

Set an alarm to go off before the latest time you want to wake up.

Make the alarm really quiet radio or music.

Set a second alarm to go off at the latest time you want to wake up.

This is your regular alarm that will wake you up no matter what.

Waking up abruptly by the sound of an alarm clock is an inherently unnatural thing to do. Sometimes you can wake up after 8 hours and feel like crap. Other times, you can wake up after 6 hours and feel completely rested. The problem lies in what you're doing when you're suddenly woken up from your slumber.I use a very simple, safe, and free (as in beer) system that I think works quite well and is more natural than suddenly waking up to a buzzer. I don't drink coffee. I don't drink soda/pop/cola (regularly). I don't need to use any sort of caffeine to stay awake.I am not a doctor (yet) and while I'm an expert, it's not in sleep. What I can say is that this has worked for me for the past 7 years and throughout university. Sleep is not just a single thing that happens to you at night. There are 5 stages of sleep and over the course of a night's sleep, you cycle through these stages, with each sleep cycle taking approximately 90 minutes. Stages 1 and 2 are considered "light" sleep, while stages 3 and 4 are "deep" sleep. The 5th stage is REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, which is when you dream. When you wake up during "light" sleep, you wake up rested and feeling good. Conversely, when you wake up during "deep" sleep, you feel groggy and are more tempted to hit the snooze button.The traditional alarm clock has a set time to wake you up, but you could be in any stage of sleep when that happens. Nature did not intend for us to wake up during "deep" sleep. This guy claims to sleep in 90 minute intervals to attempt to wake up during "light" sleep. The problem with this is that 90 minutes is not a hard cut rule – every person's sleep cycle is different. Further, it's not like a person's sleep cycle is constant – it varies in length through the night and is affected by things like exercise, alcohol, and drugs. Even more, there's no guarantee that you'll fall asleep right away, so it's hard to set the alarm to wake you up in multiples of 90 minutes from when you think you'll fall asleep. Plus, if you wake up during the middle of the night, that'll kill this system. The end result is that you can still be woken up during "deep" sleep.There are commercial products that attempt to measure your EEG and wake you up during "light" sleep. One product that I've seen, SleepSmart , makes you wear a headband or something around your head while you sleep. SleepTracker is a watch that claims to be able to read your brain's EEG from your wrist. The downside of course, is that they're expensive, you have to wear them (so they can be lost or fall off at night and of course, you will be laughed at by your friends and loved ones), and worst of all, if they measure incorrectly, you can be woken up at the wrong time.I use a very simple system that can be done by even the most frugal of people. I can't remember when I first started doing this, but it's been at least 7 years. Here's what you do:The whole point is that the first alarm should be so quiet that it will only wake you up if you're in "light" sleep, like a whisper in your ear. Waking up in "light" sleep should leave you feeling more refreshed than waking up in "deep" sleep. The second alarm is the back up to make sure that you wake up in time :).You can use two alarm clocks to accomplish this. I personally use a dual alarm clock that lets me do this easily (I didn't buy the alarm clock to do this, it just so happened that I had this alarm clock when I created this system or the alarm clock led me to create this). My alarm clock lets me set two alarms; I set the first to use the radio with the volume set low and the second alarm to buzzer. I have something that looks like this: You'll have to adjust two things in this system. The first is when to set the first alarm. You can use the 90 minute rule to estimate when you'll be in "light" sleep and set the alarm accordingly. Alternatively, you can just set the first alarm 30, 45, 60, or 90 minutes early and hope that you're in "light" sleep during that time. The second thing you need to adjust is the alarm itself. You want it loud enough to wake you up during "light" sleep, but not so that it'll wake you up during "deep" sleep.This is an easy to implement system that doesn't require you to drastically change your lifestyle, but can improve how you feel when you wake up and throughout the rest of the day. This is in contrast to some of the more drastic things out there that may actually be harmful to you.My favourite is what I like to call, the "Wolf Sleep System". In his book, "Never Cry Wolf", Farley Mowat wrote that he was using a strange system that he swore by in which he tried to mimic the sleeping patterns of wolves. He would sleep for a short period of time, something like 15 minutes, then he would get up and crawl around on all fours in a little circle, and then go back to sleep for 15 min. and repeat. He claims that he had a girl in his bed once that was not pleased with his sleeping pattern and he gave up the girl rather than his sleeping system. I tried this system long ago, but didn't make it through the night. I did it maybe 2 or 3 times, but then I was like, screw this and didn't wake up until morning.There's been a lot of buzz recently about polyphasic sleep , where you attempt to sleep less by spreading out sleep throughout the day with short naps. There have also been some warnings that this may be unhealthy and that it can reduce your ability to stay awake for prolonged periods of time, i.e. you'll need an emergency nap every couple hours.I figure that my system can't be worse than just regularly using an alarm clock and doesn't require much effort on your part. It's worth a shot and if it helps you, more power to you.The techniques and suggestions presented here are not intended to be a substitute for proper medical advice. Vincent Cheung assumes no responsibility for any damages, injuries, or ailments suffered while using this system. Consult your physician before altering your lifestyle.