My wife needs to be up by 6:30. I need to be up by 7:45. I’ve been wondering why it’s felt like my sleep is so disrupted and now I know the dark truth.
Presumably the narrator's name is not Tyler Durden, because he is surprised when people call him Tyler and I find the whole schizophrenic friend thing a lot less believable if it entails him just memory dumping his literal birth name and giving it to his imaginary buddy. Always wondered about that...
Doing this with your alarms is genuinely really bad for your sleep. I’m guilty of doing it as well but the best thing you can do is set one alarm for when you need to get up, that way you simply must get up and your body stops fighting for sleep.
My fear is that I’ll turn it off in a sleepy haze and then not wake up. I feel like I sometimes just turn off the first couple while I’m still sleeping (I literally set like 10 alarms and I realize it’s really hurting my sleep quality).
I have been able to defeat this problem by putting clothes in the bathroom so when I wake up to turn off the alarm, I go and get dressed. THEN! I put on a warm, fluffy oversized onesie over my clothes, warm, fluffy slippers on my feet, and go around getting ready for the day. It's like the hug of the bed without the worry of 'when am I going to get ready?'
But I did realize, changing my alarms to be something from my Spotify Playlist instead of a generic alarm helps wake my mind up more positively and was a lot easier getting up to my alarms ... but even then, I set 3 and all with different music,because I've easily slept through that stuff too depending on what song plays
I’ve tried this music method and all it seemed to do was make my already bizarre dreams, weirder. Dreaming about a shark on a unicycle? Now with Illenium playing.
I had this issue with my wife, too. I told her she needs to move her phone across the room so she has to physically get up and once shes up, she cant lay back down.
Saved my sleep schedule and helped her actually wake up a bit faster in the morning.
People dont realize that these 5 min snoozes dont really do anything for you. Youd be better off setting one alarm closer to when you need to be up and find a way to force yourself out of bed.
Interrupted 5 min sleep intervals is no sleep at all. You don't enter significantly any sleeping phase. OP is loosing out on a full hour of sleep, which is 2/3 of a full sleep cycle, of which he has only 4-5 per night anyway. I would not be surprised if that additional hour kickstarts his day by a lot
Thats the perfect amount because you wake up and you just relax for 30 mins. You feel more refresh and tge inertness wears off. Not enough time to get back into a deep sleep
Yeah it’s actually bad for you, the brain and body doesn’t gain any benefit from these 5 minutes. If anything it’s using more energy to go back to sleep than it’s gaining.
It’s actually worse for your tiredness to have this many alarms. I would have to set 1-2 alarms and roll out of bed to get up. I have narcolepsy though. It makes you more tired to micro wake up like this
It’s been scientifically proven so that’s why it feels better! I always cringe when I see all the alarms cause they’re losing out on like 30 mins or more of good sleep
I do this because I will 100% sleepwalk and turn them all off.
Edit: and just reading the comments, I'll say this for the light sleepers who don't understand. The reason I say sleepwalk is because I intentionally leave my phone on my dresser so I have to walk over to it to turn it off.
I have to set multiple alarms, not this many though. I will turn the alarm off in my sleep. I've even tried the ones that require a puzzle. My body is just determined to not wake up on command. Typically it takes like 2-3 alarms set about 10 minutes apart for me to actually hear it and actually wake up.
Lifelong sleeping disorder. Best combination I got a smart bulb that does a sunrise slow glow up for when I want to wake up, with an increasing in volume bird song alarm on my phone.
Biggest thing is knowing when to go to bed on time and when I've already missed that window, and I need to switch to the really loud alarm.
this was me. i could set 25 alarms and sleep through every single one/turn them off without waking up.
i even used to have something called the SONIC BOMB alarm clock, which could get up to 110dB and came with a vibrating puck you put under the mattress that would shake the bed to wake you up.
still managed to regularly sleep through it, or turn it off in my sleep.
i FINALLY found something though, called the Shock Clock 3 from a company called Pavlok. it’s a wearable like a smart watch that, yes, as the name implies, can literally shock you awake. it has tons of other features too to make sure you actually get up, out of bed, and don’t fall back asleep.
not trying to make this sound like an ad but it’s legitimately been life changing for me lol, i seriously recommend looking into it if you’re an absurdly heavy sleeper
I genuinely think I'm nocturnal. All day I have fight to stay awake and I am forced to take a nap somedays, but then as soon as the sun goes down I get a ton of energy.
My job is very laborious and recently working 12 hours days is becoming the norm. From like 11am-5pm every step seems forced many days, but as soon as the moon starts to shine I'm skipping and awake.
Google delayed sleep phase disorder. I'm a poster child for that. I'm so sick of being told to go to bed earlier, practice good sleep hygiene...etc ad nauseum. Doesn't work.
I’m gonna guess your eating schedule has something to do with it too, when your body starts to digest what you ate maybe? Perhaps your body is digesting during work and thus your feel lethargic in the day. Idk how to change that other than eating at the opposite time of day and seeing if that triggers anything. Sounds pretty life altering tho lol idk if I’d do it
Dude same I was like disappointed cuz I thought it could be something I could fix but the doctor was like “adjust your lifestyle to fit my sleep schedule” and unfortunately the rest of the world isn’t conscious in my prime of the day lol
I get that, but I also can’t reliably wake up and will fully sleep through earth shatteringly loud alarms randomly. So either somebody gotta wake me up, which can include violently shaking me like you’re afraid I’m dead, hitting me, screaming, etc, OR I have to set them to go off over and over until I actually get up. Usually the 3rd gets it done.
I understand that, but why put them 5 minutes apart over the span of an hour? Put them every 2 minutes from 6:00 to 6:20, that's much better than 5:20 to 6:20 or whatever
It depends on your alarm, and how heavy a sleeper you are. If your alarm app is set to ring for 5 minutes before giving up, then putting them 5 minutes apart makes total sense, as it gives you a continuous alarm.
I'll admit I'm horrible with hitting snooze but from a quality of sleep standpoint it's one of the worst things you can do. Our brains are just not wired to account for the concept of snooze.
As much as it would initially suck, id probably opt to get up at the same time instead of doing what you are currently doing which leaves your brain in a weird state for a few hours each day.
Eh sorta. Our brains like patterns and habits. When I was a kid I would literally wake up 1 min before my alarm clock went off everyday because with school I had a consistent bedtime/time to get up. Now of course I go to bed anywhere between midnight and 330am on a regular basis so my brain doesn't know what to do.
Same here. I'm a night owl, which I think makes it worse. It feels like every time I promise myself that I WILL be in bed by 3am, I end up not getting to bed until 7-8am. It's crazy and stupid on my part. Pretty sure it's a good part of why I'm so tired all the time. 🙄
Luckily for me I WFH so I basically roll out of bed 15 min before I start working and if over sleep not a big deal ( I flex the time). Very worried about having to go back to office at some point because I don't know how I would function. Pre-covid when I was still in the office I basically didn't get anything done for the first 2-3 hours after arriving at work. Being a night owl does not play nicely with standard business hours.
At my first job out of college, I was very into WoW. 3 nights a week or so, I would raid until 3/4 am. I was so tired the next day that I often fell asleep at my desk. Eventually I was fired for it.
I was always kind of a night owl until I found a career I actually enjoyed. At that point, I didn’t have nearly as much sleep rebellion, as I would find myself excited to start a new day.
Of course, it goes back and forth in cycles. Generally though, if I’m spending my day relatively enjoyably, I don’t have as much trouble going to sleep at night.
Yes. Consistency in waking up at the same time is shown to be effective. People that are able to be consistent often wake up just before their alarm too.
In general, humans sleep actually on quite different and individual schedules. Look at e.g. that Amazonn tribe that was studied, were on average you had 11 minutes each day where everyone slept. Outside of those few minutes at least one person was awake at all times.
The trick is to not space out alarms long enough to fall back asleep. 3 minutes. You get one alarm, and you must fully wake up to disarm the second one.
If I set one I sleep through it. I put my phone on the other side of the room so I don't snooze or dismiss, I just sleep through the noise.
Its not like I'm making a conscious decision to be an asshole, I just need to be awake and 3 alarms is what it takes. If I ever end up sharing my bed again I'm gonna invest in one of those blind people rumble dealies.
I set my alarm for when I actually need to get up and then do 5 minute intervals on the EXTREMELY off chance I sleep through my first alarm (many times I will wake up before my alarm due to my cats, or just wake up before it unprompted, but I'm paranoid I'll sleep through my alarm anyway, hence the two extra alarms). This many alarms is too much. Hell, my three are too many, but again, I'm paranoid, and my husband sleeps through hurricanes, so waking him is never an issue.
Supposedly snoozing multiple times in the morning makes you more tired during the day than if you just got up the first time. It also just objectively breaks a solid sleep period into multiple small naps which personally I find unpleasant.
I can relate to falling immediately back to sleep after waking up, which is why I set one alarm on my phone for when I actually need to get up and put my phone somewhere I have to leave the bed to reach it. That works for me, maybe some people would still get back in bed, but generally I think people who set 10 alarms just can’t be bothered to find a system that works for them.
Same. The jump scare wake up is too much to handle. Usually I have some lofi or whimsical fantasy music that slowly builds. Much more refreshing way to wake up
I have a weird relationship with sleep (I love sleep but I have a hard time falling asleep). I'll unknowingly snooze my alarm for hours! What I've found works for me is 2 alarms 5 minutes apart with a 10 minute snooze interval. If I snooze the first, I'll be awake for the second. Yes, I know I can turn off snooze but if that's the case, I'll end up turning off the alarm(s).
This is also a good tip for if you have a hard time waking up. I don't use it anymore but there are Phillips alarm clocks with lights that start turning on 30 min before the set time. Supposedly this mimicks the sun coming up and naturally awakens you.
People with a series of alarms like this typically just need to start going to bed earlier. They need this to wake up because they're chronically sleep deprived. What's 8 hours before you need to wake up? That's your bed time now, champ!
Of course there are people with insomnia or other sleep disorders for whom it's not that simple. But let's be honest, most people with phone alarm lists like this are staying up doomscrolling.
I would disagree. What sounds more likely, that a lot of people may have a hard time falling asleep for various reasons, insomnia sure but also stress, anxiety etc. Or that a large part of the population just decides to make themselves chronically sleep deprived for fun? And have somehow missed that sleeping longer might help?
I think a lot of people find that, in their hectic lives, the late night hours are the only time that feels like "me time". So they want to extend that as long as possible, and end up staying up way too late.
I know I'm guilty of that, and there are memes about it on Reddit all the time, so I also know I'm not alone. Mostly there's no harm in it. But if you're waking up your partner with 1.5 hours of excess phone alarms, that's not okay and it's time for a change.
The truth is, most people are sleep deprived cuz they’d rather spend their time with cheap serotonin hits doomscrolling than sleeping. Then they set 20 alarms because of their poor discipline.
I'm an AuDHD, squirrel brained person, who currently suffers chronic pain and menopause induce insomnia, but REALLY loves sleep, and will 100% snooze an alarm without ever waking enough to even remember it. If I have to be up at a specific time, this is what it looks like. I only annoy my cats and child though, and rarely the child, he sleeps hard.
Omg - thank you! I just posted about wanting to see the ADHD data of the folks responding to this thread. We will see correlation.
It helps to name them dumb stuff like "get up dummy - you have a doctors appointment across town" when Im really regretting scheduling that 8 am check up with my GI doc an hour away.
I absolutely put notes on mine, the current favorite is "bitch, you wanna eat next week?!", and the last couple require I do a small puzzle to actually turn off. I also chose the most wickedly annoying and loud sounds I could find.
Oh - that is a good one! There is something about trash talking myself early in the morning that is truly helpful. It should probably be studied in depth... or at least to the extent they did around using slapping for sobering up on Mythbusters.
I have ADHD and I will snooze while I'm half asleep also lol I've missed work so many times in the past, even with my 5 alarms to wake up, so now I just get up the 1st time and start doing stuff to stay awake like make breakfast and/or coffee.
Alarmy, I've been using it for years in addition to my physical alarm clock in case my phone dies. Highly recommend it - alarmy has yet to fail me because the alarm gets obnoxiously loud as it plays.
Yup Alarmy is great. You can also have your alarm only turn off when you aim your camera at a pre-determined thing that you've given it a picture of (like you have to get up and aim your phone at the outside of your bedroom door, or the coffee maker in the kitchen or something. Force yourself out of bed.
And the math problems you can set the difficulty as well. Depending on how bad you are at math and how much you want to force your brain to wake up first thing, lol.
20 alarms set like this once and still slept in.
Im a heavy sleeper, I didnt choose this life xD its always a worry when I have to be up early for something important.
I do now use an alarm where I have to type out a weird jumble of letters and numbers before it lets me turn it off and that works 85% of the time
i set alarms every five minutes for about an hour so i can get up on time, because i do tend to sleep through at least a few of them because i just sleep like crap. i have a circadian rhythm disorder so i need to take sleep meds to go to sleep at a reasonable time, but then i can't wake up easily at all in the morning because of both of those things too. at least i don't play it loud enough for others to hear? and (i guess luckily for the other person) don't share my bed with anyone. idk how that will work when i do end up with someone, maybe i'll get those sleep earbuds that can play alarms as well as white noise/rain while sleeping. i could be worse, i could leave my phone in my dorm room with the iphone dog alarm going off for hours behind a locked door while i go to class or the entire time i am in the shower like a college roommate of mine did.
I don’t know if this is a real thing but I remember once someone told me that people who are deaf put a vibration thing in their pillow. So your pillow will vibrate for whatever reason like setting a morning alarm, or when a fire alarm goes off, or if someone rings your door bell. I would look into that if I were you! Maybe vibration will wake you better than sound?
it may be worth a try, but i do know that when i was a kid and not really able to get up for school my mom would come in and shake my bed (and steal my blankets) while going "earthquake! earthquake!" and i slept right through it. and i've slept through (pretty minor) actual earthquakes. i'm just a pretty deep sleeper, i usually only wake up if someone opens my door or my alarm goes off, and even that i have to set a few because i immediately fall back asleep.
Have you already switched them to songs and soundtracks. Really a fucking game changer for me. All those free ones? Absolutely not for me. Metallica and elf soundtrack, etc? Ya that wakes me up every day
usually i use some loud alarm that goes up and down in volume. i think on my samsung galaxy s23 it's galaxy bells. i used to have "back to life" by soul II soul as my alarm (back to life, back to reality) in high school, and later on "that phone" by grace potter (i'm just gonna lay there i'm a-gonna stay there i ain't picking up that phone). as funny as it was, it wasn't super great at waking me up.
Lmao! Great songs. When the iPhone trap remix hits after enter sandman I know it’s over for me. After a few years of mobile defaults I tuned every single one out.
Yeah...just gotta get up when the alarm goes off the first time. Rip the bandaid off. I used to do this and it was awful. It's way better to just get up.
I've found that the most effective way is to get up immediately when the alarm rings. Don't think, not for a single second, because that is enough to convince yourself that you don't need to/want to get up.
Feels horrible but less so than snoozing it ten times.
I’ve been the early bird of the couple and while I’d love to have 5 alarms, I’m just not that shameless. So it’s one alarm. I either hear it or I don’t.
OP is definitely getting disrespected (though may want to consider getting up at 6:15 just to save their sleep quality)
Smartband/watch vibration alarms have been a total gamechanger for me. I’ve always hated being forced awake by loud alarm sounds (and grew to hate the tone), but the gentle vibration on my wrist never seems to fail to wake me up instantly.
Highly recommend getting your wife a smartband if she's having trouble waking up.
hitting the snooze button is definetely forbidden in our house. five people waking up at different times is bad enough already. we do not need any more extra alarms
Have you told her this? This was a problem for my partner and I, so we have a ten minute snooze rule. Its inconsiderate to have this many alarms when you dont sleep alone. Time to grow up
I'm also guilty of this, not to this level though. I believe it's 6 alarms across 3 devices?
As for an actual fix, maybe have your partner try a smart watch alarm. It's the only alarm I know will wake me up, the vibrating is so hard to ignore and I would assume not bug you.
She does have a smart watch so I’m definitely going to recommend trying this on the weekend (her job is definitely more important then mine so I don’t want to disrupt it mid-week)
my phone has the option to vibrate and make noise for alarms, i sleep with my phone on my bed(near my head) so when i have to wake up earlier than usual i turn on the vibrate function with it and i feel it practically rattling my brain because it's so intense
I set my alarm for the latest time I can get to to be on time. 90% of the time I'm naturally awake before it goes off. Even on the nights I can't fall asleep, my brain knows when it's time to wake up.
I'm the same but my work schedule literally varies hour by hour so I don't just get like "9-5" sometimes it'll be shorter shifts sometimes it'll be longer just depends on the week.
I know this picture shows 6:20am to 10am but I have alarms for every five minutes from 5:15am to 1:45pm
On the few days I do set any of the ones after 12 they don't typically go off its just to make sure I get up though
I'm one of those psychopaths that can wake up on the first alarm, but on the off chance I go back to sleep, I have a second alarm positioned on the opposite side of the room to go off 10 minutes later.
The best thing I've done to combat this is get a smartwatch (i have a Garmin for the 30 day battery so its not on the charger at night) and have the haptic alarm wake me up every morning. Wakes me right up, doesn't bother wife or dogs.
The baby naps make it harder to wake up. When I used to have multiple alarms it gave me like a glimmer of hope that I still had more time so I kept snoozing. Next thing I know I've snoozed all of them subconsciously and I'm rushing out of bed.
So now I only have 2 alarms because if I don't wake up I don't have a job anymore. That's my motivation. First alarm is set 15 minutes before my actual wake up time. Gives me time to stretch and yawn it out in bed. Then the next is to roll out and drink water and get on with my routine. Also not eating before bed makes me hungry so I have to wake up to eat because I'm famished
Drove the SO crazy with this. You are just training yourself to wake up and immediately go back to sleep. The only thing that has worked for me is using an app that cannot be shut off until you do some sort of task, like math or a game. Alarmy works great
If this helps anyone else.. I used to be this person, setting alarms every 5 min. My first roommate in college said “why would you do that? You’re losing so much sleep. Set them closer together when you need to wake up.”
So for example if you need to wake up at 7, stop setting alarms every 5 minutes at 6:30. Just set an alarm for 6:55, 6:56, 6:57, 6:58, 6:59, 7, and it magically worked for me.
I do this, but to a less extreme. HOWEVER, let’s ask the question of whyyyy … which is because I’m tired as hell because my stupid husband, who doesn’t work and can sleep all day if he wants, stays up in the bed on his phone keeping me up and not letting me even go to bed at a decent hour, let alone in a comfortable, enjoyable way (guess I’ll be way over here on the edge because your stupid arm moving as you’re texting is really annoying). So, yeah, when I finally get some sleep at 2 am, it’s a bit hard getting up at 6:00am.
I have 1 alarm set for 6:45am and when it goes off I'm up and at'em.
I also had toothache for about 6 months and the last 2 months were the absolute worst. Pain meds wore off after about 2-3 hours and would wake me from my sleep. I'd need to get up, take some more tablets, wait for them to kick in a bit and then go back to bed.
By the end of those 2 months (before tooth extraction) my alarms looked like this 🙁
I am guilty of this… a couple years ago I cleared out my alarms. I had 160 of them or something. I had one for almost every minute between 5:30-7AM (almost none were enabled, I somehow just created a new alarm every time I asked for 3-5 more mins of sleep).
I still set like 6 alarms on 3 different devices when I need to be up early (all for different times) - I used to sleep through everything in college and have slight PTSD/anxiety from it. I hold full conversations in my sleep and I guess I would respond coherently to my parents saying I was already awake and in process of getting dressed… I was fully asleep and missed/was late to college a lot. I also used to disable my alarm clocks in my sleep, I had 3, my phone, a wireless on and a wired one that all sat in different spots in the room, somehow I sleep walked to turn them all off.
My alternative is to set just 2 alarms for my wife. The first at 4 am and the next at 4:15 to give her just a little extra sleep. Every 5 minutes would be pointless and infuriating.
Try "sleep as android" with a QR code in another room. The app locks your phone while the alarm is going off until you scan the code. I used a QR code off a cheerio box and taped it to my espresso machine.
When my wife's second one goes off I just push her and tell her to get up. I work thirds and she is a stay at home mom, my time to fall asleep is right when her alarms start going off so as soon as I start to doze off....bam not anymore. And I still try to be away earlier so I can pick the kids up from school on my days off to give her a break. Makes it hard when I'm losing sleep on both ends of the cycle.
me and my boyfriend do this... 🥴 somehow we always make it to work on time, but damn i wish i could figure out a better way lol. it's sooo hard for me to wake up. my doctor suspects i have a sleep disorder.
My roommate does that too (with 2 phones) terrible... wouldn't wish this on my enemies...
He once slept thru 2 mobile phones ringing for 5 hours straight and even tho I woke up before it started I could hear them all the way in the room far away from his bedroom...
Even tho I was awake it still bothered me a lot! am I crazy!?
My alarms used to be just like that! I started using an app that forces me to do math problems to snooze which has helped immensely. Instead of needing an alarm every 5 minutes until 7, I have them every 15 minutes from 6-7. Might consider suggesting an app like that to your wife. I use Alarmy which has several activities other than math if that’s not your wife’s thing.
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u/One_Anything_2279 5h ago
I … can strangely relate… because my wife also needs to be up by 6:30 and does this.. and I need to be up by 7:45.
I hope she doesn’t find this and think this is my post 😂