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Hey,

Does anybody have recommendations for a sleep alarm ?

I'd like to buy one that can play an MP3 from a USB key or IPod, and ideally that you can set more than one wake up time (eg. weekdays / weekend ).

I want to discipline my wake up times, but setting up the mobile phone alarm every day means I'm often adjusting the time to whatever mood. These days I'm a zombie if I get up too late, seems to completely offset my energy for the best part of the day.

I use an old mobile's call alarm set to vibrate and stuck under my pillow (got the idea from here)--I'm pretty sure I can set the alarm for more than one day at a time, you sure you can't do something similar with yours?

Interesting. Is it better to wake up to vibrations than to an alarm?

vosmiura Wrote:Interesting. Is it better to wake up to vibrations than to an alarm?

I don't know about that, but I find it more effective and just more appealing. Although often I awaken on my own: I've got an internal alarm clock I can set like Kramer did.

I use citrus alarm clock -- http://www.ornj.net/citrus/
I think it fits the bill you posted.
I use it quite happily myself. お勧めです。

Edit: to add my fav'rit feature, which may or may not be documented. The program wakes up your computer from standby a minute or so before any alarm. エコ！

Don't go mp3s, use light!

http://www.wakeuplight.philips.co.uk/

It's expensive, yes, but it does work like a charm. I own one!

And here's another option:

I know it sounds like voodoo, however, it works! Give it a try!

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nest0r Wrote:I'm pretty sure I can set the alarm for more than one day at a time, you sure you can't do something similar with yours?

Nah, I'd like to wake up with music that put me in a good mood, hence I'm looking for something that can play back my favorite song(s) as an alarm.

I very often have difficult to get up even when I have the required amount of sleeping time like 8 hours. I often wake up in the middle of dreams, so my mind is very foggy, and I don't feel "woken up" at all. In fact if I stay in bed longer than eight hours nowadays I feel worse.

I always feel much better (provided I had 7h30+ sleep time), after I am up and moving about and eating something.. so I can never trust my mind when I am lying down, my mind says "tired, stay in bed, just an hour more". I have to somehow ignore what my mind and even body says, to find out 15 mins later that it's fine and I'm feeling great >_< !! Maybe I Have this difficulty because I was a crazy "nightowl" until 25 or so, it was very common that I'd stay up to 3-4am.

vosmiura Wrote:Interesting. Is it better to wake up to vibrations than to an alarm?

I do the same as nest0r, and I wake up fast, but sometimes I turn it off and return to sleep

ファブリス Wrote:

nest0r Wrote:I'm pretty sure I can set the alarm for more than one day at a time, you sure you can't do something similar with yours?

Nah, I'd like to wake up with music that put me in a good mood, hence I'm looking for something that can play back my favorite song(s) as an alarm.

I very often have difficult to get up even when I have the required amount of sleeping time like 8 hours. I often wake up in the middle of dreams, so my mind is very foggy, and I don't feel "woken up" at all. In fact if I stay in bed longer than eight hours nowadays I feel worse.

I always feel much better (provided I had 7h30+ sleep time), after I am up and moving about and eating something.. so I can never trust my mind when I am lying down, my mind says "tired, stay in bed, just an hour more". I have to somehow ignore what my mind and even body says, to find out 15 mins later that it's fine and I'm feeling great >_< !! Maybe I Have this difficulty because I was a crazy "nightowl" until 25 or so, it was very common that I'd stay up to 3-4am.

up until 3-4 am and have no energy after that ? no kidding

I ll keep it short and write a how to do without the theory

LOOK FOR QUALITY SLEEP not for quantity
To sum it up
1-drink water (NO SODA OR JUICE) about 1.5 l a day
2-get a lot of light either you go out or/AND you buy a light box or wide-spectrum lightbulbs (even it s fashionable drop the sunglasses too)
3-move
4-give up on caffeine/alcohool/tabaco : it s messing with your system
5-practice power nap 30 mn if you re interested by theory you can check out this fundamental work : why we nap
6-avoid fast sugar and take some slow sugar instead like - nonstarchy vegetables , real fruit . nuts , some legumes

there is still a lot of thing to discuss but those are the pillars

EDIT oh and BTW to begin with you should avoid as much as possible to turn in at 3-4 am ....owing to various reasons , among which light , past midnight you lose in quality sleep.
for this part you should look this article by steve pavlina
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/05...rly-riser/
try to set up a unmovable rising hour

ghinzdra beat me to the point. To add my thoughts, your symptoms sound a lot like delayed sleep phase syndrome. The root problem is not that you're sleeping too much (a healthy brain wakes itself up). The root problem is that you're not feeling sleepy early enough to get a good sleep.

There are basically three ways to deal with this:

1) Ignore the solar day. Probably not practical.

2) Use an alarm to sacrifice sleep.

3) Use zeitgebers and good sleep habits to fall asleep earlier.

3 is hard, but I've found it to be worth the lifestyle changes. 2 is miserable, I won't go back to it.

ghinzdra Wrote:To sum it up
1-drink water (NO SODA OR JUICE) about 1.5 l

Dehydration and sugar-shock are bad for sleep and general health.

Quote:2-get a lot of light...

In the morning. Evening dark is crucial. It should probably start about 12 hours before you plan to wake up. Maybe even more--the exact timing requires some experimentation. The beginning of dark-time is how I control my wake-time. Basically, instead of cutting my long day short during sleep time, I cut my wake time short by killing the lights.

Darkness means using only as much light as needed. Warm light is better than cool. Blue light keeps you awake, so amber sunglasses and candlelight can provide enough light for reading while still allowing you to get sleepy.

Quote:3-move

Again, during the day. Exercise before bed can cause insomnia. Currently, I take a 20-minute walk in the morning sunlight without sunglasses after breakfast.

Quote:4-give up on caffeine/alcohool/tabaco

Tobacco's always bad. Caffeine at breakfast only, no more than 2 cups. Alcohol rebound can wake you up at night--avoid with dinner, but a small amount's okay at lunch.

Quote:5-practice power nap 30 mn

Napping only works if you have a healthy sleep-wake cycle to begin with. Start waking before your alarm first, then try napping after lunch, if your work schedule allows it.

Quote:6-avoid fast sugar

Again, sugar surges play havoc with all kinds of body chemistry.

If you still need an alarm clock because there are things you have to be awake for, prefer a dawn-simulator to sound-alarms.

All that said, music is great for going from groggy to awake. It's just that you should turn it on, not your alarm clock.

Oh, and an advisory: the first month or two will be very tough as you recover from years of sleep deprivation. I experienced very long sleep periods, fragmented sleep, evening insomnia, and morning insomnia. Eventually, short days cut down on my sleep requirements, but this took a while a while.

Totally worth it though. My mood has improved immensely (I've struggled with low-grade depression on and off for years) and I've lived without an alarm clock for over a year.

vosmiura Wrote:Interesting. Is it better to wake up to vibrations than to an alarm?

Not to this one I think.

travis Wrote:

vosmiura Wrote:Interesting. Is it better to wake up to vibrations than to an alarm?

Not to this one I think.

Or when you're sleeping on the top bunk or this: http://gizmodo.com/184990/magnetic-float...h-your-god

Yet another unhelpful post, but interesting esp. the timing!
http://whatjapanthinks.com/2009/08/20/wa...by-mobile/

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qhzindra Wrote:up until 3-4 am and have no energy after that ? no kidding

No, I used to be a night owl until roughly 25 years old and could go to sleep or get up at any time and it didn't affect my ability to concentrate or get plenty of work done. I often did "sleepless nights" as a teenager (coding like a madman on the Amiga... ;-)) and was feeling just fine!

I read Steve's article before, that's more or less what I want to do, but I don't think it's realistic to religiously get up at 8am every day, including the weekends. I'm not old enough for that

I stopped caffeinated coffee @ home 4 weeks ago. It may explain why my mind feels "numb" on the Fridays when I'm at home. Weekend usually is OK because I move out of the appartment.

Good reminder on the physical exercise! Yesterday I did a Yoga exercise not long before going to sleep and didn't fall asleep easily. I never thought about this one.. yoga is often synonymous with relaxation.. it didn't occur to me that many yoga poses actually give you energy (many inverted poses), and it should probably be avoided before bed! I'll research that.

My current plan is to switch to a music alarm, so I have about the song's duration to gather my senses and to get up. Something like Mouse on Mars -Twift should work wonders

I have an ipod I could connect to a station, I saw some of these but they were really pricey, that's why I wondered if anybody here use something similar?

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travis Wrote:

vosmiura Wrote:Interesting. Is it better to wake up to vibrations than to an alarm?

Not to this one I think.

ROFL Nice one! I thought it was going to push the bed sideways at first :p

I take it you don't sleep within range of your computer's speakers? I used to just use Jake's MP3 alarm clock back in the day, but I had to have it play music I found annoying really loud for it to work, so I switched to vibration...

ファブリス Wrote:

qhzindra Wrote:up until 3-4 am and have no energy after that ? no kidding

No, I used to be a night owl until roughly 25 years old and could go to sleep or get up at any time and it didn't affect my ability to concentrate or get plenty of work done. I often did "sleepless nights" as a teenager (coding like a madman on the Amiga... ;-)) and was feeling just fine!

I read Steve's article before, that's more or less what I want to do, but I don't think it's realistic to religiously get up at 8am every day, including the weekends. I'm not old enough for that

I stopped caffeinated coffee @ home 4 weeks ago. It may explain why my mind feels "numb" on the Fridays when I'm at home. Weekend usually is OK because I move out of the appartment.

Good reminder on the physical exercise! Yesterday I did a Yoga exercise not long before going to sleep and didn't fall asleep easily. I never thought about this one.. yoga is often synonymous with relaxation.. it didn't occur to me that many yoga poses actually give you energy (many inverted poses), and it should probably be avoided before bed! I'll research that.

My current plan is to switch to a music alarm, so I have about the song's duration to gather my senses and to get up. Something like Mouse on Mars -Twift should work wonders

I have an ipod I could connect to a station, I saw some of these but they were really pricey, that's why I wondered if anybody here use something similar?

I wake up every morning at 5.05 AM workdays , week end ,holidays .... is it realistic for you ? This morning I woke up without an alarm ....and this is not innate ability or something like that .
in every new project there are 3 steps
1 gather information
2 set up a plan
3 just do it .
well I spared you the step 1 , I provided you the step 2 .... Now it s step 3 and it s only up to you.

about the feeling , be extremely cautious about your own body... the most obvious exemple is water : people just don t know they re dehydrated.... and they feel fine.
Except if you re some kind of taoist grand master or shaolin monk if I were you I ll would trust my body answers to a very limited extent especially since you seem to live a life a bit hectic , which means your body has grow accostumed to this lifestyle , and you re still young , which means your body has an unbelievable ability to make up for daily mistakes .

I ll stop here . I m not specially skilled at lecturing and I feel a bit ashamed to bother you when I owe you one for this great website and the communauty that gathered around.

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Thank you.

What's the relation between drinking water and sleep?

Seeing as I have such a hard time going to bed early, I think getting up at 8am everyday would be a good start. If only I can find the magic alarm clock that I can not switch off while I am half awake and unconscious :p

Where I work most people arrive between 9am and 10am.. I could get up earlier every day but then it feels strange to split my personal time half before work and half after. I mean, if you get up at 5am, you have maybe just a couple hours after coming home and eating something..

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Here's a funny iPod alarm clock that looks like a mechanical one

I used to have an alarm on my computer to go off in the morning that was a playlist of anime I wanted to watch. This way I had to get up the moment the computer started making noise or I would miss the show :O

I did it through Windows' Schedule Tasks program.

ファブリス Wrote:Thank you.

What's the relation between drinking water and sleep?

Seeing as I have such a hard time going to bed early, I think getting up at 8am everyday would be a good start. If only I can find the magic alarm clock that I can not switch off while I am half awake and unconscious :p

Where I work most people arrive between 9am and 10am.. I could get up earlier every day but then it feels strange to split my personal time half before work and half after. I mean, if you get up at 5am, you have maybe just a couple hours after coming home and eating something..

as I said I spared you the theory ....
why we nap which is a seminal work on the science of napping is more than 350 pages lenght .... if I had to feed you with water related litterature it would be thousand of pages. If you want some articles just google sleep and water
otherwise on more practical ground take a look at this blog http://joac.blogspot.com/2008/04/how-to-...water.html This is the diary of someone who put in parallel his water consumption and his sleep quality and it s told in a very matter of fact tone . Obviously there is always some kind of placebo effect... If you re interested into scientific research I find especially fascinating that in spite of all the fuzz around it and contrary to the popular belief "8 by 8" conveyed by american media , we have no real idea of how much water we need to drink (engrossing article about this pseudo scientific myth .... that I don t have anymore) .Water zealot are as much a pain in the ass as feminists but in both cases the basis is right . So as long as you re not overdoing it by drinking 3 gallons of water a day it can t do you any harm anyway right ? as I for me I settled for 1,5 liter : it s a standard bottle size so it s practical and it strikes a good balance . It must also be pointed out that as soon as you begin to drink this amount of water , you find yourself more prone to drink ... a water thirst , like some kind of long term water deprivation ,

as for the waking time.... well as far I m concerned I extremely enjoy to have a couple of hours alone before going out . What s more on a off day it means that I have theorically 7 freaking hours available . You know what aristotle said It is well to be up before daybreak, for such habits contribute to health, wealth, and wisdom.

in the future I may work self employed .... In this case you can easily see the benefit.... I ll set up my own work schedule .

The connection between water and sleep: when I need to get up early, I drink an amount of water just before bed. For certain biological reasons, this ensures that I will feel an urgent need to awaken in under 8 hours.

i can't remember which thread it was, but someone recommended the Axbo Alarm Clock aaaages ago. http://www.axbo.com/axbo/CMS/CMS.aspx?Si...Language=E

Well, i finally saved up enough to get one, and i'm going to make my december challenge to be awake in the daytime as much as possible. My sleep's still pretty horrible in that each day i go to bed later and probably sleep a little too long, but it's better than it was a year ago in that it's much more stable rather than 18 hours some nights and 4 others. I'm hoping this'll make the last bit of difference without ruining my days by making me feel tired all the time (as i do often when woken with a normal alarm).

If anyone's interested, i'll post a review after i'm used to using it and let you know if it was worth the excessive amount of money

i'm interested!

200 euros is a bit much...
doesn't seem to be available in the US though.

well, i got it from here: http://www.advancedmp3players.co.uk/shop...B-Grade%29
it's B-Grade, so it's a bit cheaper. I'd definately recommend this store though, as it was fedexed to me in no time, and it seems to be working ok.

So far, i haven't got on well with the clock though, since i didn't move at all in the half hour window it was supposed to wake me up in, so i got the normal alarm instead of the good one.

i tried the powernap function this evening as well, but it seems to only allow 30 minutes... i've never slept for 30 minutes in my life lol. Anyway, it tried to wake me up when i turned over... except, i wasn't asleep yet.

Apparently it learns and becomes more attached to you the more you use it though, so it's too early to review it properly.

One thing that's good about it is they upgrade the firmware for free, you just download it from their website. So, they've just made an intelligent snooze function, which you can download. I think i'll try that next...