(Note: If you’ve been following me on Facebook, then you might know that I’ve started a 30-day trial of waking up at 6am every morning. I’ve been running a separate mini-blog about it, which you can find at http://thirtydaytrials.tumblr.com. I was originally going to put this post there, but it started getting so geeky (and awesome) that I figured I’d put it here instead.)
The science of sleep has always fascinated me, and so has the science of waking up. Throughout my school years, I struggled with maintaining a steady sleep schedule. Now that I have a greater degree of control over my life, I figured it was finally time to instill some habit. The overwhelming chorus I’ve noticed in the personal development world is that “you change your habits by changing your environment to support your new habit.” Since I’m such a geek and a gadget freak, I figured I’d play to my strengths when applying that mentality =)
Based on the initial response to the first few days of my trial (it’s been either “you’re crazy” or “you’re awesome, tell me more”), I thought you might benefit from seeing the method behind my madness. So without further ado, here are the geeky toys tools I’ve been using to wake up early every morning.
1. Home Automation
Seriously, this was a no-brainer. If you’ve read just the first few paragraphs of my about page, you know that my very first home automation project was rigging up a system to get my snoozaholic roommate out of bed. So it was only too easy to apply the same system to myself.
(It’s a pretty hilarious story – click here if you haven’t seen it yet)
This is the simplest part – I just scheduled the lights in my bedroom to automatically turn on at 6:10. (Read on for why it’s not at 6:00 sharp.)
Investment: $0, since I already have the infrastructure set up. Anywhere between $15 (X10) and $50+ (Insteon) for the automated light switch, and around $99 for the scheduler/controller.
2. Philips Wake-Up Light
This is a pretty nifty alarm clock. Basically, about a half hour before the alarm goes off, a lamp gradually turns on to simulate the sun rising. This is extra-helpful as the days get shorter and the mornings colder. I don’t know about you, but it’s awfully hard to get out of bed when it’s pitch black and freezing cold.
So at about 5:30, my body starts getting “sunlight”, which means that it has enough time to start whatever biochemical wake-up sequence it needs so that I can be alert when the alarm goes off. (And I wouldn’t really call it an alarm either, it’s more like a crescendo of singing bowls).
Does it work? At first I was skeptical. But trust me – it’s made waking up before the sun comes up SO much easier.
Not convinced? This is a pretty neat video where they use the simulated sunrise to trick a rooster to start crowing well before the sun comes up.
Investment: $89.99 (pretty steep for an alarm clock, I know… but I happened to have $75 in Amazon gift cards to subsidize it.)
Get it here: Philips Wake-Up Light (Amazon)
Or get its bigger, badder brother, which also helps you fall asleep ($169.99): Philips Wake-Up Light Plus (Amazon)
3. WakeMate
This is by far the geekiest part of this three-part suite, and my favorite.
The Wakemate is a Bluetooth-enabled wristband equipped with an accelerometer that you wear to sleep. As you sleep, it keeps track of your movements, so it knows whether you are in a deep sleep cycle (very little movement) or light (more movement).
And that’s where the magic begins. With that information, it wakes you up anywhere within a 20-minute range where it senses you coming into a light sleep stage. This is awesome because it’s completely eliminated those rough mornings where no amount of caffeine can get me out of zombie-mode.
Even more importantly, the Wakemate doubles as a data-collection device. At the end of each night, it uploads the sleep data via your smartphone to its “Wakelytics” center, where you can actually chart your sleep. And if you’re a nerd like me, you can tag your nights so that later you can export the data and run statistical tests to see what factors in your day positively or negatively impact your sleep, and by how much. (Oh yes, I’m loving it.)
Investment: $59.99. Requires a smartphone (works with iOS, Android and Blackberry; syncs with a free app). Worth every penny, in my opinion.
Get it here: WakeMate.com
Putting the system together
So how do I use these tools in tandem to make waking up at 6am easier?
Wakemate – I set the alarm to go off between 5:50 and 6:10, so that on average, I’m waking up at around 6.
Philips Wake-Up Light - I set the alarm to go off at 6 (and turn the sound off) so that the light starts coming on at 5:30, well ahead of the actual alarm time.
Home Automation – The room lights come on at full power at 6:10, to further nudge me out if I’m not already up.
This is actually a really simple system that requires very little setup. That’s why I wanted to share it with you, so you can start hacking your own sleep =)
Do you have any tricks you use for hacking your sleep, or any other area of your life? Share them below in the comments!
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