How To Wake Up Without An Alarm And Why You Should

Every day you get up and get underway and most people do it with the help of an alarm. But apparently that’s not really healthy. Myriam Juda, an adjunct professor in the Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Laboratory at Simon Fraser University, says we are interrupting our natural sleep cycles with those alarms. Waking up naturally is better for our brains, bodies, and for getting to bed at a good time the next night.

The trouble is that work and school dictate a lot about how we structure our days, which normally includes when we are able to head to bed, and when we have to wake up. Humans need approximately eight hours of sleep each night but according to Myriam most of us are not getting that amount, especially during workdays. “Most of us are waking up with an alarm clock so we are interrupting natural sleep cycles,” she told CBC.

But with more people working from home, we can use reclaimed commute time to better align our biological clocks with our social obligations, and reap the health and productivity benefits. Juda says that can help with our circadian rhythm, by bringing us in line with the sun. “Our circadian rhythms are synchronized to the light/dark cycle of the sun. They’re not synchronized to our work schedule or the time on our watch,” says Juda. “It’s something that we just really underestimate.”

The trouble would be trying to find your natural rhythm. Juda says that because so many people are sleep deprived from the workweek and sleep longer on the weekend to catch-up, they may not even know what their natural sleep cycle is anymore.

Keeping track of your sleep on weekends or on vacations when you’re getting a full night’s sleep, and when you’re not using an alarm or drinking alcohol (which interferes with sleep) can start to give you an idea of how much sleep your body naturally needs and when you naturally wake up and get sleepy.

The reason we should all want to be on a more “natural” sleep cycle is that it has a multitude of health benefits. “People are just not aware of how light affects our health and well-being,” says Juda. According to sleep expert Till Roenneberg, “the practice of going to sleep and waking up at ‘unnatural’ times could be the most prevalent high-risk behaviour in modern society.”

For certain groups of people like shift workers and those with circadian rhythm disorders, using light to train their circadian clocks onto a better schedule may be unrealistic, but for the rest of us Juda has some recommendations.

1. Try and get two hours of outdoor light exposure every day, even if it’s cloudy. Outdoor light is hundreds of times more intense than light in a bright indoor space.
2. Morning light is better. Juda recommends getting outside within one or two hours of your natural wake up time and says that when it comes to regulating your circadian clock, 10 minutes of morning light is like the equivalent of four, five, or six hours of afternoon light.

   If you’re not getting enough sleep during the work week she says to try and get as much outdoor morning light exposure as possible. “Have your coffee on the balcony… even just 5-10 minutes can really have a very strong impact, especially if you do it on a daily basis.”

   Morning light is particularly beneficial for night owls, who often miss out on morning light by sleeping in. This ends up delaying their circadian clock even more, says Juda, and becomes a self-perpetuating cycle. This is why it’s easier to train yourself to sleep in than to get up early.

   Research has even shown that people who live in the western part of a time zone, and experience sunrise and sunset at a later clock time than those who live in the eastern part of a time zone, are more likely to be sleep deprived and get, on average, 19 minutes less sleep per night.

3. If it’s still dark out right after you wake up, Juda says to use a sunlight lamp. This will not only help you get up earlier, but make you sleepy earlier in the evening.
4. Use warm-toned lights indoors and start dimming them three hours before bed. Juda says our bodies are used to getting bright white or blue light during the day and warm light in the evening. Darkness cues our body to start producing melatonin, the hormone that makes us sleepy and evening light exposure interferes with that process. Smart lights can be programmed to dim naturally and their colour temperature can be adjusted. LED bulbs also come in a variety of light temperatures.
5. For her part, Juda uses a night light in the bathroom, where lights are often bright and white. This is good for avoiding light exposure in the middle of the night, but pre-bed routine.
6. Use your blinds and curtains strategically. Juda uses blinds to block out the late evening light for her kids’ bedtime, but pulls them up once it’s dark so that they will be exposed to morning light. Experiment and see what works best for you. Motorized blinds can be set to timers, and if that’s not an option, research has shown that sunrise-simulating alarm clocks can help regulate your circadian clock.
7. Be aware that daylight savings time moves clocks forward from March to November, exposing us to light later into the evening.

Though using light to help better align our biological and social time is always an option, it might be a good time for those afforded the ability to work from home to try and implement now.

Source: https://bit.ly/3IUKsqW