7 Ways to Wakeup in the Morning
April 20, 2007 · Print This Article
Your method of waking up is the first thing that starts your day. I’m not saying that waking up to an annoying alarm will ruin your day, but it probably isn’t going to help anything.
Here are a few ideas for waking up:
- Wake up to a CD. Many stereo’s have a build in alarm clock that will start the CD at a certain time. (This can also be the basis of a nice college dorm prank.)
- Wake up to the radio. Most clock radios let you wake up to whatever is being broadcast instead of the normal alarm.
- Wake up to light. A simple outlet timer, hooked to a bright light can be a great way to wake up because the light will help tell your body that the day is starting. (You might want to set a backup alarm when trying this for the first time.)
- Wake up to cool air. In highschool I concocted an elaborate mechanism for waking up that I would tinker with each night. On of the more interesting things I tried was hooking up a fan at the bottom of the bed sheets. It would come on and start blowing cool air under the covers.
- Wake up to your cell phone. Many cell phones have alarm clocks and the ringing of your cell phone might be much more pleasant than the buzz of your regular alarm clock. You might even be able to set it to vibrate and then just sleep with it under your pillow.
- Wake up to coffee. I hate coffee so waking up every day with the thought "what is that awful smell?" isn’t my idea of a good way to wake. However, I’m told other people like to wake up to coffee, so a pot with a timer might be a good option.
- Wake up to your iPod. iPods have alarmclock functionality built in. You can set them to play a particular playlist at the appropriate time. I don’t recommend sleeping with headphones, but if yo have external speakers of some type this can be a nice way to wakeup. One of the advantages of this over a CD player is that the CD player will make a "spin up" noise when it starts, so if you are a light sleeper you may wake up to the spin noise instead of the music. (As a side note the best piece of music to wake up to is the music from the ballet Appalachian Spring. The worst music to wakeup to is anything played on a harpsichord.)
So do you have a creative way to wake up? What do you use presently? What things have you tried in the past?
The point is I currently wake up to a stupid sound in my mobile phone. However after your note I’ll try something more pleasant.
By the way I have a special “turn on and off” timer for anything what is plugged into electricity plug
I bought this one in Finland and never thought things like that could be sold just in ordinary shop.
And no one understood my happiness when I’ve set half of the house to turn on automatically in the morning
I get dragged out of bed by the ankles by The Girlfriend. Very effective and works every time.
Waking up to the morning light is probably the most gentle way of waking up and for that reason we always select the room in the east in each place we have lived. I do have an alarm set on my mobile phone as a back up though, but usually wake up before it goes off.
Waking up to other aromas could be more pleasant. This could be accomplished a timer on an electric candle warmer or other aromatherapy-type devices. Citrus or peppermint would be a stimulating scent to help open the eyes and brighten the mind!
@Thomas - Ah. Well I suppose that is always an option as well. But how does your Girlfriend wakeup?
@Shalini - Choosing a morning sun facing room as a bedroom is an excellent idea. This is my preferred way of waking up as well.
@Debi - I hadn’t thought of that. I’m going to have to try that out sometime.
There were some devices a few years ago that would plug into your computer and allow you to “smell” things over the internet. They used oils and (I think) some type of heat source to generate any type of smell. So using something like that you could start with a nice smell and if the person doesn’t get up it turns into a coffee smell.
My girlfriend is so good at getting up that I am convinced she is a robot! Her internal body clock is very well-trained. The night before, she tells herself what time she wants to get up in the morning. Then when that time comes, her eyes flick open and she is immediately alert. In the 7 years we have been together, I don’t recall her having over-slept once.
God, I wish I had that talent. When I sleep, a nuclear bomb could go off outside and I would sleep through the whole thing!
The bright light idea is really interesting
I tend to have to get up at different times every day though, and all the electricity timer things I’ve seen haven’t been that convenient to adjust on a daily basis.
Right now I wake up to a radio playing for about 15 minutes, and then my cell alarm when I absolutely must get up, if I hadn’t when the radio played.
@Thomas - You sleep like I do. I slept through our smoke alarm once. Another time I woke up and discovered that the apartment next to mine had burned to the ground. I slept through the sirens, people yelling and everything.
@Niklas - If you are really geeky like me, you might checkout the X10 modules. You can set your computer to turn things on and off at different times each day. I used them at one job to turn lava lamps on and off depending on whether our project was going well or not. The computer would automatically measure a few items and if it failed any of our predefined tests, the red lava lamp would come one. Otherwise the green one was lit.
I’ve noticed a huge difference in how I wake up since I switched from my alarm clock buzzer to MP3s on my computer. I’ve found the best alarms for the computer seem to come as desktop widgets/gadgets/etc. The best one was on Desktop Sidebar, but the one I’m currently using is on Google Desktop.
I too can sleep through anything, yeah, even a fire alarm, thankfully my dog would probably wake me up if the fire alarm went off. To make sure I don’t sleep through my song I always set my old, extremely loud, alarm clock to go off five minutes after my computer.
We have a bodyclock http://www.lumie.com/bodyclocks.htm which gradually turns on over a set time, ours is 30 minutes to give the impression of sun rise. I love it.
i wouldn’t recommend sleeping on your cell phone, as the radiation is likely to interfere with a healthy sleep… other than that, i really like the light idea, gotta try that.
Perhaps the best solution is to figure out why you are having problems waking up in the first place!
Do simple things:
1. NO TV in the bedroom.
2. Get to bed on time.
3. don’t eat a heavy meal late in the evening.
4. Drink a big glass of water before sleeping.
5. Open the drapes/blinds to sunlight enters your room.
6. If you can, take an evening stroll before bed. It will let you clear your mind.
7. A nice shower before bed also helps.
Currently I wake up with the vibrate setting on my cell phone, but, I don’t have to sleep on it. I place it on my nightstand and it makes enough of a racket that I wake up. However, I wouldn’t say its a great way to be awakened. I would much prefer the gentle awakening from the sun, but in the past I’ve been burned by a cloudy day and slept in for hours!