I think that I have now cracked the problem (as far as it is possible to crack!) of oversleeping in the morning!
I had been without my shake-awake (S-A) alarm clock for the last few weeks as I had managed to leave it at my brothers house and have been relying on the Lumie clock plus my bedside light timer to wake me up.
Which did work, but then my shake-awake turned up yesterday (Thanks Marielle!) and so I used it this morning, in combination with the Lumie and the bedside light (sledgehammer to crack a nut perhaps!?).
The thing is that the light wakes me up gradually, and the S-A goes off at a particular time (with a snooze button of eight minutes) and I have discovered that what it is is that the S-A is slightly more violent and demands that I get up, plus with the Lumie I wake up so gradually that I don't really have any idea what time it is. I know when the S-A goes off because I set that time and then I know that when it goes off again, it is eight minutes later - which I think wakes me up better because I am far more aware of what time it is and how much time I have left to do all the things I need to do before leaving the house!
Did any of that make sense!!? It did to me when I was thinking about it this morning!
By the way, anyone that doesn't know what a Shake-awake is (and why on earth doesn't she get an alarm clock like all normal people!?) - it is an alarm clock that goes under the pillow and vibrates to wake me up. As I sleep without my hearing aids I have great trouble hearing ANYTHING during the night, which is how Phoebe managed to cause havoc in the house a few weeks ago when she brought a bird in!!
Showing posts with label sleep. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sleep. Show all posts
Wednesday, 5 December 2007
Wednesday, 31 October 2007
New alarm clock
Some of you may remember an earlier post where I mentioned the horrors of getting up in the morning! I don't think that I mentioned it, but I have an alarm clock that vibrates and goes underneath my pillow (handy for those that cant, or wont, hear the alarm clock!).
But this vibrating alarm clock was not really enough to get me up, particularly if it was dark outside and too warm under the duvet! ;-) So, what I did was I set a timer on my bedside light and that would snap to full brightness at about the time I thought I should be awake.
However, that bright light is just a bit too much of a shock to the system, in the end all I did was make sure that I was under the duvet just before it turned on or immediately flang the duvet over my head as soon as the light came on. Which clearly wasn't helping!
Yet....I had an ace up my sleeve! I had heard of an alarm system called the bodyclock, made by a firm called Lumie. (they do a lot of lights for SAD people - and I don't mean it in quite that way!). After doing a bit of research, I decided that it would be worth getting one, so I bought one last weekend and have been using it for the last few days.
The premise is that you set the time for getting up and the light will gradually lighten until it gets to a suitable brightness for getting up (not mega bright, but a good light). So it is a nice and gradual waking up instead of a violent jerk into awareness when the bedside light turns on!
And I have to say, so far so good! Of course, I still don't want to get up, but I am more awake in the mornings and actually get up slightly earlier! A rather nice function that is has is that you can also set it to do a sunset, it is a bit unecessary though, but it is quite soothing to turn the main light out and then set the sunset going and gently drift off to sleep!
But this vibrating alarm clock was not really enough to get me up, particularly if it was dark outside and too warm under the duvet! ;-) So, what I did was I set a timer on my bedside light and that would snap to full brightness at about the time I thought I should be awake.
However, that bright light is just a bit too much of a shock to the system, in the end all I did was make sure that I was under the duvet just before it turned on or immediately flang the duvet over my head as soon as the light came on. Which clearly wasn't helping!
Yet....I had an ace up my sleeve! I had heard of an alarm system called the bodyclock, made by a firm called Lumie. (they do a lot of lights for SAD people - and I don't mean it in quite that way!). After doing a bit of research, I decided that it would be worth getting one, so I bought one last weekend and have been using it for the last few days.
The premise is that you set the time for getting up and the light will gradually lighten until it gets to a suitable brightness for getting up (not mega bright, but a good light). So it is a nice and gradual waking up instead of a violent jerk into awareness when the bedside light turns on!
And I have to say, so far so good! Of course, I still don't want to get up, but I am more awake in the mornings and actually get up slightly earlier! A rather nice function that is has is that you can also set it to do a sunset, it is a bit unecessary though, but it is quite soothing to turn the main light out and then set the sunset going and gently drift off to sleep!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
