remove the clock/sleep less?

[joelyle]

Here is an interesting experiment, to determine if you are sleeping too much (tying your mental alertness to "clock time"):
remove all visible clocks in your bedroom.

With this experiment: I find myself waking after about six hours of sleep, alert and ready to meet the day.

My belief is that if we awake and look at the clock: our mind might convince us that we are tired/simply based on the time. This is similar to eating when we are truly hungry vs. on clock-time.

Moving away from clock-time, I believe, is a way to become more conscious as it removes our automatic responses/behaviors.

Let me know of your experience with this experiment.


Be your own hero!

[Scott]

I love this idea; can't believe I had never considered it. Unfortunately, being a college student, my life pretty much revolves around being in certain places and doing certain things at certain times... but I need something to do over winter break. In addition to polyphasic sleep, that is (but I feel like that transition is going to be difficult without good timing ).

[WanderingOak]

I'm going to try and remember to give this a try over the weekend. I HAVE to get up at 4AM during the week in order to beat morning traffic, but I can try it on non-workdays. I won't be able to lose the digital alarm clock, but I can turn it facing the wall at least. I'll just have to remember to put my wristwatch someplace aside from my nightstand.

[joelyle]

hi,

I should have mentioned that I do set the alarm on my cell phone (I almost always wake up before it goes off). I make a game of it. I wake up and try to guess what time it is... this morning I predicted it was 4:44 AM and the "clock time" was 4:48 AM. What's even funnier is: my phone rang after I was asleep (and in a dream-state) for 20 minutes; I thought is was morning and I had been sleeping for hours! If you've ever been hypnotized you will know that 20 minutes under hypnosis feels like 8 hours of sleep. I believe I am learning self-hypnosis.

Let me know how it goes.

[River]

I sleep much much better without a clock in the room. I've always been a naturally early riser but I do sometimes have trouble falling asleep.

When my first child was born, I always checked the clock when she woke up during the night. Every day, I could tell you her sleep schedule the night before.

I found myself thinking about it WAY too much (wondering how to reduce the nightwaking, worrying whether it would affect me the next day, etc). Now my 2nd baby, I've gotten rid of the clock and I don't become anxious when he wakes me in the night. I feed him, snuggle a bit and go right back to sleep. We all still wake up at dawn but I feel much more relaxed and rested.

[David Hausladen]

Originally Posted by joelyle

remove all visible clocks in your bedroom.

But then how will we be able to tell when it's 11:11?

[WanderingOak]

Hunh. I tried it last night, and got up at 7:15. I thought it was 8:00, yet I feel quite rested. Of course, I work in a windowless bunker so don't see the sun that much during the week. There was a time when I could tell time by the sun, but I seem to have lost that ability through disuse.

[Andrew Brunelle]

If soceity wasn't so time-bound, I would never use a clock, but since it is, there are times I need to use the clock. I wake up when I wake up, I sleep when I'm tired, and I use the clock as a point of reference sometimes. If I have to get to the bank before 5, I make sure I do so, and if I have to meet someone at 3:00, I make sure I'm there at 3, but besides that, I really dont follow the clock anymore. We went a long time before it was invented and we're still here today...so I could definitely see us getting rid of it again eventually, as soon as we change the way we live today...

[Ati]

Originally Posted by joelyle

Here is an interesting experiment, to determine if you are sleeping too much (tying your mental alertness to "clock time"):
remove all visible clocks in your bedroom.

With this experiment: I find myself waking after about six hours of sleep, alert and ready to meet the day.

My belief is that if we awake and look at the clock: our mind might convince us that we are tired/simply based on the time. This is similar to eating when we are truly hungry vs. on clock-time.

Moving away from clock-time, I believe, is a way to become more conscious as it removes our automatic responses/behaviors.

Let me know of your experience with this experiment.


Be your own hero!

I totally agree with you joelyle and I also try to separate myself from the alarm, just use it as a back up. Fortunately even while I am doing sleep experiments, I very quickly move to waking up before my alarm...

[WanderingOak]

Well, I am going to try keeping the alarm clock facing the wall tonight, and see what type of sleep I am going to have. It will also be an interesting experiment, because usually my cat tackles my foot about two minutes before the clock goes off. If she quits doing that, it means she know how to tell time .

[Ali]

Joelyle " almost always wake up before it goes off" .. you know that happens to me most of the time !! I set the clock at 10 am and wake up at 9:45. I guess it is your biological clock that gets programmed "biologically" if you want to put it that way.

I work and study at late after noon through till night time (even passed midnight) so I guess my biological clock is way different that the normal persons one.


thanks

Ali

[WanderingOak]

Something woke me up in the middle of the night (cat chasing a mouse?), and since I couldn't see my clock, I got out of bed to see what time it was. In the past, my clock has failed to go off, so that was my rationalle for getting up to check. It turned out that it was only 3:00, so I decided to go back to bed because I was still tired, and didn't want to 'run out of steam' at a disasterous time such as during my drive home from work. I don't think I will do this again on a work-night.

[JKuehl]

doesn´t work for me - i have no clock in visible range of my bed. Instead most of the time i need to get up 5-20 times per morning, pushing the snooze button ( sometimes i think i´m some kind of lost-participant PUSH THE BUTTON EVERY 8 MINUTES.... ).

Why is that? My bedroomcurtains are not able to fully vanish the sunlight from the outside - so i know even when asleep how late it is.

But i also had this experience: wake up after 7.5 hours with alarm-clock: most of the day nearly falling asleep - often needing a nap. Waking up after a few hours on my own ( or my girlfriend waking me up ): totally refreshed and not any tired. How come?

[joelyle]

Originally Posted by JKuehl

most of the time i need to get up 5-20 times per morning, pushing the snooze button ( sometimes i think i´m some kind of lost-participant PUSH THE BUTTON EVERY 8 MINUTES.... ).

hello,
First of all: my personal record for Snooze Button pushing is 24 times (every 5 minutes for two hours).
Why are you setting an alarm for 160 minutes before you believe you need to get out of bed? I always seem to be able to get out of bed when I plan something enjoyable (never once over-slept on a Golf or Skiing day)
Do you do something enjoyable first thing in the morning or is it a rush to work/school, etc? Is your mind clear before you go to sleep at night? If not: have you tried writing out what's on your mind? This probably does not apply to you: when I was a less conscious mode of operation: I would fall asleep in the middle of the day (even at the movies, etc.) As I have taken more responsibility for my life: I sleep less and don't doze off mid-day (this is not advice/simply personal experience).

[JKuehl]

Well - at the moment i´m in between being a student and having a bachelors-degree - i don´t have any courses this semester and will oficially begin next week or so with my final bachelor-paper.

So there is no real reason to get up early - i could sleep in but i don´t want to, i want to use the time.

I think, i only don´t have enough willpower and created a real real big, bad and strong habit out of this routine: 1) get up 2) slap the snooze button 3) lay down 4) instantly resume sleep.

Often i don´t even remember getting up - it´s like the 20-40 times you wake up at night and don´t remember anything about it.

I even tried with 3 ( yes three!!) alarmclocks ringing every 2 minutes in rotation .... only made me angry.

Guess i´ll have to convince my long-distance-girlfriend to stay - as i have no problem instantly getting out of sleep ( i won´t use the words "out of bed" here .... ) when she is around.