No more alarm clocks
I’ve completely eliminated the alarm clock from my morning routine for about six months. The biggest impacts it's had on my life are:
- I’ve become a morning person.
- I wake up feeling great and feel less sleepy during the day.
Becoming a morning person is a necessary side effect of not using an alarm clock because it requires the body to naturally wake up early enough for work, school, or other regular obligations. Although I’ve historically enjoyed staying up late, the brutal truth is that all humans require a certain amount of sleep, and this can't be consistently fought without an alarm clock.
The best part about eliminating alarm clocks from my life is how it has affected my day. It’s not a hidden secret that good sleep habits translate to:
- Better mood
- Increased energy levels
- Clearer mind
- Improved overall health
I can confidently say I really do feel all these benefits. In the end, it's not to any real surprise. The alarm clock interupts one of the most important cycles of your body, and so it only makes sense to leave sleep alone so it can do what it needs to do.
How I Transitioned to Natural Sleep
Once I decided to try this experiment, I created a simple plan to implement it. Before this life change, my sleep schedule was from around 1 am to 8 am. So, the first thing I did was set an alarm for the target time I wanted to naturally wake up, in my case, 7 am.
The first night resulted in 6 hours of sleep (1 am to 7 am). My body needs more than that, so by the time 11 pm rolled around, I was ready to fall asleep. It was initially tough to sleep earlier than normal, as I felt there was still time to do things, but I let my body dictate my actions and went to bed without an alarm.
That night, I slept for about 9 hours due to sleep debt. I missed my 7 am target, but it wasn’t a big deal. After that, with my body reset, I simply aimed to continue to sleep around 11 pm, meaning I was in bed by 10:30 pm. The pressure of needing to naturally wake up before work was enough motivation to forgo the later hours of the night and continue heading to bed early.
Now, I’ve settled into a great rhythm of going to bed around 10-10:30 pm and waking up around 6:30 am. What’s great is discovering how much sleep my body naturally needs (8-8.5 hours). No more trying to "hack" my body with things like miserable polyphasic sleep experiments. I know what my body needs, I succumb to it, and I’m rewarded the next day.
Some Caveats
What worked for me won’t necessarily work for everyone. Each person and their situation is unique, so results will obviously vary. Some unique factors for me are:
- I’ve always been able to fall asleep quickly, which might be due to consistent sleep deprivation, regular exercise, or both.
- My only dependent is a dog, and she doesn’t mind sleeping in a bit in the morning.
- I always sleep with white noise, which helps block out sounds that would normally wake me up during the night.
- My work schedule is consistently 9 am to 5 pm.
One final note: I still use alarm clocks for special occasions, such as early morning flights. Although I could probably wake up naturally for them, without an alarm set, I would probably wake up in the middle of the night stressed about the possibility of missing my flight.
Try It Out
This change has been significant enough in my life that I frequently recommend it to friends. I now honestly believe that the alarm clock is the single worst thing the wider population willingly inflicts on themselves. If you’re willing to eliminate the morning alarm clock from your life, I would love to hear how it goes. Good luck!
I work from home and rarely have morning meetings so my alarm is often more of a suggestion than anything, but I absolutely could never do this. Without an alarm clock I consistently sleep past 10 or even 11, despite going to bed at the same time as you... Perhaps I'd adjust better if I consistently needed to be up earlier, but my body will take any ounce of sleep you give it.
I love the idea and I usually wake up before my alarm, but there are days where that would absolutely not happen despite the fact that I am super consistent with bedtimes. Not sure of it's related to hormones or what but there are always a few days each month where I could sleep until noon if not interrupted
yeah lol that's definitely me... most days lol. And I'm on long-acting stimulants for ADHD and while currently they don't cause insomnia issues if I take them a couple hours later, that's definitely a potential issue, especially as I age, so even without work commitments having an alarm for that is pretty important.
I'm curious to know with you and @sparksbet what would happen if you went a week without an alarm clock and just let sleep happen. It could be that:
@sparksbet mentioned that they're on medication which could make this experiment not worth doing, but I do feel that trying a natural sleep pattern for those who feel they can sleep too much might be worthwhile.
I did essentially live without any alarms (prior to being on any medication) back when I was a student during the pandemic, and it honestly was the same general pattern (if anything less functional bc I had no reason to wake up at a certain time). I suspect it might be a #3 situation leading to #1, among what you listed. I've toyed with the idea that I might have some sort of relatively mild
hyposomniacEDIT: hypersomniac sleep disorder, but as the treatment for that afaik would be stimulants and I'm already on stimulants for my ADHD now, I haven't delved into getting that treated or anything.Could it be sleep apnoea? Do you or anyone in your family snore real bad? I know that I’d have a similar experience to what you described, but also I spoke to my doctor about it a few years ago and she said it might be fixed with surgery in my case.
I never actually got around to surgery (that’s on my list for next year) because I got given this information and a referral just before the pandemic hit, and then I didn’t feel comfortable with anything in-person, let alone medical.
I have older male relatives who have sleep apnea, but I don't really snore myself according to my wife, so I don't think that's likely to be it for me. I also don't have the problem of not feeling well-rested when I sleep if I sleep and wake as my body naturally wants to -- it's just that it naturally wants to sleep for like 12 hours overnight. Plus sometimes random midday naps.
I can definitely recommend the concept. I used to suffer from big mood swings and depressive periods. One day I decided that I will let myself sleep for as long as my body needs. So I stopped putting on an alarm clock and started always going to bed at the same time.
For the first couple of weeks, I overslept a lot. Probably 12, 13 hours per night. After that though, I started to get accustomed to this and have been sleeping almost 8 hours every night since then. And my mood stabilized and has been better since then.
It's more difficult during the winter months, and I do tend to sleep in a bit. And I know that not everyone has the possibility to implement such a routine, but definitely do give it a shot if you have the opportunity.
I stopped using an alarm and instead set up a routine on my smart home devices that slowly raises the lights in my bedroom over the course of a half hour to simulate a sunrise (I have to wake up before the natural sunrise). I also have the radio come on, tuned to the local jazz station, at the start of the sunrise at 1% and gradually increase in volume as the lights go up. This wakes me up gently, rather than the abrupt alarm that I used frequently and often snoozed several times. I also set up a routine at night to remind me to go to bed. At 10:30 pm the lights all change to a pleasant shade of orange-red (low frequency, easy on the eyes, helps adjust to the dark) and start to gradually dim over the course of an hour. This is my signal to go brush me teeth and get ready for sleep. At 11 my sleep playlist of ambient noise comes on, and by 11:30 all the lights have gone out. It’s only 7 hours of sleep, but I have always been a night owl. At some point in the future I’d like to move the sleep routine up an hour to 9:30, but I’m not quite there yet
Alternatively, have children and you won't need an alarm clock for at least ten years depending on how many and the spacing between them! I must be doing something wrong, though, since I've experienced:
In all seriousness, though. Pre-kids, I tried out consistent sleep and wake times to great effect. Schools beginning any time before 8:30AM should be outlawed already.
The first thing that came to mind when writing this was how hard doing this would be with kids. I'm sure I'll need to rethink everything around sleep if/when kids happens to me!
I'm a little jealous of the people who WFH and don't need an alarm clock. I WFH and I absolutely need an alarm. In the summer my first meeting is at 530AM (job is based on the east coast and im on the west coast), no way im waking up that early on my own!
When I worked in agriculture doing physical labor, we usually started work similarly early in the summer months. In the hottest part of the summer, we would start at 5:00am so that we could get some work done before sunrise and go home not too long after lunch. (In the winter, we typically started at 9:00 or even later.)
It sounds awful, but it was actually very popular. They let us vote on our start time, and the field workers overwhelmingly voted to start work as early as possible to avoid the heat of the day. The office staff were (very understandably) far less pleased with this, though. They were allowed to start an hour later than the rest of us, but even so, our 5:00 start (their 6:00 start) was a compromise between us. If the field staff had their own way, I think we probably would have started around 4:00.
Now that I work an office job, it's hard to imagine how cheerfully I would pop out of bed at 4:15 am to get ready for work. I would feel so awful doing that now. Having the sun shine down on you all day makes it a lot easier to get into an early circadian rhythm, I think.
I've never truly relied on my alarm clock, it's mostly there to annoy my half-awake state to actually comprehend what time it is. Which is usually around 30 seconds or so before it goes off lol.
Which usually happens with a change in rhythm. So probably not too far off your early flight example.
I don't use an alarm clock since WFH became big, Unless I've got an appointment or train to catch anyway.
I wake up anywhere between 0630 and 0900 and it does feel so much better.
Yes it's wonderful! I wake when my body's ready, and have a cup of tea while the dawn breaks and the sun rises. Our living room window faces east so the glow of the sky then warmth of the sun are a lovely way to reconnect with the world. The need to go to bed at a decent time is good for me too, helping me keep good habits; staying up late means missing the dawn.
I’m honestly envious of people who need alarm clocks to wake up cause they can sleep for 10+ hours at a time, meanwhile I’m a “morning person” only because I can’t seem to sleep for more than 5 hours before I wake up regardless of how tired I am the night before.
How much light do you get in your bedroom? I have found that I can easily sleep in until noon when I'm in a dark room, but if I have bright window near my head and I sleep facing it, I wake up at sunrise no matter what time sunrise occurs or how much sleep I got during the night.
My room is almost completely dark aside from the low light from a digital clock on my nightstand, so I don’t think that’s the issue. It’s weird cause I’ve always been like this ever since I was a kid and I just can’t seem to figure out what the issue is, and now that I’m in my 20s it’s starting to take a toll on me.
I follow the 3-2-1 rule and haven't used an alarm in ages (unless I need to catch an early flight or something).
No food 3 hours before bed.
No liquid 2 hours before bed.
No screen 1 hour before bed.
Asleep by 9:30.
Up by 5:30.
Running my morning 5k by 5:45.
Back in time to get the kids breakfast and get ready for my commute.
I find that if I eat or drink later, my sleep is not as restful or I need to wake up to pee.
Easily happens on weekends if I'm having a couple drinks with friends/family.