Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Snooze Button Addiction

I have love-hate relationship with my snooze button.  This is a relatively new problem for me. I'm not your typical snoozer.  For years I've gotten up when the alarm clock went off.  Not now.

When the problem first began, I compensated.  I was routinely hitting snooze, and even sometimes turning off the alarm, and falling back asleep. NOT GOOD.  I compensated by setting a 2nd alarm.  Right now, for the summer, the first one goes off at 6:20, the second one goes off at 6:30.

Well the problem is that I am hitting the snooze button for both alarms MANY, MANY times. This morning, I finally crawled out of bed around 7:00am, which was way late for our morning routine and getting me to work by 8:00 or 8:15.  I am not sure what I am going to do when school starts back and I have to get up an hour and 15 minutes earlier and LEAVE the house at 6:40. 

I use my iPhone for my alarm clock.  There is an app (also worked for iPod Touch) that I used for a while called "sleep cycle" that actually worked fairly well.  You set an alarm time, and then literally put your phone in bed with you.  The program uses the iPhone's motion sensor, and senses your movements.  If you start moving (naturally waking) during the 30 minutes before your alarm time,  the alarm would go ahead and go off.  If you were dead to the world, and didn't move at all, the alarm goes off at your alarm time. 

When the app worked, the whole concept worked wonderfully for me.  Using my body's natural waking made me feel refreshed and more rested.  However -- there was a problem.  If I used my phone at all after setting the alarm, the alarm turned off.  So, if I get a middle of the night phone call or text (this happens when you have a college student), and I took the call, or read the text, I had to go back through the motions of setting the alarm.  In my partially asleep state, I forgot to do that.

Anyway -- any suggestions for breaking my snooze addiction would be most appreciated.  Please note that the suggestion "get more sleep" or "go to bed earlier" is not an option. 

1 comment:

  1. Go to bed earlier and get more sleep. ;)

    I had that app, but I never got to use it. I shall brainstorm later on. Maybe you should get two phones. :)

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