Alarm Clocks for Heavy Sleepers?

jonadab asks: "I'm a heavy sleeper. I wake up gradually. Sometimes it takes quite a bit to get me cognizant in the morning. I've been known to sleep through alarms entirely, or shut them off before fully awake and later not remember doing so. It's not that I don't get enough sleep (I go to bed at night when I get sleepy), but my body tends to want a day longer than 24 hours, and I have to use an alarm to keep myself on a constant schedule with the rest of the world; otherwise, I get up a little later each day and pretty soon I'm sleeping till noon. So I'm always in search of a better alarm clock. Maybe some of you have experience with alarm clocks that you particularly like"

"Here are some features I'd particularly like to have (though anything that's good at waking a heavy sleeper is worth mentioning, even if it doesn't have all these features):

• Gets progressively louder until snoozed. Starts louder with each successive snooze.
• Max volume slightly painful, but not physiologically dangerous. An air compressor and train whistle is probably overkill.
• Easy to snooze, but hard to accidentally turn off completely. Bonus points if turning it off means being cognizant enough to operate a screwdriver or tool of some kind.
• Snooze time gets geometrically shorter each iteration (e.g., half as long as the previous) so that there's a maximum total snooze time that can be approached assymptotically.
• Has battery backup so that it will operate during a power outage, at least to keep time. (I _could_ just stick it on the UPS, but do I really want to spend a UPS outlet for an alarm clock?) This is a feature my current clock has (takes a nine-volt battery), but even better would be a rechargeable that will even operate the alarm during a power outage.
• Can be set to always go off at the same time every day, so I don't have to remember to set it at night unless I need to get up at a different time than usual.
• Has some kind of cool feature with geek appeal -- but not binary time display; I need to be able to read the time when mostly asleep.

Cost does matter, but I'm willing to pay somewhat more than the going rate for an ordinary alarm clock, because this is obviously a bit of a specialty item. But I don't want to pay a totally outrageous sum; at worst I could build one out of commodity computer parts and a nice set of speakers for probably three hundred bucks or so, so please, nothing more expensive than that. Bonus points if it's more like $50-75."

If you were going to go the route of building a cheap computer to do this, what software would you use to do it?

Learn To Sleep!

[duffbeer703]

Instead of buying obnoxious alarm clocks and waking up your neighbors, why don't you just try sleeping like a normal person?

Your brain produces various chemicals that signal your body when it is time to sleep. Sleep runs in cycles that run between 3-4 hours... the more regular the cycle, the better everything works.

Pick a 30 minute window that will be your bedtime and stick to it. If things in your life make that impossible, change them. A healthy adult require something between 6-8 hours of sleep. The more regular your sleep pattern, the less sleep you need. Eventually you'll automatically wake up whenever, and will actually feel good in the morning, instead of being the walking zombie that you are now.

Sleep patterns are incredibly important to your body. In studies of shift workers, people who rotate shifts "backwards" (ie working 12AM to 8AM one week, 4PM to 12AM the next) have accident rates 40% higher than people who rotate "forwards" (ie working 4PM to 12AM one week, 12AM to 8AM the next). Other studies linked increased risks of heart attacks & high blood pressure and car accidents to irregular sleep patterns.

Don't let the excuse "I'm too busy" or "I work better at night" stop you from getting a good night's rest.

Fake It

[Nutcase]

I had this problem sometimes. The first time I overslept for work, I felt like a tool and worked out a solution.

Set an alarm clock next to your bed. Any ordinary one will do. Use the buzzer setting, and set it for 15 minutes earlier than you need.

Set ANOTHER clock on the far side of your room, with the volume max and the buzzer setting, and set it for 5 minutes earlier than you need.

I sleep through the first, but it makes my brain flinch. The second wakes me up from my already semi-woken state. YMMV.

Also, from a sleep schedule point of view - stop going to bed when you get sleepy. Figure out your morning wake up time, and go to bed 9-10 hours earlier than that at the latest... whether you feel sleepy or not. Eventually you will get used to the schedule, and things will get better. It's about practice. ;)

Re:How to make an alarm clock work

[Zardoz44]

I completely agree with this. When it's easy to shut off, I find myself entering into a snooze-cycle where I seem to be able to smack the snooze button without waking up.

If you have to get out of bed and cross the room to shut if off, you probably won't go back to sleep. If you do, you have problems an alarm clock won't fix.

The only problem is that some people like it close to the bed so that they won't be that far away from the sound. The farther you are away, the louder it has to be, and may annoy someone else.

Maybe someone could create an alarm clock where the controls are in a box on the other side of the room, but the alarm is in a receiver next to your bed. This puts the alarm next to your head, but forces you to get up to shut it off.

Snooze is the tool of the devil

[wowbagger]

If you are having problems getting up, then DON'T USE SNOOZE!

You are just training yourself in a bad habit - "Don't need get up. Go sleep more. Noise not important".

Instead, put whatever you use to awaken yourself out of reach of the bed - preferably on the other side of the room. MAKE yourself get up and walk over to the alarm to turn it off. Then, KEEP MOVING - go fix your coffee or whatever you do when you get up.

Speaking of coffee - should you be an imbiber of morning caffinated hot beverages, invest in a timer controlled coffee pot. Set it to start about 10 minutes before your alarm goes off. Put it in a place where the aroma of brewing coffee (or whatever) will reach you.

Most people are training themselves to be insomniacs - watching TV or reading in bed, staying up to catch that "gotta see it" show instead of sleeping when they are tired, hitting snooze in the mornings. Beds should be used for two things only - sleep and sex. Anything else should be done elsewhere.

I trained myself to go to sleep within minutes of hitting the bed in college, when I had Calc II at 7:30 and my next class was at 10:30 - go to calc, go back to room, sleep some more, then go to chemistry. I refined this when I was working 80 hours a week at my first job - go home over lunch, catch a 30 minute powernap, then back to work. As I understand it, this is also what the various military services train you to do - "Don't stand if you can sit. Don't sit if you can lie down. If you can lie down, go to sleep."

Re:Easy....

[DuckDuckBOOM!]

Get a dog.... a BIG dog

Or cats; any size; quantity (Q) > 1. The probability of your waking at or before the cutoff time T varies directly with the value of Q. . .unfortunately, so does your chance of waking at any random hour of the night.
Best results obtained when T ~ cat's feeding time.

Turn on the light

[aoteoroa]

Just as a dark room helps us sleep. . . light helps us wake up. How about getting a bedroom light that plugs into the wall and use a simple timer from RadioShack as a supplement to your alarm.

Re:Turn on the light

[ambient]

I used to do that... But your body adapts, and soon enough, you don't notice the light anymore. (or you just pull the covers over your head).

I *have* moved the alarm to the other side of the bedroom, so I would have to walk accross the room to turn it off. I still ended up going back to bed. There have been times when I have woken up to the alarm clock, and had no idea what it was, or how do make it stop. Luckily the alarm clock survived. :)

It takes me ~30 minutes in the morning to completely wake up (after I get up). After hitting the snooze button for about an hour or so, I get up and read the paper until I feel fully awake.

The best I have found is to go to bed at a fixed time and STICK TO IT! You will eventually start waking up right on time, even without usuing an alarm clock.

Try Rotating Alarms

[TomHenderson]

I have the same problem. I'm going to go in for a sleep study, but until then, I rotate alarms. For me, it seems that after a while, I will get used to an alarm's sound and learn to ignore it. After selecting a new alarm sound (alarm clock beep, radio, palm pilot alarm, cel phone alarm) every 2-3 weeks, I wake up faster. Also, having something that lights up or vibrates helps, too.

Heavy sleeping is fixable

[hal9000]

I tend to be a heavy sleeper and lazy waker. When I was younger, the alarm volume used to get progressively louder (bumping it up a notch after sleeping through something important) until I had my stereo probably close to all the way up. Still overslept. The key, for me, was mind practice.

When I go to sleep, I no longer just lie down and thoughtlessly drift into sleep. When I do that, I tend to wake up in the same state of mind: thoughtlessly drifting. When I lie down to sleep nowadays, I make my plan for the next morning. Even if it's the routine plan, I force myself to think about what time I need to be up and out of bed by. Bring it all to the front of my mind. What I've found is that, when I wake up after having done this, I feel prepared for the day and spring out of bed -- without residual sluggishness.

And a cool side effect? My alarm clock radio is barely audible. It's as if preparing myself to hear that sound, the night before, makes actually picking it up from the depths of sleep really easy.

Only time I oversleep anymore is when my liver needs a little extra rest.

YMMV of course.

Re:me too

[Mattcelt]

Right now I have 4 alarms - two on the T68, and two on my alarm clock, and the alarm clock is across the room. I still 'sleep' through them.

I find that waking to music is the best option for me. If I put in a song I really like, I can wake much better than otherwise.

Here are some additional items I'd like in an alarm:
-2 independent (selectable CD/tone/radio) alarms
-any track CD wake for both alarms
-multiple tones for alarm wake
-CD to tone failover
-weekend sleeper
-self-recharging backup battery
-anti-skip CD playing

The closest thing I've found is the Philips AJ393517 [amazon.com], but it doesn't play CDs reliably (and the tone failover isn't reliable either!) and when you turn the volume up, the vibrations make the CD player skip horribly and often.

Early alarm, or dual?

[phorm]

I've found that sometimes setting my alarm up a few hours early helps. I get through the stumble phase, get some clothes rather, things set by the door, flop back to bed under a light pillow until alarm #2. For some reason this seems to satisfy my desire to "go back to bed" so that I feel better on the second waking. Also nice if you aren't sleeping well as you can adjust you comfort levels for the addition 2-3h sleep.