One For You Heavy Sleepers...

i do struggle to get up in the mornings, but i can imagine these fancy alarms will only work once...as i subsequently smash them for disturbing my slumber
 
Nazca said:
I'm a heavy sleeper. Hate getting up. But even these clocks won't work. Because all I'll do is get up turn it off and go back to bed to wake up at 3pm and miss a whole days worth of lectures.
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Then use my method:

Alarm 1: A radio alarm on maximum volume. Mains powered and battery-backed, and with the alarm set to radio. Most stations will do - you want either a lot of talking or a lot of intrusive music with words. A loud voice is what has the best effect the primitive bits of your brain, which can wake you up very hard. Your monkey-brain hears a potential threat and slams you awake to deal with it.

Positioning: This alarm is on the opposite side of the room from where you sleep, making it necessary to get out of bed to turn it off. That gives you a few seconds of being out of bed and on your feet, on top of the DANGER DANGER monkey-response. That should be enough time to become conscious (as opposed to running on instinct).

Timing: First alarm.

Alarm 2: BT alarm service. A ringing phone is another good way to wake up, unless you habitually leave the answerphone on for screening.

Positioning: Similar to 1, but in a different location.

Timing 1 minute after alarm 1.

This is the main failsafe in the event of alarm 1 failing to go off (mis-set, power cut and dead battery, whatever) or failing to wake you enough, so you're going back to sleep.

Alarm 3: Any fairly loud alarm clock.

Positioning: Outside your bedroom, on the floor next to the door but on the other side from you.

Timing: 2 minutes after alarm 1, 1 minute after alarm 2.

This requires you to get up, open the door, bend down and turn it off. After being woken a minute earlier by the phone and jerked awake a minute before that by the shouting radio.

Immediately before going to bed, I also look at the first alarm time and tell myself that I will wake up by then and how long it is from the current time.

You might find it useful to try to work out how long your sleep cycles are and time your sleep for a whole number of cycles. If you are woken during a sleep cycle, you'll probably feel like a zombie for a while even if you do get up straight away. Say your sleep cycles are 90 minutes long - if you sleep for 6 hours (4 cycles), you will wake up feeling a lot more rested than if you slept for 7 hours (2/3rds through the 5th cycle). Hence my telling myself that I will wake up by the alarm time, not at the alarm time - I'm trying to program my brain to wake me up at the end of a sleep cycle as close as possible to the target time but before it. It's all very hit and miss unless you have spare medical monitoring equipment in your bedroom, as that's the only way to measure your sleep cycles while you're asleep.

Nowadays, I only need the alarms when I am exhausted.
 
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they should make an alarm clock where you have to do a simple maths problem before it'll turn off, instead of just blindly hammering the sleep button with your fist, until there are no more 'sleeps' left

or a clock that you have to pick up, walk in a 2m circle before the alarm goes off
 
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