If you tend to struggle to get out of bed when you’re forced to wake up in complete darkness on winter mornings and you experience season-related mood changes in general, you may have seasonal affective disorder. Sunrise alarm clocks and seasonal affective disorder It all depends on your ideal sleep environment and where your sleeping or waking issues are stemming from. Shelby Harris, a clinical psychologist specializing in behavioral sleep medicine, also notes that if you tend to bury your head under the covers or can’t resist repeated snooze sessions, this type of alarm clock may not be the right choice. Do sunrise alarm clocks work?Įxperts agree that while a wake-up light alone may not give you more restful nights, they can be helpful when used in conjunction with good sleep hygiene, which includes sleeping in a cool, dark room using your bed only for sleeping (stimulus control) and sticking to set bedtimes and wake times. Since sleep preferences in general are quite individualized, he suggests looking for an alarm clock with adjustable features so that you can customize brightness and sound elements to your needs. Dasgupta advises keeping the alarm clock out of arm’s reach so that you have to get up to turn it off, which will encourage you to get out of bed instead of further delaying the start of your day. “The only sleep you’re getting after interrupting those really deep, rich stages is twilight sleep, which is the worst thing we can do.” (Twilight is stage 1 of non-REM sleep, which is a lighter stage where you can still have some awareness of what's happening around you.)įor those who go with a snooze option, Dr. “With your first alarm, you’ve extracted likely from your best, most restorative stages of sleep,” she said. Though many of us tend to depend on a snooze button, the lack of one could actually be helpful if you’re looking to establish healthier sleep habits. Robbins adds that warmer colors of light are a soothing effect for bedtime while cool, bright blue tones emulate sunshine for an alerting effect in the morning, so the availability of those varying shades is key. When searching for the best sunrise alarm clock for you, the sunset option is key if, regardless of the season, you tend to have issues falling asleep as well as waking up. That means that a dimming function is another helpful component to have in a sunrise alarm clock because it can help you wind down for bedtime. Raj Dasgupta of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. Your circadian rhythms can also respond to decreasing light at the end of the day, according to Dr. These clocks can be especially helpful in certain regions of the world, at times of the year when hours of sunlight vary, or any time you need to artificially replicate sunrise and sunset to signal a proper sleep schedule. (Darkness triggers melatonin release, while light can halt its production.) That’s why exposing yourself to light in the morning, even if it’s only a simulation of the sun, will help trigger that alertness by suppressing the flow of the hormone melatonin from the pineal gland in the brain. The part of our brain that guides our circadian rhythm, Robbins explained, is housed behind the eyeballs, making our eyes the receptors of light that kick-starts the awake phase of this 24-hour cycle. “They build on the circadian science that light is a vital input to our internal circadian rhythm.” “The key thing that these alarm clocks try to mimic is direct sunlight exposure,” said Rebecca Robbins, an associate scientist at Brigham and Women's Hospital and instructor at Harvard Medical School. If your handy smartphone provides a certain function, it can be a hard sell to invest in a separate product that serves the same purpose and takes up more space.īut if you’re a troubled sleeper or find it difficult to rise and shine, especially before sunrise, a light or sunrise alarm clock may be well worth the buy. These days, we tend to use our phones for everything, which can be hugely convenient. Thankfully, there is now a gentler solution: a sunrise alarm clock. Is there a sound that makes you shudder because it reminds you of being jolted out of a deep sleep on countless cold, dark mornings? I have two: the infamous grating beep of OG alarm clocks and that first-ever default iPhone alarm sound that berated me into waking up for 9 a.m.

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Light up alarm clock