how the light gets in

[jazzfish]

I discovered ages ago that I wake up a lot better when there's some sunlight in the room. I also have trouble sleeping if it's light out. I can fix this problem by closing the blinds in the room when I want to sleep in past dawn, but that just exacerbates the waking-up difficulties. Given a choice between "wake up at six-thirty" and "wake up with the alarm at quarter past seven, grumpy and woozy from being jolted awake," I've so far gone irritably with the latter.

For Xmas I got a sunrise clock. This is basically a 60-watt light attached to an alarm clock. You set the alarm for, say, quarter past seven, and starting at quarter of seven it gradually turns on. The simulated sunrise supposedly wakes you up gently. (There's also a beeper alarm for backup.)

It works pretty well for the most part. The actual clock part is too small and dim for me to read without my glasses so I now have two alarm clocks on my bedside table. The light nominally gets bright enough to read by; far as I'm concerned it diffues too much for that, so I keep the reading lamp around as well. The past couple days I've been awake by shortly after seven without having to deal with RREEP RREEP RREEP.

Unfortunately my subconscious knows exactly how to deal with this: by burrowing down into the covers on the side with the light. This may yet turn me into one of those "five more minutes mom" kids.

Clearly the solution here is transparent blankets. I am brilliant.

Comments

[tamnonlinear.livejournal.com]

I was going to go with floodlights on a timer. Like waking up on Mercury.

[skreidle.livejournal.com]

To be scientifically pedantic, I don't think Mercury has sunrise per se--same period of rotation as revolution, much like the Moon around Earth.

Lovely visual, though. :D

[tamnonlinear.livejournal.com]

I considered that, but decided to go with the imagery instead. Besides, to be utterly pedantic, I didn't say it was like sunrise on Mercury, just like waking up there. You could just be arriving there every morning. Hello, Mercury.

[skreidle.livejournal.com]

That likewise occurred to me--teleportation came to mind. :)


The visual in my head is something along the lines of dark dark dark with a silent-but-visceral kaWHAM. :]

[jameshroberts.livejournal.com]

To be even more scientifically pedantic, Mercury has a sunrise every 176 Earth days. It's locked in a 3:2 spin-orbit resonance, meaning it rotates three times (with respect to the stars) on its axis every two times it orbits the Sun. The (non-intuitive) result is that the Sun rises and sets only once during this period. So every evening on Mercury is New Years' Eve!

Also, the Sun appears a factor of ~6 larger on Merc than on Earth.

[skreidle.livejournal.com]

Excellent! And fascinating. :)

[jazzfish]

I thought about that, about getting a halogen that would take awhile to get up to full brightness. But my parents were flailing around looking for something to get me for Xmas, and I am lazy.

The Mercurial alarm seems like it'd sort of defeat the point of a more gentle wake-up call than the RREEP RREEP RREEP. And then your blood boils away, which is /not/ conducive to being either bright-eyed or bushy-tailed.

[tamnonlinear.livejournal.com]

I disagree. Burning things are very often quite bright and bushy.

[skreidle.livejournal.com]

Alternately, blankets with incorporated lighting! LEDs and fiber optics. :)

Tangent: Were you around the day Erica got permission to plug in a submarine dive klaxon in the TJ library? :)

[jazzfish]

Trouble is, they'd have to be on the timer as well.

. . . I was not. I think that's probably just as well.

[skreidle.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah. That'd be easy enough to patch in. :D

It was entertaining, to say the least. Audible throughout the school! :)