dear Scientists, I could have told you that myself. See: Charlotte vs The Jelly Beans, case study of 1.) The ideal, unsurprisingly, is to let yourself fall asleep, sleep 7-8 hours, and then awaken naturally. And whatever you do, don’t hit the snooze button as you’re only prolonging your pain.
Of course there are times when I absolutely must be awake at a very certain time in which situation I do set my alarm clock (and it’s strategically placed across the room from my bed) but if I go to bed on time I usually wake up on my own 10-30 minutes before my alarm. These days I still get up early but it feels like it’s on my terms. Bonus: allowing yourself to wake naturally is supposed to help with lucid dreaming which I’ve never been able to do but sounds really freaky cool.
Do you wake up naturally or pound the alarm? (Now you’re singing Nicki Minaj, you’re welcome!) Do you have any tricks for waking up on time? Are you a morning lark or a night owl by nature? Any of you able to lucid dream (dream lucidly?)?
I generally wake up by 7:30 to 8:00. Right now, my cleaning lady rings the door bell at 7, so I’m accustomed to waking up at the dot of 7 (even on weekends when she comes a bit later).
In high school and university, I definitely needed the alarm. But I never pressed the snooze button. I had one of those loud, blaring, obnoxious alarms and there was no way anyone could go back to sleep after hearing that!
As an insomniac I live by my alarm. In fact I have 2 and they rarely work. For some reason my body clock thinks sleep time is from about 3am until 11am. Not very practical for work ! I am a snooze button pounder. I don’t even wake up to do it anymore, which is a worry. I use my iPad so I can wake to the music I choose and my iPhone.
I find if I hit the snooze button I am more likely to remember my dreams, but I’ve never done lucid dreaming
My boyfriend and I just moved in together last summer, and we have very different natural sleep cycles. I’m a morning person; he’s a night owl. And looking at our parents, this divide is only going to get worse as we get older. (My dad wakes up in the morning at the same time as his dad usually goes to bed!) When we first moved in together, I tried to stay up to hang out with him more at night, but then I kept sleeping until 8 or 9 every day (I’m self-employed, so I can do that), and as a morning person, that made me feel really crappy. I was constantly missing my favorite part of the day! Plus, I was less productive, because I’m pretty much useless after 7 or 8 PM no matter when I wake up. Now I’m going to bed a little earlier and getting up earlier, which feels better, but I still feel like I’m almost always tired. Back when I was single and living alone, I’d go to bed at around 10:00 almost every night. (Don’t judge!) I don’t want to do that now, because I’d be missing the Boy’s best part of the day!
Oh Melissa, you are singing my song. Currently both my beau and I are unemployed so I tried to stay up with him, but without him having to get up in morning, his “bedtime” has moved to the wee hours of the morning. I’m moving back to going to bed at 10, as no matter what time I pick, I’m still going to be bedding down alone, so may as well get my own body clock back in order.
Going to bed at 10 PM ROCKS! 🙂
This is a day I should be able to “sleep in” till 4:15am, so naturally I woke up at my required work-day time of 3:45am. Oh, well. Extra time to futz around the internet till I leave for my workout. Guess that answers your question about being a morning lark. I’m annoyingly perky and alert to those people straggling into the Y when we open at 5:30am.
I have always been a morning person. Even in college, I would go to bed around 9:00 pm and get up at 4:00 am to study. Now, I get up at 4:30 am every weekday to go to my boot camp, which has a class from 5:30 to 6:30 am. There are classes at 6:45am and 8:00 am, but I feel like I’m wasting my morning if I wait to go to those. Because the truth is, even though I set the alarm on my phone, I rarely sleep until it goes off. 95 percent of the time, I am up before the alarm goes off. Of course the flip side of this is I am in bed by 8:30 every night.
I always set my alarm for 6am, but nearly always wake up around 5:30am. But then I refuse to actually get out of bed until the actual alarm goes off, as a matter of principle, I suppose. I never ever hit the snooze button, though – I’m pretty ready to leap out of bed by the time the alarm sounds. I also have overactive REM sleep, which means I spend a lot of time in REM sleep, and I usually wake up after each REM cycle so I remember a lot of my dreams. This has lead to a lot of interesting things including lucid dreaming (pretty cool when I can swing it!) and the occasional dream that is all music with no visual componant – when this happens it is nearly always a symphony, which isn’t the type of music I normally listen to.
I am not clicking on that spider link; I don’t need anything else to keep me awake at night.
I am totally on board with the circadian rhythm thing, unfortunately the schedule my body wants does not always seem to mesh with my schedule. I was a snooze button person for a long time, but I have completely switched over to my dawn simulator clock. I still tend to partially wake, note that the light is coming on, drift back off, then wake again, but it is much less jarring than an alarm clock. I do sometimes still oversleep, but it’s getting easier now that it is getting light earlier in the morning (winters are the worst for me). But if I do have to get up early for a specific thing, I do still set an alarm.
I used to hit my snooze for close to an hour (not sure why I always thought I was going to get up earlier!). I’m still not a morning person but I tend to wake up early and I can’t stand to just lay in bed awake so I get up. Lots of days I have to get up really early (4:30ish) and I use an alarm for those days!!
I’ve never understood the point of the snooze button for just this reason. I never feel better when I hit the snooze button, even if I reset my alarm for an hour later I always feel like crap when I do get up. So a long time ago I just made the decision that if I set my alarm for a certain time, that’s the time I get up…end of story
I have just found your website by way of some intuitive eating googling. I’m just starting on that path, and honestly feel relieved and better already. I’ve been reading some of your older posts, and I really enjoy and appreciate your blog – I will definitely be back.
And that rocket alarm is brilliant and probably awful in the morning!
I am seriously the farthest thing from a morning person (or at least it feels like it on mornings like this!). (Before my daughter was born, I planned to his the snooze for 20-30 minutes. Now she usually gets up before my alarm.) However, on days I do actually need one, I’m experimenting with one of those aps that wakes you up within 30 minutes before your alarm times based on how lightly you are sleeping. It does actually seem to help, especially with that grogginess you discussed.
I naturally wake up between 6:30-7 no matter what day it is or how late or early I went to bed(typically I’m asleep around 11). The only time I’ll sleep in later than that is if I’ve taken a sleep aid like Benadryl(and even then, maybe not).
This gives me plenty of time to get ready before I leave for work, which I realize is a blessing. I know not everyone has this luxury.
For awhile I tried to train myself to get up earlier because I figured I could get my workout done in the early hours…but it just didn’t work for me, so I decided to stop fighting what my body wants to do naturally.
Now I do my workouts at lunch or after work which I like much better and I’m sleeping exactly how my body wants.
I have a 4-month-old alarm clock, and he definitely did not come equipped with a snooze button.
He-he.
WORD.
I believe every bit of it- I think it’s why it’s more difficult to lose baby weight. I’m tired and so I reach for sugar. Which leads to a crash so I reach for more. And then I would get to go to bed just for the “sleep” to be interrupted every 2hrs or so.
I find that once I’m able to consistently get 6hrs of uninterrupted sleep, I’m a much more pleasant/happy person. I’ll wake up my own after 7.5-8hrs of uninterrupted sleep. I try to go to bed with at least that much time before I need to be up, and the result is usually my waking about 15min before my alarm is going to go off and so I lay there drifting in an out until the alarm startles me all the way awake.
Now if someone could just make a quirky convincing video that would make my husband stop insisting upon falling asleep in front of the TV every night (because he always has and therefore changing is ludicrous).
I used to think I was a morning person. I would get up basically at 4:30 am every day for work.I would get 8 or so hours of sleep because I went to bed early. At the beginning I felt tired but then I thought I got used to it. I was chipper enough when I got up and never hit the snooze so I figured I was good.
Now though I work the exact opposite schedule. I never set an alarm because I don’t have to get up early (of course occasionally for a flight or race or something special, but not on the normal day). I still get about 8 hours of sleep but I feel SO MUCH BETTER.
I’m honestly not getting any more sleep…I’m just not being forced awake by an alarm. My body is waking up naturally and I legitimately feel so much better.
This is quote sums everything up “people seem to crave sugar when they’re tired” . This does make sense if you think about it.
I am a terrible sleeper who usually sleeps in 2 hour stretches. That gives me plenty of opportunities to get up on time or an hour early. I do set an alarm but that is just a reminder that it is time to get moving in case I have started reading or doodling around.
I love SMASH! I’m a theatre nerd, too…just started season 1.
I am a morning person for sure, but with my husband working the 6am CrossFit classes at our box, we generally wake up at 4:30 and it is tough to get to bed early enough to feel rested at 4:30… 🙁
I have 2 alarm clocks which I purposely put at a distance from me as far away as possible I can so I would have to physically get out of bed to put them on snooze. They are spaced 2 minutes apart so I kind of have no choice but to wake up!
I am the epitome of a nightowl; when I don’t have to get up early because work is slow, my body just naturally starts reverting itself rather quickly to an up all night, sleep all day ‘routine’. I have difficulty falling asleep at night as once 9-10pm comes along I become much more alert. I have never felt so rested and content as I did when I worked a steady midnight shift for a few months one year! When I know I have to get up I am almost always able to wake myself up before my alarm, but part of that is because I don’t sleep as soundly when I know I have an early start, but also that I do not move in my sleep so I rarely sleep longer than a couple of hours at a stetch because I wake up needing to roll over and change positions. I have never used a snooze button in my life and have never understood the point of them, mostly because for most of my life I’ve found it virtually impossible to fall asleep in less than an hour, so what’s an extra 8min going to give me other than having to listen to the annoying alarm go off again??
As for lucid dreaming, I have always been plagued by constant and terrible nightmares, and I had to learn the method of lucid dreaming to regain my sanity; truly I think one of the main reasons for my insomnia is that for so many years I was too afraid to go to sleep. Since I’ve learned lucid dreaming however my nightmares have become much less common rather than happening multiple times a night, which is great cause I’m left now with being able to have great dreams if I make the effort! 🙂
That alarm clock is cray cray! I actually have an alarm every morning, especially for those really early mornings I’m talking before 6am. However, on those mornings I usually wake up before anyway- maybe I’m worried I’ll sleep through? Bloody anxiety ha.
Sometimes I won’t set an alarm on days I get to sleep in but generally it’s always on. However, I usually get more then enough sleep 🙂
I had a few lovely years in which I not only didn’t use my own alarm, I slept through Hubby’s and woke up with plenty of time to get the kids ready & out the door. Alas, a few months ago Hubby slept through his, and we needed another as backup, so I’m back to setting mine.
My hubby works very late at night, and I’ve got kids to wake up, so I get an alarm and he gets…to sleep in as late as he wants. Blarggg. Some days I’m up before the buzzer, some days not, but I never, never, ever push snooze. It’s like a lifelong personal challenge. I’m in my mid-thirties and have never once hit snooze. It’s completely loco, but there you have me in a nutshell. Tee-hee.
On a side note, for some reason those spider trees made me want to see Great Expectations again.
On another side note, I thought your parenthetical phrase “(See Charlotte vs.The Jelly Beans…)” read “(See Charlotte vs. Jelly Bean…)”. I was trying to imagine why your Jelly Bean would cause you to crave simple carbohydrates like sugar. I mean besides waking you up in the middle of the night to puke in your bed, thus causing you to lose sleep…
And misunderstanding that is my cue to go set my alarm. G’nite,all.
I recently got a wake-up light alarm clock. It turns the light on gradually over 30 minutes to mimic the sun rising. I find it works quite well as when the final alarm (which can either be birds chirping, the radio or a nice chime sound) goes, I am never in a deep sleep. Whereas I used to hit the snooze button without really even waking up and then immediately fall back asleep (several times most days – which meant that I would suddenly wake up, realize what time it was and panic!), now I wake up and stay awake. Unfortunately it doesn’t actually help me get out of bed but at least I am awake!
PS. I LOVE Smash too 🙂
This is such a great article! Even if I didn’t care about the topic, it’s hilarious!
I hate my sleep schedule. Like you said, many things keep me up at night. I consider myself a night person. I do more at night and I like to do a whole lot of nothing in the morning for as long as possible. My husband has to set an alarm for work and I wake up with him. But I usually wake up about 10-15 minutes later, and I feel like hell when I do.
When I know the coffee pot has been prepped the night before, it makes getting out of bed a lot easier. I should do that more often…
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Somehow my body (or mind) just knows whether I have to get up or not. Is it a workday? I sleep until the alarm goes off and then some. Is it a day with no timeline and no worries about getting up? Well then, of course I wake up about 2 hours early and can’t drift off again. This is just maddening.
Great post! I have been using the snooze a lot lately so this post is very timely for me. I am going to strive to not hit the snooze tomorrow.
Great post! As someone who’s been battling sleep struggles for years (and actually has a sleep study scheduled for this very evening), this felt especially timely. Since getting myself on a regular exercise routine I’ve seen some improvement, but I’m still really battling with getting out of bed every morning. Only the fear of a $10 penalty for skipping my morning barre class will get me going — and on days without a class, it’s pretty much hopeless. Sigh.
(PS: If you love that Smash song, you should check out Andrew McMahon. He wrote that song and a few others for the show this season, and his music is very similar — he has his first solo EP coming out next week, and his previous project was Jack’s Mannequin.)
I don’t use the snooze button to get some extra sleep. I use it to get five more noise-free minutes in bed to try to remember my dreams, think about my plans for the day and stretch. Or musterbate. The second alarm is just to get me out of bed, and as a safety measure in case I dozed off again. I rarely hit snooze more than once. I think with the right self-discipline a snooze button is a good thing. Of course it would be even better if our society were organized in a way that didn’t force us to get up earlier than our bodies want to.