You're sleeping comfortably, enjoying a very peaceful, relaxing dream when – ONK!, ONK!, ONK! – the jarring tones of your alarm clock send your cortisol surging through the roof. It's a great way to start the day – stressed out right from the start.
We know restorative sleep is extremely important to maintaining a properly functioning stress response system. However, waking abruptly does not contribute to restorative sleep, and in fact, does contribute to greater stress.
With all this in mind, German clinical neurologist Dr. Hans Joerg Stuerenburg, M.D., Ph.D., developed and patented an adaptive "stress-free" alarm clock for the iPhone, the Gentle Alarm. According to information on the iTunes site, "Gentle Alarm will lead you smoothly from the deep sleep phase or dream phase (REM sleep) into the light sleep phase without you even noticing. Gentle Alarm readjusts to your personal wake-up needs and keeps learning about you with every use. A mere few days of use will provide you with your very own individual wake-up procedure. Gentle Alarm will become your very own individual alarm clock, perfectly attuned to you (and only you). You will wake up more easily and feel well rested."
So I decided to give it a try. I downloaded the App to my phone and quickly learned it's not all that simple. First, you must have the phone in the same place near your bed every night. The App must run in the foreground all night, and sucks up the battery, so you must have it plugged into your iPhone charger before going to sleep. Also the volume should be set to the highest level because the gentle chimes start out so softly. And if, like me, you kids call home to say they'll be late, you have to remember to restart the Gentle Alarm App when you end your call.
All that being said I really like the way the alarm wakes me up. It has soft, melodic chimes that slowly enter into my consciousness. Once I become aware the chimes are ringing, I don't feel any urgency to quickly turn off the alarm to avoid annoying my husband who gets to sleep in longer than I do. I can take a few more moments to get my wits about me and turn it off in my own sweet time.
Give it a try, and let me know what you think ... you can download the Gentle Alarm from the iTunes store for $3.99.