Waking on sunshine

I'm not a morning person. This fact can be deduced from the fact that the thought of having to get up before 10am unfailingly induces moans and sighs from me. (You'd think that the fact that I have to get up before 10am four to five times a week would reduce the amount of moaning, but in fact it just makes me difficult to live with.)

I'm also quite sensitive to sound when I'm asleep, especially in the morning, which means that I can hit the snooze button on my alarm clock within a second of it going off, even if I've hidden it behind the big book on my bedside table. And, often as not, I'll fall back asleep again with no memory of having done so. When I do finally manage to open my eyes and haul myself out of bed I'm usually rather groggy and don't feel fully alert until a number of hours later.

Last week, I decided enough was enough. Being permanently tired and grumpy in the winter doesn't exactly help my happiness levels, and I decided there must be a Better Way. There is.

My new alarm clock is a Lumie sunrise alarm clock — for 30 minutes before the buzzer goes off, the bulb gradually builds from nothing to full brightness, allowing your sleep to get lighter and lighter before you are finally woken up.

I've only tested it on three mornings so far, but by gorrah, it seems to work. It doesn't make me less tired overall, but I'm certainly a hell of a lot more awake in the mornings. I can even get up the first time the alarm goes off! I never thought I'd spend £40 on an alarm clock, but I think (I hope) this is going to make so much difference to my state of mind in the mornings that it'll be worth it.

It has a "sunset" function for night time as well, which is less successful from my point of view since I like to sleep in complete darkness. It is quite good for winding down watching television in bed, or just talking, but more often I'm reading and I've found the light dims a little too quickly for comfort. Still, the brightness can always be manually adjusted (though you'd need to do it every five minutes, but let's not get into that.)

I love my new alarm clock. I should have got one years ago.