11 ms·

Kill the Alarm Clock (2017)

110 points by aminozuur 6y ago

ianhorn 6y ago
I bought some smart bulbs for the bedroom and use those as a gradual alarm clock. It works wonders. I only have a blasting audio alarm clock when I need to catch a flight these days and it’s much much more pleasant to slowly wake from the “sun” than to be jolted awake suddenly. I also make sure to wake up early enough that I don’t have to start getting ready immediately. It has made mornings much more pleasant.
- timo555 6y ago
  I agree. I bought one of the Philips light alarm clocks[0] years ago me and my wife both swear by them. [0] https://www.amazon.com/Philips-Simulation-Headspace-Subscription-HF3520/dp/B0093162RM/ref=sr_1_5?crid=1HQ9G4YADQQGM&dchild=1&keywords=philips+light+alarm+clock&qid=1613549969&sprefix=phillips+light+alarm+clo%2Caps%2C271&sr=8-5 https://www.amazon.com/Philips-Simulation-Headspace-Subscrip...
- itsbedtime 6y ago
  I haven't had much success with a single standard Philips Hue light bulb. Maybe it's not bright enough, but I just sleep through the light as if it wasn't there.
  - asoneth 6y ago
    I found myself in a similar situation. I'm not suggesting this is what's happening to you, but in case it helps: my mistake was that the light and sound were increasing too quickly and my body was turning away from the light and shutting off the alarm before I had became conscious. The approach that worked for me was: - Increasing light from warm dim (~100 lumens) to bright white (1000+ lumens) over the course of ~30m. Even though you're not conscious and your eyelids are closed your eyes are still responding to the light and rebooting your circadian rhythm. - A few minutes after the light reaches the brightest setting, have a sound-based alarm. I have nature sounds that start quiet and get progressively louder over about ten minutes, but I usually wake up after less than a minute. - Getting into bed at a consistent time (+/-20m) seven and a half hours before the sound-based alarm. This is the hardest part since I rarely feel tired that early (yes, even when I've exercised) and it feels like a waste of time to lie in bed and stare at the ceiling. But I know from regular experience that when I wait until I'm tired to get in bed I have an unproductive morning.
  - ianhorn 6y ago
    I have a Hue light on my bedside table that goes from 0 to max over 30min, plus three bulbs in the ceiling socket that do the same, but are staggered. Like bedside can be 6:55-7:25, with overhead 1 from 7-7:30, overhead 2 from 7:05-7:35, etc. So you have the four lights brightening together over the course of 45min or whatever longer period you want. If it's gradual enough, you won't just bury your head, and if it's enough bulbs, it'll get bright enough to convince your body it's daytime. There's another trick I've been meaning to do. The Hue app's wake up routine turns it on to a low temperature light, but turning it a little higher temp/bluer once I'm up does help trick me into daytime. I'm meaning to make a cron job on my raspberry pi to make my own wakeup routine that is a little slower to avoid the need to stagger lights, and also increase temperature once it's bright. If you know linux, the pi is easy. Even without the fancy pi stuff, it's Good Enough. The Hue bulbs add up fast in cost, but it's worth it to me. I have the white ambiance ones.
  - averynicepen 6y ago
    It's not bright enough. - Sunlight - 10,000 to 120,000 lux - Light Therapy lamp (from 4 inches away) - 10,000 lux - 60W Philips Hue light bulb (800 lumens, 120deg beam angle, 4in away) - ~25,000 lux - 60W bulb (same specs, but 5ft away) - ~100lux Those numbers for the 60W light bulb are also optimistic, and will go down if you put it in a light fixture that doesn't redirect all of the light into a 120deg beam (like a regular standing lamp). So, either place it ~4"+ from your face, get multiple, or find a brighter 100W+ smart bulb. Additional anecdata - I've used the Philips sunrise alarm clock before (apparently 300lux), and it tends not to wake me up either. In other news, if anyone has a 100W+ white color temp changing smart bulb to recommend, I'm all ears.
    - ianhorn 6y ago
      Most ceiling fixtures have a couple bulbs. Get one with three, and a bedside table + lamp on each side of the bed. That’s at least five hue bulbs, which lights up a room very effectively. Not full sunlight, but enough. I think you aren’t including in your calcs that you’re presumably not in a black room. A light colored paint means the light that isn’t going straight to your eyes from the bulb still brightens the room significantly.
      - averynicepen 6y ago
        Good points. My main problem is the butt-clenching costs of FIVE Hue bulbs. I have contemplated using a splitter with 2 60W bulbs in a lamp next to my bed though. Although I checked again recently, and they now sell them with Bluetooth direct, eliminating the cost of the Hub (with limited functionality, but enough for sunrise alarm clock, I think). Still puts you solidly in the 3 fig cost territory...
- dsr_ 6y ago
  I absolutely agree, and in addition -- my teenager sleeps through all manner of audible alarms, including very loud ones, but now wakes easily from a light-based alarm clock. Cheap ones on Amazon are in the $20 range. Highly recommended. The Philips is more expensive and has just one color, but it seems to be built much more ruggedly.
radarsat1 6y ago
Working remotely has had a major positive impact for me in this respect. I can sleep until it's time for breakfast and then go right "to work" (the couch) and get there on time. Otherwise I would be setting the alarm for 6 AM so that I could make the train. I'm not a morning person, and this is painful enough for me that it becomes a serious consideration in my dedication to the job. Once in a while going into the office is okay, I even enjoy the time on the train to get some things done, but if things go back to normal and I have to go every day, I will seriously consider quitting for remote-only work. I am not trying to sound lazy: the positive impact of proper sleep on my mental health has been that important. Another factor is not having to leave and arrive in the dark. I get to experience sunlight now.
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  It's saved me about five hours a week of commuting in my current job, and ten or more at my previous one. I mean I don't actually do anything useful with the extra time, not even sleeping in since we still have to get up at seven, but still.
  - ryandrake 6y ago
    My commute is roughly 2.5 hours each way, so it's saved me 25 hours a week. In order to make it to my first (8:30AM) meeting of the day, I needed to wake up at 5:30AM, leave my home at 6:00AM, and white knuckle it down three interstate highways dealing with Bay Area Rush Hour traffic every day. Now, I can usually roll out of bed around 7:30AM and putz around the house a bit, eat a real breakfast, make sure my kid's school/day is squared away, maybe do some exercise, then unhurriedly sit down at the videoconference for my first meeting. Night and day lifestyle change.
- k__ 6y ago
  Working remotely alone didn't help me there, because I worked in a bunch of toxic companies. People would call me at 8am because something was broken etc. Things that helped more were: - Self-employment, because people have to ask for my time at least one day in advance. - Working international, because people in other timezones know you aren't awake. - Doing technical writing instead of software development, because it's less time critical and texts don't tend to break suddendly.
killalarmclock 6y ago
Mirror: https://web.archive.org/web/20210217073350/https://supermemo.guru/wiki/Kill_the_alarm_clock https://web.archive.org/web/20210217073350/https://supermemo... +1 to not using an alarm clock. I trust the years of evolution that the human body has tuned in figuring out how much to sleep.
adrianN 6y ago
For me, getting up at the same time every day means that I don't need an alarm at all. It also means that staying up late is not really possible.
gerbler 6y ago
I don't disagree with the premise, but there is an enormous luxury in having this option. If you work two low-paid jobs, you are time poor. My partner used to work three jobs at one point in her life, getting up at 5am, and finishing at 11pm. An alarm clock is needed due to sleep deprivation. Perhaps a different framing is "kill low-wage jobs"? I'm being facetious but alarm clocks are not inherently bad, low-wages and long hours are.
- aminozuur 6y ago
  I agree it's a luxury to live well without needing an alarm. But "killing" low wage jobs (how?), might put people in even worse situations.
  - adrianN 6y ago
    We could "kill" low wage jobs by making sure that 35h a week pay enough for yourself and a child or two.
    - aminozuur 6y ago
      You can start a company and pay your otherwise underpaid employees whatever you want. Be the change you want to see in the world.
      - gambiting 6y ago
        If you see companies using child labour, the solution obviously isn't to start your own company that doesn't exploit children just to prove a point. This stuff is regulated for a reason. You could argue that an employer should be able to offer any wage they want, but the argument against it is that people on poverty wages then have to use public assistance to survive. So essentially private companies use public money to have cheap labour which they wouldn't be able to access otherwise - that's obviously not ok either.
      - gerbler 6y ago
        Why do you assume I have not done this? (I have) My main point about this article is that it's not considering why we are roped into an alarm clock culture - it's not because we want to be woken up this way, it's because sometimes it's an economic necessity.
dagorenouf 6y ago
Alarm clocks have always felt painful to me : an unnecessary burden to start the day with. Luckily, I haven’t needed to used one since I finished school, as I’ve been either freelancing or running my own business. It does wonders to my energy levels. I basically never wake up tired, except on times where I go to bed way too late (after 1am). Sometimes I wake up at 8, sometimes 9 or 10... My wife still uses one, and many times, she just spends the full day tired because she didn’t sleep enough. Some people don’t seem affected by it though. Namely: those that manage to fall asleep in 5 minutes!
- artonge 6y ago
  I'm that kind of person, I fall asleep in 5 minutes. But early wake up and alarm clock are still very painfull to me.
  - randomsearch 6y ago
    Same. Someone point out I probably fell asleep so quickly because I am consistently sleep-deprived :-/
aminozuur 6y ago
Another problem is forcing yourself to hurry and rush right after waking up. The last thing I want right after waking up, is having adrenaline and cortisol take over my body. It feels about as bad as waking up too early by an alarm clock. My days are best when I: - Wake up naturally, without an alarm clock - Relax the first hour, eat and drink something, talk to family.
Semaphor 6y ago
Just an anecdote: My alarm clock has a 30 minute pre-alarm (starting very softly with nature noises, never reaching maxing out at 10%), then it starts calm music going from 10% to 80% over 10 minutes. It’s very relaxing to me to wake up like this. I used to sleep without an alarm clock (work from home and more or less free work starting times) and I usually felt far more tired during the day. In addition, I used to have trouble falling asleep, now I’m gone 5-10 minutes after I put the book down. I now usually sleep 6h a night, with once or twice 7.5h (I can tell if my body thinks I need more sleep that night). I’ve often read that 6h is not enough, but ever since I changed it like this, I’m simply far more energized and have no crash during the day.
- chupchap 6y ago
  That's awesome! Which alarm are you using?
  - theshrike79 6y ago
    I use Sleep Cycle on my phone. It tries to detect a shallower phase of sleep by analyzing sounds and vibrations and will start to slowly wake you up when appropriate. You can give it a timeframe when you want to wake up so you won't oversleep.
  - Semaphor 6y ago
    Gentle Alarm (Android). It doesn’t exist anymore though, the listing and the dev’s site both vanished, and it required manually patching the APK to make it work on Android 10. If someone has a good replacement, I elaborated on my requirements here [0], so far I have found nothing that can replace it :/ [0]: https://old.reddit.com/r/androidapps/comments/jvbsuz/looking_for_alarm_app_set_alarm_in_xhym_volume/ https://old.reddit.com/r/androidapps/comments/jvbsuz/looking...
02020202 6y ago
i have ditched alarm clock years ago. one day i realized i am rich because i can afford to do it. downside is that there is NO going back whatsoever.
FeepingCreature 6y ago
Let me take this opportunity to shill for SleepAsAndroid . It does a cool thing where it tries to detect shallow sleep (by bed movements and noises) and prioritizes waking you up in a shallow phase.
gjulianm 6y ago
Honestly, I don't really know why this article is focused on the alarm clock instead of in getting the necessary sleep. I need an alarm clock because if I don't have it, I enter a loop of "sleep until late - go to sleep late because I'm not tired - sleep until later", all without sleeping less than eight hours. In extended holidays without alarm clocks my waking hour would shift to three hours gradually, but consistently. (and before anyone says it, exercise just makes me sleep more so it doesn't solve the issue). So yeah, I need an alarm clock or something that wakes me up. I'd focus more on actually getting the necessary sleep, and also in not using caffeine regularly. In a new job where coffee was free, I started noticing that I was very drowsy on the evenings after lunch, and also happened in the weekend mornings. Turns out I was drinking a minimum of two coffees in the morning and my body had become used to having that caffeine, and without it I didn't work properly. I fully removed coffee from my diet and after a few weeks I returned to normal. If you are one of those people that "can't function without coffee", try removing it completely and see what happens.
- mhh__ 6y ago
  Even with an alarm I find that I almost immediately fall into a cycle of waking up at later than 7PM if I don't stop myself - I don't even go to bed that late sometimes, exercise or not. Its the only superpower I actually want - to be able to just turn myself off like lightswitch. My brain itself is fairly happy just sort of thinking about compilers or field theory and stuff like that when going to sleep but I physically cannot stop myself from putting my fingers in yet another pie when I'm awake so I end up in this hyperfocused state in bursts of an hour or two and then I won't be going to bed possibly ever. Sometimes I'm completely fine, sometimes the only way I'm getting up before 12AM is if I haven't slept a second. Even more annoying is that I have no vices other than tea - ADHD has been bandied around at me in the past, could be something like that.
  - afarrell 6y ago
    > ADHD It is worth getting yourself checked. I'd also recommend listening to the podcast of prof of Neurobiology Andrew Huberman. He does research on the relationship between the eyes and the brain and a lot of it touches on sleep.
dorkwood 6y ago
Rearranging my sleep schedule so that I fall asleep and wake up earlier means I lose the part of the day that I value the most -- the night. Should I really give that up so I can be more productive at my day job?
- TheShrug 6y ago
  I've been thinking a lot about this recently and it's led to a few personal realizations about my identity of being a "night-owl". I also greatly value night-time, and it took me a while to realize why. If I had to to try to summarize the core, it would be that I've been conditioned through school/society/work over decades that the morning is for fulfilling responsibilities to others. Only when school/work/chores are done, could I exercise any autonomy to do whatever I wanted (seeing friends/playing videogames/programming/night-life/etc..). Naturally, I ended up with at _least_ a moderate pavlovian response to the end of the workday. The one thing I absolutely couldn't shake was that by the end of my workday, my "fulfilling responsibilities" energy felt completely drained -- leaving me in a cycle of "wake up, immediately go to work, finish work exhausted, veg out on whatever interest my brain has until very late and go to sleep anywhere from 12AM-2AM" with little time to maintain _my_ life up to the standards I set for myself. I also interpreted threads like this one in the way you do: > Should I really give that up so I can be more productive at my day job? No, absolutely not unless that is a personal goal of yours! Maybe this isn't true for you or others, but I _do_ feel recharged in the morning. In a very general sense, there is somewhat of a clean slate mentally in the morning that my wife and I call the "good brain". Anxieties that I fell to sleep with are often resolved, pessimism might be reframed into cautious optimism, that tricky programming (or interpersonal!) problem has had some fog clear out of the way, etc... This led me to realize that my sleep schedule _was already_ optimized for my employer's benefit. Get out of bed, and take that fresh "good brain" to work and drain it. The way out of this for me was to slowly transition into earlier mornings to get a few hours of orientation in the morning where I can use my fresh energy to do something valuable _for me_ instead of the company I am working for. Nowadays I'm up at 4-5AM without an alarm clock which leaves me 2-4 hours to get ready and do the things I feel I need to do. The head-start feels really nice.
senko 6y ago
This doesn't seem feasible for people that either (a) have naturally longer sleep cycles and are thus prone to getting to bed later and then sleeping in (if not controlled, it adds up), or (b) have to be or do something by some time in the morning. I'm both and I can't rely on my natural sleeping patterns to wake me up and get the kids to school/care. That said, replacing a adrenaline-pumping/panic-inducing alarm clock with something that gradually increases sound or light sounds like best of both worlds. You can still rely on getting woken up when needed, and there's no need to shock yourself to it.
forgotmypw17 6y ago
I previously posted about my sleeping practice, so I'll just share the link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25246419 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25246419
billysielu 6y ago
The sun should dictate when we sleep. Sunrise is nature's alarm clock. Sadly we've messed that up with electric lighting inside and outside.
- AndrewDucker 6y ago
  Where I am, I'd be asleep 14 hours a day. I don't think that is sustainable. For a start I don't actually want to sleep that much. Nor do I think I could.
- darkwater 6y ago
  That works for latitudes near the equator were the day duration is more or less constant. For higher/lower latitudes daylight changes vastly during the year. How do you cope with that?
  - billysielu 6y ago
    All the other critters manage just fine. People can too.
    - darkwater 6y ago
      Animals do it doesn't sound like a good reason to me. There is plenty of things humans do and animals don't and vice versa and it's perfectly fine.
    - Turing_Machine 6y ago
      The other critters, in general, evolved where they are found. Humans live in all kinds of environments that are far removed from the East African Rift.
    - vraid 6y ago
      Lots of animals manage by either migrating to the tropics or hibernating through the winter. Neither is viable for a modern human society.
- Turing_Machine 6y ago
ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
I’ve used alarms almost my entire life. My sleep quality varies greatly, and the alarm has almost nothing to do with it. I always set it for 8 hours past my bedtime, and often wake up an hour or two before it rings (like this morning. I have been up since 4). If I need to get up early, I hit the sack early. It actually seems to have more to do with my mental activity. In the last couple of weeks, I’ve been engaged in a fairly Brobdingnagian server refactoring job. It’s been intense, and I have been waking up early, quite frequently. I suspect that I’ll improve, once I get back to working on the app.
k__ 6y ago
I didn't set an alarm for 3 years after struggling with getting a regular sleeping schedule my whole adult life. Best decision.
gverrilla 6y ago
If people could ditch the alarm clock, they certainly would. It's a matter of the social model of work. Until we change that, alarm clocks will remain, regardless of the number of blogs writing about this or wellbeing specialists wavering in.
BuildTheRobots 6y ago
I've always had massive issues getting to sleep (still do), and consequently waking up again in the morning. A couple of years ago I inherited my Grandparents clockwork pendulum clock which ticks quite loudly and also chimes the hours and a single chime on the half hour. I still have an alarm set on my phone just in case, but after a couple of months I found myself consistently aware that I've woken up naturally before my alarm has had a chance to go off. And as I'm not shocked awake by the alarm I'm feeling a lot better on a morning because of it. I can only assume that I'm subconsciously aware of the time passing and what time it is from the chiming, rather than a period of obliviousness and then a sudden shock. If I forget to wind it so it stops I tend to sleep in late and get woken by the alarm. I do find it slightly surprising as I used to be one of those people where a ticking wristwatch wrapped in a sock in the bottom of a draw on the other side of the house would keep me awake when I was younger. Having the wall clock audibly ticking across the house has actually become quite calming and soporific.
matwood 6y ago
I never need my alarm clock to wake up since I always wake up before it goes off, but I need it to go to sleep. If I don't have an alarm set I wake up all through the night and check the time. Knowing there is an alarm set, even though I never sleep until it goes off, removes anxiousness that otherwise prevents me from sleeping well.
fimdomeio 6y ago
I stoped needing an alarm clock at the same time I stopped putting the blinds down. Waking up with natural light works really well for me.
- vestrigi 6y ago
  How does that work with shifting sunrises? Do you just get up at 5 in the morning in the summer and 9 in the winter?
btbuildem 6y ago
I forget how long it's been (decade? probably less), but I've been using an alarm app called Sleep Cycle. The premise is simple but effective -- it senses whether you're in deep or shallow sleep, and rings the alarm within a 30 minute window before your set wake-up time. First few times I used it, it blew my mind. Effectively, it nudges you awake when you're almost awake anyway. It's so gentle. I'll never go back to a hard-set alarm clock.
ycyou 6y ago
I'm all for getting more sleep, but I think the author's barking up the wrong tree. Matthew Walker in "Why We Sleep" says we should all set a bedtime alarm, as well as a wake-up alarm. Long story short: Good quality sleep depends on consistent sleep and wake times. Sounds like a job for a clock to me. Here's a modern take on the alarm clock that might change their mind: http://byloftie.com/ http://byloftie.com/
notorandit 6y ago
I wake up naturally because I know I have an alarm clock. It took me years to fully recognize this. But, at least for me, it's a fact.
nicbou 6y ago
I don't need an alarm clock, but I still set one. Without an alarm clock, my sleep schedule tends to drift and conflict with other obligations. Some things can only be done when there is sunlight or when businesses are open.
eyelidlessness 6y ago
I’ve gone without an alarm clock for years, with the occasional exception of needing to wake at an unusual time or being sure to catch a flight. I do wake with my puppy which according to the article is not “natural” but I don’t think it’s anything like waking to an alarm. We both wake gradually, have a little snuggle, say good morning and then start our day. I also drink coffee through the morning and I object to the article putting that down. I don’t drink it for its stimulating effect, if anything it’s calming (then again I have ADHD and take amphetamines which are also calming). Anyway, I will say to anyone who has the option, do try going without the alarm and adjusting your sleep schedule accordingly. It’s absolutely a more refreshing way to wake up.
joemclarke 6y ago
Thanks to the kids switching to virtual school, I’ve only had to set an alarm a handful of times. It’s truly wonderful, not looking forward to having to wake up to an alarm everyday again next year.
ChrisArchitect 6y ago
so ollld...... possibly (2000) just been copied and moved around from domain to domain http://super-memory.com/articles/sleep2000.htm#Alarm%20clock http://super-memory.com/articles/sleep2000.htm#Alarm%20clock

110 points by aminozuur 6y ago

I bought some smart bulbs for the bedroom and use those as a gradual alarm clock. It works wonders. I only have a blasting audio alarm clock when I need to catch a flight these days and it’s much much more pleasant to slowly wake from the “sun” than to be jolted awake suddenly. I also make sure to wake up early enough that I don’t have to start getting ready immediately. It has made mornings much more pleasant.

timo555 6y ago
I agree. I bought one of the Philips light alarm clocks[0] years ago me and my wife both swear by them. [0] https://www.amazon.com/Philips-Simulation-Headspace-Subscription-HF3520/dp/B0093162RM/ref=sr_1_5?crid=1HQ9G4YADQQGM&dchild=1&keywords=philips+light+alarm+clock&qid=1613549969&sprefix=phillips+light+alarm+clo%2Caps%2C271&sr=8-5 https://www.amazon.com/Philips-Simulation-Headspace-Subscrip...
itsbedtime 6y ago
I haven't had much success with a single standard Philips Hue light bulb. Maybe it's not bright enough, but I just sleep through the light as if it wasn't there.
- asoneth 6y ago
  I found myself in a similar situation. I'm not suggesting this is what's happening to you, but in case it helps: my mistake was that the light and sound were increasing too quickly and my body was turning away from the light and shutting off the alarm before I had became conscious. The approach that worked for me was: - Increasing light from warm dim (~100 lumens) to bright white (1000+ lumens) over the course of ~30m. Even though you're not conscious and your eyelids are closed your eyes are still responding to the light and rebooting your circadian rhythm. - A few minutes after the light reaches the brightest setting, have a sound-based alarm. I have nature sounds that start quiet and get progressively louder over about ten minutes, but I usually wake up after less than a minute. - Getting into bed at a consistent time (+/-20m) seven and a half hours before the sound-based alarm. This is the hardest part since I rarely feel tired that early (yes, even when I've exercised) and it feels like a waste of time to lie in bed and stare at the ceiling. But I know from regular experience that when I wait until I'm tired to get in bed I have an unproductive morning.
- ianhorn 6y ago
  I have a Hue light on my bedside table that goes from 0 to max over 30min, plus three bulbs in the ceiling socket that do the same, but are staggered. Like bedside can be 6:55-7:25, with overhead 1 from 7-7:30, overhead 2 from 7:05-7:35, etc. So you have the four lights brightening together over the course of 45min or whatever longer period you want. If it's gradual enough, you won't just bury your head, and if it's enough bulbs, it'll get bright enough to convince your body it's daytime. There's another trick I've been meaning to do. The Hue app's wake up routine turns it on to a low temperature light, but turning it a little higher temp/bluer once I'm up does help trick me into daytime. I'm meaning to make a cron job on my raspberry pi to make my own wakeup routine that is a little slower to avoid the need to stagger lights, and also increase temperature once it's bright. If you know linux, the pi is easy. Even without the fancy pi stuff, it's Good Enough. The Hue bulbs add up fast in cost, but it's worth it to me. I have the white ambiance ones.
- averynicepen 6y ago
  It's not bright enough. - Sunlight - 10,000 to 120,000 lux - Light Therapy lamp (from 4 inches away) - 10,000 lux - 60W Philips Hue light bulb (800 lumens, 120deg beam angle, 4in away) - ~25,000 lux - 60W bulb (same specs, but 5ft away) - ~100lux Those numbers for the 60W light bulb are also optimistic, and will go down if you put it in a light fixture that doesn't redirect all of the light into a 120deg beam (like a regular standing lamp). So, either place it ~4"+ from your face, get multiple, or find a brighter 100W+ smart bulb. Additional anecdata - I've used the Philips sunrise alarm clock before (apparently 300lux), and it tends not to wake me up either. In other news, if anyone has a 100W+ white color temp changing smart bulb to recommend, I'm all ears.
  - ianhorn 6y ago
    Most ceiling fixtures have a couple bulbs. Get one with three, and a bedside table + lamp on each side of the bed. That’s at least five hue bulbs, which lights up a room very effectively. Not full sunlight, but enough. I think you aren’t including in your calcs that you’re presumably not in a black room. A light colored paint means the light that isn’t going straight to your eyes from the bulb still brightens the room significantly.
    - averynicepen 6y ago
      Good points. My main problem is the butt-clenching costs of FIVE Hue bulbs. I have contemplated using a splitter with 2 60W bulbs in a lamp next to my bed though. Although I checked again recently, and they now sell them with Bluetooth direct, eliminating the cost of the Hub (with limited functionality, but enough for sunrise alarm clock, I think). Still puts you solidly in the 3 fig cost territory...
dsr_ 6y ago
I absolutely agree, and in addition -- my teenager sleeps through all manner of audible alarms, including very loud ones, but now wakes easily from a light-based alarm clock. Cheap ones on Amazon are in the $20 range. Highly recommended. The Philips is more expensive and has just one color, but it seems to be built much more ruggedly.

radarsat1 6y ago

Working remotely has had a major positive impact for me in this respect. I can sleep until it's time for breakfast and then go right "to work" (the couch) and get there on time. Otherwise I would be setting the alarm for 6 AM so that I could make the train. I'm not a morning person, and this is painful enough for me that it becomes a serious consideration in my dedication to the job. Once in a while going into the office is okay, I even enjoy the time on the train to get some things done, but if things go back to normal and I have to go every day, I will seriously consider quitting for remote-only work. I am not trying to sound lazy: the positive impact of proper sleep on my mental health has been that important. Another factor is not having to leave and arrive in the dark. I get to experience sunlight now.

Cthulhu_ 6y ago
It's saved me about five hours a week of commuting in my current job, and ten or more at my previous one. I mean I don't actually do anything useful with the extra time, not even sleeping in since we still have to get up at seven, but still.
- ryandrake 6y ago
  My commute is roughly 2.5 hours each way, so it's saved me 25 hours a week. In order to make it to my first (8:30AM) meeting of the day, I needed to wake up at 5:30AM, leave my home at 6:00AM, and white knuckle it down three interstate highways dealing with Bay Area Rush Hour traffic every day. Now, I can usually roll out of bed around 7:30AM and putz around the house a bit, eat a real breakfast, make sure my kid's school/day is squared away, maybe do some exercise, then unhurriedly sit down at the videoconference for my first meeting. Night and day lifestyle change.
k__ 6y ago
Working remotely alone didn't help me there, because I worked in a bunch of toxic companies. People would call me at 8am because something was broken etc. Things that helped more were: - Self-employment, because people have to ask for my time at least one day in advance. - Working international, because people in other timezones know you aren't awake. - Doing technical writing instead of software development, because it's less time critical and texts don't tend to break suddendly.

killalarmclock 6y ago

Mirror: https://web.archive.org/web/20210217073350/https://supermemo.guru/wiki/Kill_the_alarm_clock https://web.archive.org/web/20210217073350/https://supermemo... +1 to not using an alarm clock. I trust the years of evolution that the human body has tuned in figuring out how much to sleep.

adrianN 6y ago

For me, getting up at the same time every day means that I don't need an alarm at all. It also means that staying up late is not really possible.

gerbler 6y ago

I don't disagree with the premise, but there is an enormous luxury in having this option. If you work two low-paid jobs, you are time poor. My partner used to work three jobs at one point in her life, getting up at 5am, and finishing at 11pm. An alarm clock is needed due to sleep deprivation. Perhaps a different framing is "kill low-wage jobs"? I'm being facetious but alarm clocks are not inherently bad, low-wages and long hours are.

aminozuur 6y ago
I agree it's a luxury to live well without needing an alarm. But "killing" low wage jobs (how?), might put people in even worse situations.
- adrianN 6y ago
  We could "kill" low wage jobs by making sure that 35h a week pay enough for yourself and a child or two.
  - aminozuur 6y ago
    You can start a company and pay your otherwise underpaid employees whatever you want. Be the change you want to see in the world.
    - gambiting 6y ago
      If you see companies using child labour, the solution obviously isn't to start your own company that doesn't exploit children just to prove a point. This stuff is regulated for a reason. You could argue that an employer should be able to offer any wage they want, but the argument against it is that people on poverty wages then have to use public assistance to survive. So essentially private companies use public money to have cheap labour which they wouldn't be able to access otherwise - that's obviously not ok either.
    - gerbler 6y ago
      Why do you assume I have not done this? (I have) My main point about this article is that it's not considering why we are roped into an alarm clock culture - it's not because we want to be woken up this way, it's because sometimes it's an economic necessity.

dagorenouf 6y ago

Alarm clocks have always felt painful to me : an unnecessary burden to start the day with. Luckily, I haven’t needed to used one since I finished school, as I’ve been either freelancing or running my own business. It does wonders to my energy levels. I basically never wake up tired, except on times where I go to bed way too late (after 1am). Sometimes I wake up at 8, sometimes 9 or 10... My wife still uses one, and many times, she just spends the full day tired because she didn’t sleep enough. Some people don’t seem affected by it though. Namely: those that manage to fall asleep in 5 minutes!

artonge 6y ago
I'm that kind of person, I fall asleep in 5 minutes. But early wake up and alarm clock are still very painfull to me.
- randomsearch 6y ago
  Same. Someone point out I probably fell asleep so quickly because I am consistently sleep-deprived :-/

aminozuur 6y ago

Another problem is forcing yourself to hurry and rush right after waking up. The last thing I want right after waking up, is having adrenaline and cortisol take over my body. It feels about as bad as waking up too early by an alarm clock. My days are best when I: - Wake up naturally, without an alarm clock - Relax the first hour, eat and drink something, talk to family.

Semaphor 6y ago

Just an anecdote: My alarm clock has a 30 minute pre-alarm (starting very softly with nature noises, never reaching maxing out at 10%), then it starts calm music going from 10% to 80% over 10 minutes. It’s very relaxing to me to wake up like this. I used to sleep without an alarm clock (work from home and more or less free work starting times) and I usually felt far more tired during the day. In addition, I used to have trouble falling asleep, now I’m gone 5-10 minutes after I put the book down. I now usually sleep 6h a night, with once or twice 7.5h (I can tell if my body thinks I need more sleep that night). I’ve often read that 6h is not enough, but ever since I changed it like this, I’m simply far more energized and have no crash during the day.

chupchap 6y ago
That's awesome! Which alarm are you using?
- theshrike79 6y ago
  I use Sleep Cycle on my phone. It tries to detect a shallower phase of sleep by analyzing sounds and vibrations and will start to slowly wake you up when appropriate. You can give it a timeframe when you want to wake up so you won't oversleep.
- Semaphor 6y ago
  Gentle Alarm (Android). It doesn’t exist anymore though, the listing and the dev’s site both vanished, and it required manually patching the APK to make it work on Android 10. If someone has a good replacement, I elaborated on my requirements here [0], so far I have found nothing that can replace it :/ [0]: https://old.reddit.com/r/androidapps/comments/jvbsuz/looking_for_alarm_app_set_alarm_in_xhym_volume/ https://old.reddit.com/r/androidapps/comments/jvbsuz/looking...

02020202 6y ago

i have ditched alarm clock years ago. one day i realized i am rich because i can afford to do it. downside is that there is NO going back whatsoever.

FeepingCreature 6y ago

Let me take this opportunity to shill for SleepAsAndroid . It does a cool thing where it tries to detect shallow sleep (by bed movements and noises) and prioritizes waking you up in a shallow phase.

gjulianm 6y ago

Honestly, I don't really know why this article is focused on the alarm clock instead of in getting the necessary sleep. I need an alarm clock because if I don't have it, I enter a loop of "sleep until late - go to sleep late because I'm not tired - sleep until later", all without sleeping less than eight hours. In extended holidays without alarm clocks my waking hour would shift to three hours gradually, but consistently. (and before anyone says it, exercise just makes me sleep more so it doesn't solve the issue). So yeah, I need an alarm clock or something that wakes me up. I'd focus more on actually getting the necessary sleep, and also in not using caffeine regularly. In a new job where coffee was free, I started noticing that I was very drowsy on the evenings after lunch, and also happened in the weekend mornings. Turns out I was drinking a minimum of two coffees in the morning and my body had become used to having that caffeine, and without it I didn't work properly. I fully removed coffee from my diet and after a few weeks I returned to normal. If you are one of those people that "can't function without coffee", try removing it completely and see what happens.

mhh__ 6y ago
Even with an alarm I find that I almost immediately fall into a cycle of waking up at later than 7PM if I don't stop myself - I don't even go to bed that late sometimes, exercise or not. Its the only superpower I actually want - to be able to just turn myself off like lightswitch. My brain itself is fairly happy just sort of thinking about compilers or field theory and stuff like that when going to sleep but I physically cannot stop myself from putting my fingers in yet another pie when I'm awake so I end up in this hyperfocused state in bursts of an hour or two and then I won't be going to bed possibly ever. Sometimes I'm completely fine, sometimes the only way I'm getting up before 12AM is if I haven't slept a second. Even more annoying is that I have no vices other than tea - ADHD has been bandied around at me in the past, could be something like that.
- afarrell 6y ago
  > ADHD It is worth getting yourself checked. I'd also recommend listening to the podcast of prof of Neurobiology Andrew Huberman. He does research on the relationship between the eyes and the brain and a lot of it touches on sleep.

dorkwood 6y ago

Rearranging my sleep schedule so that I fall asleep and wake up earlier means I lose the part of the day that I value the most -- the night. Should I really give that up so I can be more productive at my day job?

TheShrug 6y ago
I've been thinking a lot about this recently and it's led to a few personal realizations about my identity of being a "night-owl". I also greatly value night-time, and it took me a while to realize why. If I had to to try to summarize the core, it would be that I've been conditioned through school/society/work over decades that the morning is for fulfilling responsibilities to others. Only when school/work/chores are done, could I exercise any autonomy to do whatever I wanted (seeing friends/playing videogames/programming/night-life/etc..). Naturally, I ended up with at _least_ a moderate pavlovian response to the end of the workday. The one thing I absolutely couldn't shake was that by the end of my workday, my "fulfilling responsibilities" energy felt completely drained -- leaving me in a cycle of "wake up, immediately go to work, finish work exhausted, veg out on whatever interest my brain has until very late and go to sleep anywhere from 12AM-2AM" with little time to maintain _my_ life up to the standards I set for myself. I also interpreted threads like this one in the way you do: > Should I really give that up so I can be more productive at my day job? No, absolutely not unless that is a personal goal of yours! Maybe this isn't true for you or others, but I _do_ feel recharged in the morning. In a very general sense, there is somewhat of a clean slate mentally in the morning that my wife and I call the "good brain". Anxieties that I fell to sleep with are often resolved, pessimism might be reframed into cautious optimism, that tricky programming (or interpersonal!) problem has had some fog clear out of the way, etc... This led me to realize that my sleep schedule _was already_ optimized for my employer's benefit. Get out of bed, and take that fresh "good brain" to work and drain it. The way out of this for me was to slowly transition into earlier mornings to get a few hours of orientation in the morning where I can use my fresh energy to do something valuable _for me_ instead of the company I am working for. Nowadays I'm up at 4-5AM without an alarm clock which leaves me 2-4 hours to get ready and do the things I feel I need to do. The head-start feels really nice.

senko 6y ago

This doesn't seem feasible for people that either (a) have naturally longer sleep cycles and are thus prone to getting to bed later and then sleeping in (if not controlled, it adds up), or (b) have to be or do something by some time in the morning. I'm both and I can't rely on my natural sleeping patterns to wake me up and get the kids to school/care. That said, replacing a adrenaline-pumping/panic-inducing alarm clock with something that gradually increases sound or light sounds like best of both worlds. You can still rely on getting woken up when needed, and there's no need to shock yourself to it.

forgotmypw17 6y ago

I previously posted about my sleeping practice, so I'll just share the link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25246419 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25246419

billysielu 6y ago

The sun should dictate when we sleep. Sunrise is nature's alarm clock. Sadly we've messed that up with electric lighting inside and outside.

AndrewDucker 6y ago
Where I am, I'd be asleep 14 hours a day. I don't think that is sustainable. For a start I don't actually want to sleep that much. Nor do I think I could.
darkwater 6y ago
That works for latitudes near the equator were the day duration is more or less constant. For higher/lower latitudes daylight changes vastly during the year. How do you cope with that?
- billysielu 6y ago
  All the other critters manage just fine. People can too.
  - darkwater 6y ago
    Animals do it doesn't sound like a good reason to me. There is plenty of things humans do and animals don't and vice versa and it's perfectly fine.
  - Turing_Machine 6y ago
    The other critters, in general, evolved where they are found. Humans live in all kinds of environments that are far removed from the East African Rift.
  - vraid 6y ago
    Lots of animals manage by either migrating to the tropics or hibernating through the winter. Neither is viable for a modern human society.
Turing_Machine 6y ago

ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago

I’ve used alarms almost my entire life. My sleep quality varies greatly, and the alarm has almost nothing to do with it. I always set it for 8 hours past my bedtime, and often wake up an hour or two before it rings (like this morning. I have been up since 4). If I need to get up early, I hit the sack early. It actually seems to have more to do with my mental activity. In the last couple of weeks, I’ve been engaged in a fairly Brobdingnagian server refactoring job. It’s been intense, and I have been waking up early, quite frequently. I suspect that I’ll improve, once I get back to working on the app.

k__ 6y ago

I didn't set an alarm for 3 years after struggling with getting a regular sleeping schedule my whole adult life. Best decision.

gverrilla 6y ago

If people could ditch the alarm clock, they certainly would. It's a matter of the social model of work. Until we change that, alarm clocks will remain, regardless of the number of blogs writing about this or wellbeing specialists wavering in.

BuildTheRobots 6y ago

I've always had massive issues getting to sleep (still do), and consequently waking up again in the morning. A couple of years ago I inherited my Grandparents clockwork pendulum clock which ticks quite loudly and also chimes the hours and a single chime on the half hour. I still have an alarm set on my phone just in case, but after a couple of months I found myself consistently aware that I've woken up naturally before my alarm has had a chance to go off. And as I'm not shocked awake by the alarm I'm feeling a lot better on a morning because of it. I can only assume that I'm subconsciously aware of the time passing and what time it is from the chiming, rather than a period of obliviousness and then a sudden shock. If I forget to wind it so it stops I tend to sleep in late and get woken by the alarm. I do find it slightly surprising as I used to be one of those people where a ticking wristwatch wrapped in a sock in the bottom of a draw on the other side of the house would keep me awake when I was younger. Having the wall clock audibly ticking across the house has actually become quite calming and soporific.

matwood 6y ago

I never need my alarm clock to wake up since I always wake up before it goes off, but I need it to go to sleep. If I don't have an alarm set I wake up all through the night and check the time. Knowing there is an alarm set, even though I never sleep until it goes off, removes anxiousness that otherwise prevents me from sleeping well.

fimdomeio 6y ago

I stoped needing an alarm clock at the same time I stopped putting the blinds down. Waking up with natural light works really well for me.

vestrigi 6y ago
How does that work with shifting sunrises? Do you just get up at 5 in the morning in the summer and 9 in the winter?

btbuildem 6y ago

I forget how long it's been (decade? probably less), but I've been using an alarm app called Sleep Cycle. The premise is simple but effective -- it senses whether you're in deep or shallow sleep, and rings the alarm within a 30 minute window before your set wake-up time. First few times I used it, it blew my mind. Effectively, it nudges you awake when you're almost awake anyway. It's so gentle. I'll never go back to a hard-set alarm clock.

ycyou 6y ago

I'm all for getting more sleep, but I think the author's barking up the wrong tree. Matthew Walker in "Why We Sleep" says we should all set a bedtime alarm, as well as a wake-up alarm. Long story short: Good quality sleep depends on consistent sleep and wake times. Sounds like a job for a clock to me. Here's a modern take on the alarm clock that might change their mind: http://byloftie.com/ http://byloftie.com/

notorandit 6y ago

I wake up naturally because I know I have an alarm clock. It took me years to fully recognize this. But, at least for me, it's a fact.

nicbou 6y ago

I don't need an alarm clock, but I still set one. Without an alarm clock, my sleep schedule tends to drift and conflict with other obligations. Some things can only be done when there is sunlight or when businesses are open.

eyelidlessness 6y ago

I’ve gone without an alarm clock for years, with the occasional exception of needing to wake at an unusual time or being sure to catch a flight. I do wake with my puppy which according to the article is not “natural” but I don’t think it’s anything like waking to an alarm. We both wake gradually, have a little snuggle, say good morning and then start our day. I also drink coffee through the morning and I object to the article putting that down. I don’t drink it for its stimulating effect, if anything it’s calming (then again I have ADHD and take amphetamines which are also calming). Anyway, I will say to anyone who has the option, do try going without the alarm and adjusting your sleep schedule accordingly. It’s absolutely a more refreshing way to wake up.

joemclarke 6y ago

Thanks to the kids switching to virtual school, I’ve only had to set an alarm a handful of times. It’s truly wonderful, not looking forward to having to wake up to an alarm everyday again next year.

ChrisArchitect 6y ago

so ollld...... possibly (2000) just been copied and moved around from domain to domain http://super-memory.com/articles/sleep2000.htm#Alarm%20clock http://super-memory.com/articles/sleep2000.htm#Alarm%20clock