alarm clocks healthy?

i was wondering if alarm clocks were healthy...

i mean during my time off (for 2 weeks) i slept til' 11 or 12...

my body was used to sleeping this late...

now that the vacation is over my alarm clock goes off at 7 and it cuts off what my body was used to and i was wondering if this can #kk up a person...

anybody else have these experiences???

I'm not aware of any long-term health effects. It'll take you a while to get used to it, but the human body is remarkably adaptable to changes in sleep patterns.

Originally posted by they see ALL
i was wondering if alarm clocks were healthy...
i mean during my time off (for 2 weeks) i slept til' 11 or 12...
my body was used to sleeping this late...
anybody else have these experiences???

I have gone through this many times. My job requires me to travel alot on a night schedule for months at a time. When I finally come home, it takes me about 5 to 7 days to fully re-adjust to a day schedule. It is just like jet-lag.

nothing to worry about except your sanity

I actually have read studies on the negative effects of an alarm clock. It's not so much the forcing of a sleep cycle, tribal people usually wake up with the sun, which varies day to day, it was the abruptness day after day that can have psychological effects. This is why many alarm clocks are coming out which start off softly and gradually get louder until you wake up.

By the way, the psychological side effects documented in Psychology Today were anxiety, higher stress levels, and in extreme cases nervous twitches.

This is oh so true, i have one of the most annoying alarm clocks. It seems that when i had this clock for at least half of the day i was irritable and stressed, now that i have my new alarm clock, which plays cds, i now feel less stressed and all around happier

Being woken unnaturally can have a negative effect upon the body. These can include racing heart, sweating and at the worst strokes and heart attacks. I hate alarm clocks and much prefer to wake naturally (Doesnt happen very often here because fecking Butthead - KayEm's son - is an inconsiderate noisy bastard).

I remember once being woken by one and I was so pissed I threw it down the stairs. It was still ringing 20 minutes later after I had had a shower, so I kicked it around the room. I hate alarm clocks almost as much as I hate Sundays !



[Edited on 21-4-2004 by Pisky]

i dont know if they are bad for you or not, but if they are, what is the best(healthiest) way to wake up? i wake up to my alarm(which is annoying, let me assure you) but then get used to the monotony of the beeps and fall back asleep. advice?

My alarm clock makes the loudest, most annoying noise in the world.

Being waken up loudly and suddenly from sleep can cause really bad effects. I think it can put you into shock of some sort. I read an article about it a while back. Your supposed to be waken up gradually not suddenly.

I can tell you from my own experience...
I get up at 5.30 am every morning M-F. On the weekends, I will typically sleep until approximately 10 a.m.
Monday through Friday, I receive approximately five hours of sleep. It is likewise for the weekends. However, I "naturally" wake up on the weekends. I am awakened by an alarm clock on the weekdays.

I have also observed I am much more tired during the week than I am on the weekends, with the same amount of sleep. Keep in mind that I work all week long.

From my own experiences, I draw two conclusions. Firstly, that my body is "wired" to sleep in this manner. Try as I might, I can't quite manage to go to sleep at 11 pm to arise later. I get along perfectly well on five hours, and feel quite tired if I sleep anymore than that, even.

The second conclusion is that the alarm clock interrupts my sleeping patterns. I'm generally awoken during a deep sleep. I think that's really the biggest "threat" posed by an alarm clock. Hence, why there are "alarms" which are really just lights which become sequentially brighter, beginning about an hour before your "alarm" is set. Without noise, it uses light to stimulate your body, thus awaking you naturally.

It's an interesting thing to think about, though...and I generally think everyone has a biologically hardwire to arise or sleep in a certain way.

The human natural day cycle is a bit longer than 24 hours. It varies from human to human. Perhaps losing a certain number of minutes each day accounts for the general state of perpetual fatigue.

www.news.harvard.edu...

[Edited on 1-5-2004 by _alien]

I've never used an alarm clock. I rely on regulating my own body clock. Besides, I'm generally a heavy sleeper so most likely I would sleep thru the noise. I wouldn't have it any other way. I also hear it's healthier & something about the longevity effect.

The thing is that I'm sure most would love to sleep naturally for as long as they want but alarm clocks are a necessity because people work or go to school and do things late at night like watch TV or go on ATS. I just wish there were more hours in a day.

Originally posted by Pisky
...
I remember once being woken by one and I was so pissed I threw it down the stairs. It was still ringing 20 minutes later after I had had a shower, so I kicked it around the room. I hate alarm clocks almost as much as I hate Sundays !
[Edited on 21-4-2004 by Pisky]

I agree with Pisky, I'm bad for an alarm clock's health. No matter how much you scream at it, it won't be quiet, violence is the only alternative. I use the one on my phone now and I have to put it across the room on the tv.

I also have had the habit of either sleepwalking or barely waking up and turning my alarm off before it goes off. Either way, I never remember it. Though once I had a dream I was watching my clock and it didn't go off that morning.

They say the healtiest ammount of sleep to get is around 7-8 hours a night.
Sleeping more than that can have bad effect on your health, at long term.

Don't remember what the bad effects were tho.

Pisky

Funny... reminds me of that time when I was drunk, the ticking noise of the alarm clock was annoying me, so I tried to reach for it to put it more far from my bed, but in doing so, I threw a full glass of water off my desk, wetting everything in sight, so I was mad at my alarm clock and I threw it on the wall lol... Now it's dead, so I have to program my cell phone to wake me in the morning lol...

Originally posted by JustAnIllusionBeing waken up loudly and suddenly from sleep can cause really bad effects. I think it can put you into shock of some sort. I read an article about it a while back. Your supposed to be waken up gradually not suddenly.

Really ? I didn't knew that. Fun thing about my alarm (cellphone), it make like a little ticking noise, just before starting to ring (the actuall ringing alarm), so usually, on week days, I'm already awake before it starts to ring, so I can turn it off before it does when I'm quick enough.

[Edited on 4-6-2004 by m0rbid]

I just heard a report on a study that found strokes and heart attacks tend to occur more often in the mournings. They were saying that the blood vessels were less elastic in the mournings...also maybe because that dang alarm clock just went off.

re junglejake waking up slowly.

a few years back i heard about an alarm clock that was designed specifically to draw you slowly from deep REM sleep. Unlike the cd player radios that start quiet and get louder (i have one and it takes about ten seconds to go from dead quiet to call the glazier) this clock uses white noise or abient noise to wake you. apperantly they are pretty cool. i have no idea where you would find one but i'm sure you could google it and come up with some leads.

Originally posted by m0rbid
They say the healtiest ammount of sleep to get is around 7-8 hours a night.
Sleeping more than that can have bad effect on your health, at long term.

Not necessarily. If you need to catch up on lost sleep from only a 4 hour sleep or less, you need to sleep an additional 4 hours on one of the following nights. At least that's what i need to feel & look good.

Originally posted by they see ALL
i was wondering if alarm clocks were healthy...

They can cause severe hand injury when you start to bash the damn thing.

Nutzo

Originally posted by echosounder
re junglejake waking up slowly.

a few years back i heard about an alarm clock that was designed specifically to draw you slowly from deep REM sleep. Unlike the cd player radios that start quiet and get louder (i have one and it takes about ten seconds to go from dead quiet to call the glazier) this clock uses white noise or abient noise to wake you. apperantly they are pretty cool. i have no idea where you would find one but i'm sure you could google it and come up with some leads.

I also have the slow waking alarmclock. It comes on to a talk radio show as to slowly catch my attention and fully wake up. Always hated the ones that beep and such. Most of the time with my old alarmclock, I would shut it off without waking fully up and never remember it went off.

Sleep is a rather peciliur thing, and unfortunately there is a great lack of research in that area. Much of what you hear is speculation or is based on limited laboratory studies. I'm not a doctor, so don't take what I say for gospel. There are essentially two major parts of sleep: REM and non-REM. REM (Rapid Eye Movement) is "deep" sleep, and it's generally considered the most rejuvinating part. If you are woken during REM, you're going to feel bad, and you'll probably feel that way all day. That's an issue of using an alarm clock: it has no way of knowing what stage of sleep you're in. I have heard of an alarm clock that actually monitors your brain waves, and can determine what sleep mode you're in, and figure out when best to wake you - I'm sure it costs lots of money, and who really wants to wear patches on their heads all night?

A sleep cycle lasts around 1.5 hours, so it's good to schedule your wakup a factor of that after you fall asleep. You may actually feel better after 7.5 hours sleep than after 8. Of course, few people fall asleep within a couple minutes of laying down, so there's a good chance that you'll end up shorting yourself by 30 minutes, which could result in your alarm clock going off during REM. So, basically, the best option is to force youself to follow a daily ritual - go to sleep at the same time every night, and hopefully wake up without an alarm clock. That way you are guaranteed to wake up during the "right" time in your sleep cycle.

Recently I have been doing some research into polyphasic sleep, an area that has only started to gain academic attention in the last decade or so. Humans in general are monophasic, meaning we sleep once a day, for an extended period. We are the exception in nature. Most animals, spare a few other mammals and some birds, sleep several times throughout the day (i.e. are polyphasic). Scientists have set out to determine why we are monophasic, and what advantages that could hold. Perhaps, in this round-the-clock world, polyphasic sleep schedules would be more benificial? There are legends concerning some of the great thinkers, such as Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Edison, and even Winston Churchill, saying that they followed polyphasic schedules. Allegedly, da Vinci only slep 1.5 hours a day - 15 minutes at a time, 6 times a day. Several experiments have tried to duplicate this feat, some showing remarkable success. There is no set theory as to why this could work, but the general consensus is that since you are awake less at a time, you need less sleep to recover. I have tried to implement something like this the last week, but it is very difficult to transition. I've actually put my experiment on hold for a couple days, so I can do some more research and come up with a plan that should be easier to follow.

If we can sleep like this while leading perfectly healthy lives, imagine the implications it could hold! Several hours extra awake time per day! Shift workers wouldn't be falling asleep on the job, as long as they got their naps every four hours. Those who have tried a plan like this say that after a couple weeks, they don't need an alarm clock, and wake up naturally 20-30 minutes after falling asleep. Certainly a plan like this isn't for everyone, as there can be some serious social implications to having to sleep every four hours.

The best reference I've found for polyphasic sleep is Why We Nap: Evolution, Chronobiology, and Functions of Polyphasic and Ultrashort Sleep (Birkhauser Boston, 1992), edited by Claudio Stampi.

Sorry for rambling...just something that I've found much interest in lately.

One thing I should note: If you find youself unable to get a decent night's sleep, and get tired in the afternoon, don't be afraid to take a nap (as long as you won't get fired for it!). The general consensus among sleep researchers is that a short (20-30 minute) nap won't effect your nightly sleep, and it can have some amazing effects.

[Edited on 6/5/2004 by PurdueNuc]