5 ms·
Kind of off topic but I did some thing years ago that worked great for sleep. I had a tropical fish tank, kinda large few metres long. I can sleep quite soundl
by rjd 15y ago
Kind of off topic but I did some thing years ago that worked great for sleep.
I had a tropical fish tank, kinda large few metres long. I can sleep quite soundly to the sound of running water, intact I find it relaxing. I have bad tinitus from being in rocks bands and concerts when I was younger, so they water masks the ringing.
Anyway I decided to black out my room similar to the article, took everything out, replaced my curtains so no light got in my room at all. I then created an artificial sunrise.
At 6:30am every morning the sun would rise in my room, over the course of 30 minutes it would get brighter and brighter. The sun of cause was the UV lights on the fish tank, but instead of just switching on I set them to slowly increase in brightness over 30 minutes.
After 30 minutes a room lamp came on, and then music started playing on my radio, 15 minutes later the dreaded alarm went off.
Before I set this up I couldn't wake unto even to my alarm, I would literally sleep through it. After I set up the artificial sun rise I started waking before the radio started playing.
- simondlr 15y agoHow did you automate all of this? Would love to know!
- rjd 15y agoYou can buy commercial set ups that do this, but they don't have daylight bulbs, which is how I got the idea to do it to my tank. I used all off the shelf products. The first step was an electric wall socket timer. You can pick these up at any hardware store. I had one going off at 6:30am for the fish tank lights (one daylight/UV & one standard neon), second one at 7am for a desk lamp to complete the full bright light effect. On the fish tank I lights I had a second device I'm pretty sure I brought off a marine tank supplier. All it did was slowly ramp up power flow. I just put it between the lights and the wall timer and it just slowly lifted the current flow to the lights. Last bit was a dual alarm clock, first alarm at 7am played music, second at 7:15 set the alarm. Oh and the curtains, the main bit to hide the actual outside light pollution which could undermine the whole trick.
- Bostwick 15y agoI bought a sunrise alarm clock [1] to do something similar to this. It's not nearly as fancy as rjd's setup, but it works really well for me. I put blackout curtains on the windows in my room. I usually wake up at 7, so I'll set the clock to reach full brightness at 6:50, and then the alarm on my cell phone goes off at 7. It works really well, especially in winter. [1] http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00196LFGW/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B000T3Y2RA&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=11T1K443CJSQH4HE4SZ7 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00196LFGW/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp...
- chadgeidel 15y agoDoes that clock get pretty "bright"? Does it light up the whole room? For comparison - my bedroom is about 170 sq ft.