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[entremet]

I've been looking to optimize my sleep. Reading about it, I learned how alarm clocks are may be harmful.

http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/snoozers-are-in-fact-losers

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/scien...ck-may-be-hazardous-to-your-health-164620290/

So I've started weaning myself of them and I've felt much much better and well rested. Obviously, not everyone can do this. Those with small children, who can be their own alarm clocks, night shift workers, and those who lifestyles doesn't allow it for whatever reasons.

I'm also lucky that I work in tech, where office hours are more relaxed. I can get in from 9 to 9:30 without much hassle.

I still keep a wristwatch, which I check during the night. I tend to wake at 2am and then 5:30am. I then go back to sleep and wake up at 6am, which was the same time I woke up when using an alarm.

I do have to fall asleep earlier now, around an hour earlier than before. But the grogginess is gone.

Do you use an alarm clock? Do you wake up rested or groggy?

 

[Spring Drive]

My cat wakes me up

 

[luna_s]

Nope, never needed one in my life. If I need to be up at a certain time my body clock just does it - I may be a robot. It's also impossible for me to sleep in (I regularly get up before 6am)

 

[entremet]

Nope, never needed one in my life. If I need to be up at a certain time my body clock just does it - I may be a robot. It's also impossible for me to sleep in (I regularly get up before 6am)

It's actually pretty normal to wake up at certain times if you're consistently going to bed around the same time.

 

[Browny]

My phone wakes me up. 5am, 5.05am, 5.10am,5.15am, 5.16am, 5.36am. My body has adjusted accordingly, which is pretty good.

Until it comes to the weekend, where I naturally wake up at 5am, then try and get back to sleep, only to then be woken by the kids.

 

[Gravy Boat]

I use my phone but sometimes I sleep right through it. Recently because the sun is up earlier, I wake up and see the sun and hear the birds and panic thinking I've really slept in, then I check the clock and there's still about an hour before my alarm goes off. This happens every morning now.

 

[Nipo]

No. I just look at the clock and if it is after five am I get out of bed. If I wake on the earlier side of work out in the morning and if I don't get up until 7 I just get ready for work. That was something every one in my family did and I did t know it was weird until college.

 

[Watevaman]

When I was on my own, I had a beeping type that I kept on a stand across the room. Now I have a clock radio that we use to wake us up. It's harsh, but it works.

 

[Skellig Gra]

Yes I have to get up for work. Whatever harm they may be doing is better than being unemployed.

 

[Ginger Hail]

I usually need to wake up early, so I have an alarm set on my phone.

 

[EdwardTivrusky]

I use an alarm clock as a safety net in case my internal alarm fails to go off. Which is often. I sometimes wake up super-energetic and other times super-groggy it depends if my hyperactivity is playing up and i get less than 5 hours sleep the night before.

If a normal alarm is not working for you then use something like the "Sleep As a Droid" app which monitors your movements and sleep cycles and wakes you up closest to your alarm time but when you're in light sleep mode. It works wonders for me and i need to start using it again.

At the moment i'm having a nightmare as my body clock is skewed so i want to go to bed at 6AM, wake up late afternoon and work through the night. It'll even out soon enough though.

 

[Dreadnought]

I do but I never wake up to it because I'm an idiot and keep pressing the snooze.

 

[Newtype-001]

I usually wake up anywhere between 5-20minutes before my alarm goes off but i always set it just incase

 

[dity]

I use the alarm on my iPhone which uses the stargaze sound. When things are super important I set an alarm on both my phone and my Pebble.

 

[-Pyromaniac-]

I do as a failsafe. I'm not trusting some body clock when my livelihood/job is on the line. So ridiculous. But I usually wake up on my own 1-5 mins before the alarm clock would go off.

 

[archnemesis]

Yep. It gets the job done and it's always in the same place, unlike my phone. Most mornings I wake up before it goes off.

 

[Kozak]

I do an hour before my body wakes me up.

So I can snooze for an hour.

 

[Crayolan]

I use an alarm, but it's technically not an alarm clock, it's my DSi.

I've been using it for enough years that the alarm sound is so ingrained in my mind that I jump whenever I hear something that sounds similar.

 

[Zepp Twofist]

I usually wake five to ten minutes before my alarm, but nothing about it makes me feel better in any way. I still could sleep another two or four hours if I went back to sleep.

 

[PaulloDEC]

My body clock is pretty good at preventing me from oversleeping on workdays, but I use an alarm clock anyway to be safe.

Whether I wake up feeling good or like reheated garbage varies wildly. I've yet to find any kind of pattern to it.

 

[ThreePiMatt]

I set my alarm on my phone, but I usually wake up earlier on my own. My alarm probably goes off maybe once every 2-3 months. I tend to be super consistent on my sleep patterns.

 

[Dougald]

My dog comes upstairs every morning at 6:30am on the dot and wakes up my wife, no need for alarms

 

[iFirez]

I set 3 alarms every day, still don't get out of bed until 8:10 at the earliest... still manage to shower and get ready and be in work for 9... but considering my first alarm goes off at 7:20 I should probably just get up.

 

[EdwardTivrusky]

Hmmm, thinking about it and glancing through those articles i don't use snooze. I just set my alarm and get up when it goes off or before it goes off. Snooze just annoys me.

 

[MarkMclovin]

Silent alarm on my Fitbit is one of the best inventions ever.

 

[mrmickfran]

Yes, and I use the Sun's Song from Zelda as my alarm.

I'm such a nerd.

 

[entremet]

Silent alarm on my Fitbit is one of the best inventions ever.

I heard those are amazing.

 

[Sulik2]

I need two alarms because of how deeply I sleep. I sleep ten hours without an alarm which isn't life practical I have no idea how anyone can function without an alarm.

 

[entremet]

I need two alarms because of how deeply I sleep. I sleep ten hours without an alarm which isn't life practical I have no idea how anyone can function without an alarm.

Consider a sleep study, it's a test for sleep apnea, which prevents you from getting into deep sleep consistently.

 

[bjork]

I have one, but even taking tons of sleep medication, I'm still awake like 5 minutes before the clock about 90% of the time and I just stare at it from the bed until it goes off.

 

[Forerunner]

I set my alarm just in case, however the majority of the time I'm awake before it goes off.

 

[Hoo-doo]

Sleep cycle on my iPhone, have been using it for years both for sleep tracking and to wake me up.

It uses a customizable window of time to wake you up in. Within that window it tracks your movements and wakes you at the right moment during your sleep cycle. It makes for a very, very gentle awakening. I can't recommend it enough.

The sleep tracking is an added bonus, you get a % score every morning with a graph of your sleep patterns and detailed statistics about your sleeping habits.

 

[entremet]

Sleep cycle on my iPhone, have been using it for years both for sleep tracking and to wake me up.

It uses a customizable window of time to wake you up in. Within that window it tracks your movements and wakes you at the right moment during your sleep cycle. It makes for a very, very gentle awakening. I can't recommend it enough.

The sleep tracking is an added bonus, you get a % score every morning with a graph of your sleep patterns and detailed statistics about your sleeping habits.

I've heard great things about that as well.

 

[Qasiel]

Yeah, I use an alarm on my phone all the time as a shift worker. Feeling well-rested or groggy all depend son how much quality sleep I've had though.

 

[TaterTots]

I've never used an alarm. My body is use to my schedule.

 

[Bubble Metropolis]

I have my alarm set every day, but generally speaking I wake up naturally before it and am just stepping out of the shower when it starts going off. I've only relied on it to wake up a handful of times.

It's also useful for days when I wake up and just feel like hanging out in bed looking around on my tablet until the alarm goes off and lets me know I've got to start moving.

 

[rickyson1]

if I don't use one I randomly sleep for like 12+ hours sometimes


alarms also flat out don't work for me if I don't get at least 7-8 hours of sleep though

 

[Intheflorsh]

Yes. Sometimes I use two.

 

[Thorgal]

I use my phone as alarm clock.

Before that I used one of those loud beeping clocks which yes.almost gave me a heart attack every morning.

Now on my phone I have it set to play a tune very softly at at first and then gradually becomes louder.

It's so much better

 

[Aiustis]

I do use an alarm clock even though I don't need it.

 

[Browny]

My dog comes upstairs every morning at 6:30am on the dot and wakes up my wife, no need for alarms

What alarm does your dog use?

 

[Ensoul]

I wake up every morning without fail at 5:00 AM. I usually end up falling back asleep and waking up before my alarm (set for 6:20) goes off but I do set it anyway just in case.

 

[NoblesseOblige]

I set an alarm clock but 99% the time I wake up minutes before it so it rarely goes off. My phone and clock are just redundant backups for when I fail.

Edit: In college I used an implementation of polyphasic sleep and learned about REM cycles and after experimenting I learned I'm able to wake myself without grogginess after I've been sleeping in increments of about 90 minutes.

 

[Dougald]

What alarm does your dog use?

No idea, probably the same one that has him sat at my desk at 12pm on the dot every day to go for a walk. Dogs have a weird internal clock

How does your dog know when daylight saving time starts?

Oh, that's a nice week until he works that one out, goes from being woken up at ~6am to ~7am

 

[Leezard]

My dog comes upstairs every morning at 6:30am on the dot and wakes up my wife, no need for alarms

How does your dog know when daylight saving time starts?

 

[Rellik]

I'dl sleep all day until late afternoon if it wasn't for an alarm.

 

[AppleSeason]

I'm in a weird situation right now. I use my phone as both an alarm clock and a noise machine for sleeping, hooked to some smalls speakers so I can get some ok sound during the night.

What awakens me now is the silence, as the noise machine app stops a few seconds before the alarm goes on. In any case, I'm already awake 25 minutes before the alarm begins most of the time... Until they prescribed me an antidepressant that works as a sleep aid due to a side effect.

I'm going to try waking up with an activity tracker's vibration alarm, as I have started using earplugs instead of the noise machine. Too afraid of not hearing the alarm now that I am getting some serious deep sleep.

 

[Hjod]

I work different shifts all the time so I would never trust my internal clock. The only time I don't have an alarm on is when I'm off work, but even then I sleep to much and screw myself even more depending if I need to go up at 05 am to work the morning shift next.

 

[RSP]

Alarm at 7:00am. Wake up at 6:45 - 7:00am.

Feels good man!

But I go to bed early, like 10:30pm.

We have two kids btw, one baby.

 

[J-Roderton]

Yes I have to get up for work. Whatever harm they may be doing is better than being unemployed.

Yeah this. I can't just naturally make myself roll out of bed automatically at 5am. Got a great sleep schedule and all, but that shit ain't happening. Gotta have one.