Do (Not) Be Alarmed: Paper Doll’s Wake-Up Advice for Productivity

Posted on: August 29th, 2022 by Julie Bestry | 16 Comments

September’s approach means many things: a new school year, a new television season, Europeans coming back from their August-long vacations. 

But in September, when I see kids lined up for the school bus, I remember when I went to kindergarten and Paper Mommy bought me a giant, orange, retro, two-bell alarm clock

(I realize this is yellow and not orange, but we don’t have a photo of my childhood alarm clock. This is a very close reproduction.)

You could see the clock from any vantage point in my room, and the ring was sonorous. There was no way I’d ever oversleep and miss the school bus with that loud din. (Initially, as with all school-related things that year, I was excited. But it takes about three days of being awakened by something that loud for the delight to wear off.)

If you think about it, time management and productivity begins with waking up in time to set your plans in motion, so I thought we’d take a foray into idea of waking up on time.

A SHORT HISTORY OF ALARM CLOCKS

The alarm clock — even the very concept of waking up at a specific time — is fairly new.

Throughout history, people were generally awakened by natural occurrences: the sun rising (and warmth on one’s face or light in one’s eyes), the crowing of roosters, the crying of babies, or the call of nature. City dwellers might have been awakened by church bells or street noise, but farmers far from villages were dependent upon their own natural body clocks and the people and animals around them.

These not-very-specific waking hours were not a problem for most people until the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century. Before that, unless you were within proximity of a clock tower or your family had the wealth to own a clock at home, it was enough to speak generally of meeting someone at dawn’s first light or midday or supper time. However, with the advent of trains (and the ability to catch them) and factory work, it became essential to know the specific time of day. That included waking up on time.

Before the invention of alarm clocks (and into the twentieth century), city dwellers in the UK hired “knocker uppers,” people who would literally knock on one’s windows and doors with everything from broom handles to batons (as in police sticks, not beauty pageant contestant’s silver poles with streamers) to pea shooters! Believe it or not, some people continued “knocker upper” subscriptions long past the invention of alarm clocks; in fact, the last knocker upper service in the UK didn’t cease until the 1970s, long after the rise of household electricity and clock radios.

If you didn’t mind having a giant water wheel handy, you could have been awakened on time (to the sound of a powerful chime and a puppet show) with the assistance of the Water-Driven Spherical Bird’s-Eye-View Map of the Heaven, invented by Chinese monk Xi Ping in the year 725.

Although the first mechanical alarm clock was invented in 1787 by American Levi Hutchins but his design was never patented. Sixty years later, Antoine Redier in France patented the first adjustable alarm clock wherein each hour on the clock’s dial/face had a hole; if you wanted to get up at 7, you put a pin next to the hole next to the number seven. Want to get up on the half hour (or any time except on the hour)? You were out of luck.

It wasn’t until 1876 (which may seem a long time ago to you GenZ and Millennial readers, but that was only eleven years before one of my grandfathers was born) that an American patented a more workable alarm clock and began mass-producing them.

For more on the history of alarm clocks, from the World War II era shortage (due to the use of all spare metal for wartime production) to the development of clock radios, snooze alarms, and my beloved college-era SONY Dream Machine (in production from 1960s until the early 2010s),

you can read Atlas Obscura’s lovely piece on the 2000-Year History of Alarm Clocks and All That’s Interesting’s How Did People Wake Up Before Alarm Clocks?

HAS PAPER DOLL FALLEN INTO A TIME WARP?

Are you fearing that Paper Doll has had an alarm clock dropped on her head?

You may be wondering why I’m talking about alarm clocks. After all, hasn’t everyone replaced alarm clocks with their smart phones? Yes, pretty much, most have.

But Paper Doll has a secret for you. Quite a bit of research finds that you might be healthier and happier using an actual alarm clock rather than your phone. And a happier, healthier you has a better chance of being productive and getting things done.

YOUR PHONE AS AN ALARM CLOCK, YAY OR NAY?

Sure, there are good reasons to use your phone as your alarm clock:

  • You and your phone are already inseparable. You’re much more likely to trust it than a hotel’s front desk wake-up call or even your spouse’s promise to wake you up. 
  • It takes no effort to set your phone’s clock to the right time. Your cell phone provider already links your phone’s clock to the atomic clock of wherever you’re located by its connection to low-orbit GPS satellites; it (usually) even readjusts automatically when you change time zones. (If you’re not connected to cell towers, your phone’s internal clock takes over until the next time in connects to the network.)
  • You can set your phone to wake you up with your favorite song or sound. Whether you’d like to wake up shaking your groove thing to Lizzo’s About Damn Time or prefer to pretend that you’re standing in for Bill Murray in your own version of Groundhog Day, there’s audio for you.

However, the ubiquity of phones in our lives is part of the reason they can be harmful in the bedroom:

Light at night is bad for us.

Harvard researchers found that increasing the amount of nighttime light study participants received increased their blood glucose levels similar to those found in people who are pre-diabetic. The nighttime light also decreased participants’ levels of leptin, the hormone that makes you feel satiated after a meal, so you stop grazing between dinner and bedtime and throughout the next day. So, too much light at night can impact your health, overall, and your waistline. 

While any light at night can wreck our sleep, this is especially true of blue light. And yup, the screens on our digital devices (like our phones) tend to make use of blue wavelengths. This is a double-edged coin.

The blue light wavelengths are great during the day, as they amp up our moods, our reaction time, and our ability to stay focused and attentive. Yay, blue!

But those same wavelengths of blue light at night tinker with our circadian rhythms, making it harder to fall asleep. All that unnatural light tricks our bodies into thinking it’s still daytime, and so we don’t feel that pleasantly fuzzy sleepiness that makes it easy to drop off without worry or care. Boo, blue!

In fact, while all night light suppresses the production of melatonin, a hormone that controls our circadian rhythms, blue light is the most potent. So, not to scare you, but as cozy at it is to have your phone under your pillow or at your bedside, it’s not worth that blue light messing with your sleep and putting you at risk for obesity, hypertension, or diabetes.

Scrolling, and especially doom scrolling, spells doom for our sleep quality.

Watching any screens in the hour or two before bed is bad for us because of that blue light. But the content on our phones can be just as precarious.

Doom scrolling is the compunction to engage in negative information. When doom scrolling through Twitter or your favorite news feeds, keeping up with what’s going on in the world, you’re probably finding a preponderance of bad news, things that will stress you out and make you angry or frustrated. 

It’s not your fault. Our brains are wired to experience a negativity bias, wherein (controlling for the emotional power of a piece of information), we’re more likely to see something negative as having a deeper impact on our lives than something positive. A study at the University of Sussex found that doom scrolling is more likely to make us feel anxiety, stress, fear, depression, and sense of isolation. (And yes, this got worse during COVID.) 

Let’s not forget dopamine. Dopamine works when you’re scrolling through social media the same way it works when you’re pulling the arm (or pushing the button) on a slot machine. Dopamine is a hormone that works like a drug, urging you to seek further gratification, which may be a TikTok video that makes you laugh or a tweet confirming your negativity bias that a particular politician is leading to the ruination of all that is good and holy. 

Of course, it doesn’t have to be social media. Video games, movies, videos, and TV shows are all (generally) energizing, and the last thing we should be engaging in before sleepy-bye time is whiz-bam-pow!

All of this is bad for your before-bed brain in the same way that letting a toddler get all “sugared up” and run around in the hour before bed will make it harder to get them to sleep. That’s why we focus on good sleep hygiene for tiny humans, giving them baths and stories and snuggle time, in hopes of relaxing them off to dreamland. Grownups need that help to power down, too.

And for those of you who are partnered, a phone-free bedroom mean an increase in the likelihood of intimacy, whether that’s relating emotionally or canoodling.

Scrolling is just as bad in the morning as at night.

Everything we need to avoid at night so that we can wind down and get to sleep is still going to be there when we wake up. But does it have to be there the very minute we wake up?

Whether it’s an email your boss sent off at 2 a.m., a tragic news story from the other side of the world, or whatever is “trending,” your phone can be a royal messenger of frustration.

Give yourself some time in the morning to ease into your day, whether that’s with your significant other, children, or pet. Even just having some quiet time between waking and breakfast can help you create the right mood for the day.

So, I challenge you to banish your phone from the bedroom.

REPLACE YOUR PHONE WITH AN ALARM CLOCK

So, if you’re not going to let the not-so-dulcet tones of your phone wake you up and start your heart racing, what should you use? Unless you have the funds (and the trust) to hire a knocker upper, an old school two-bell alarm clock or travel might be just the ticket. (Or, the noise might set your teeth on edge.)

Of course, it doesn’t have to be old school. There are some nifty modern alarm clocks that might be better suited to your particular needs, from glowing sunrise-simulation clocks that gently wake you with the kind of light that’s healthy for starting your day to clocks that shake, rattle, and roll you to your feet.

Here is just a sample of what you might consider, especially if you tend to hit the snooze button until the last possible moment.

Clocky — is an EXTRA LOUD alarm clock on wheels. What Roomba is for vacuuming the living room, Clocky is for getting you to actually wake up and start your day. When the alarm goes off, you get one chance to snooze, but after that, Clocky rolls and runs away, and you have to chase after it! 

An MIT student who had trouble getting herself up and out of bed, Gauri Nanda combined her engineering skills with a desire to improve the aesthetics of alarm clocks to make them delightful instead of solely alarming.

Clocky comes in several colors (black, white, light blue, peach, blue, silver, and gold). It sells for $39.99 on the web site and on between $20 and $40 on Amazon, depending on the style. 

Little Hippo’s Mella Sleep Alarm — This kid-oriented charmer is a sleep trainer, alarm clock, sleep sounds machine, night light, nap timer, and digital nanny (helping convince your tiny humans to stay in bed until it’s time to actually wake themselves and the rest of the house).

Mella is white with accent features in Arctic Blue, Blush Pink, Bright Purple, Tropical Teal, and Kickstarter Green. You can buy Mella from the website or on Amazon for $49.99.

Pavlok’s Shock Clock 2 — This wrist-band waker-upper seeks to retrain your brain to make waking up about engaging your mind immediately. Pavlok’s Shock Clock 2 is very high-tech, able to track your sleep patterns using advanced motion detection via a 9-axis accelerometer. (No, don’t ask me what that is.)

To take advantage of your sleep rhythms, you can set the alarm so that it will only wake you between 0 and 20 minutes before your pre-programmed time to ensure it wakes you during the lightest stage of your sleep cycle.

The clock wakes you and gives you assignments to get your brain and body moving; if you’re a heavy, heavy, “I-hate-you-go-away” sleeper, it might make you do jumping jacks; Fitbit-style, it knows if you’re jumping (and no, unlike with Fitbit, you can’t put the Shock Clock 2 wristband on your dog…and I doubt your dog can do jumping jacks). The alarm won’t turn off until you’ve responded to its order to jump with “How high?” (OK, I made up that part.)

The Shock Clock 2 might assign you other kinds of activities, like going on a treasure hunt around your house to scan QR codes placed in various locations. If you seriously want to train yourself out of snoozing, this is definitely an intense way to go about it.

The Shock Clock 2 comes in red, blue, pink, and black, and costs $149 at the Pavlok store.

Ruggie Alarm Clock — This doesn’t even look like an alarm clock; rather, it looks more like a cozy bathroom rug for keeping your tootsies warm when you get out of the shower. But Ruggie is sneaky.

You can’t just hit the snooze. You have to get out of bed, and STAY out of bed for at least three seconds, with both feet on the pressure-sensitive mat. Plus, Ruggie has a library of morning greetings so your can personalize the start of your day with affirmations, empowering messages, and giggles

Ruggie is a little too popular; it’s out of stock right now, but check back with the company, because this could be a fun way to entice yourself (or your not-so-self-starting kids) to get out of bed.

FURTHER RESOURCES

If you have any heavy sleepers in your house with special wake-up needs, consider perusing:

The Best Alarm Clocks for Sleepyheads (ADDitude Magazine)

When Alarm Clocks Fly: The Tools to Get You Out of Bed — The Best Alarm Clocks for Children and Teens with ADHD (ADDitude Magazine)

19 Best Alarm Clocks of 2022 (NYMagazine’s The Strategist) 

Just remember to bear in mind what I said about light disturbing your sleep, and check reviews for mechanical clocks to make sure nobody is complaining about ticking noises.

 


Do you wake up on your own, or do you need an alarm? Is an alarm (on your phone or alarm clock) not quite enough? What’s your ideal way to wake up in the morning?

Have I convinced you to keep your smart phone out of the bedroom?

Please share in the comments and let us know how you wake up.

16 Responses

  1. I rarely have to set an alarm to wake up anymore. I wake up naturally in time for most of the late-morning activities that I schedule. If it’s really important I set multiple alarms. Not because I’m a “snoozer” but in case I don’t hear the first one due to operator setting error. But I’m intrigued by Ruggie and hadn’t seen it before! Meanwhile, I’m more likely to set alarms DURING the day for reminding me to switch gears and get ready for appointments. Clocky might be good for that, since it’s so hard to ignore!

    • Julie Bestry says:

      I find that I awaken on my own (too early) when I have nothing I’m obligated to do; when I’ve got something time-sensitive on the schedule, I am dead to the world until my alarm goes off, and then I wear the snooze alarm out. I do have alerts on the computer to remind me to make transitions (like, “Hey, Julie, you’ve got a Zoom in 30 minutes. Maybe you should fix yourself up?) but Clocky might be overdoing it a bit if I have to chase it around.

  2. We still have a clock radio – not that we need an alarm in the morning, but we use it to check the time if we wake up during the night. I keep complaining to my husband that we should get rid of it because we each have our phone, but now you’ve got me thinking I should just shut up about that.

    But what if you’re paranoid and want a phone by your bed in case someone breaks in and you don’t have a landline?

    • Julie Bestry says:

      I always wonder why we feel the need to check the time if we awaken; it’s universal, but why? If it’s dark, it’s obviously still nighttime. If it’s light, surely our alarm will tell us when we need to actually get moving.

      If you don’t have a landline (I do), I’d advise keeping your phone in room, accessible, but invisible. Why not keep it inside your dresser drawer? (Even if you’re charging it, the cable would only require the drawer being open a few millimeters. They key is to have the phone but have it inconveniently located for quick checks. That’s my two cents.

      Thanks for reading and for considering paranoia as part of the planning process. 😉

  3. What an interesting history of the alarm clock. Thank you.

    I am very sensitive to light in the bedroom, so a lite alarm clock is a no go for me. Because of this, when I was a teenager, my dad got me a talking alarm clock. Yes, it was one of the first of its kind from the early 1980s, and I could easily wake up with it. I still have it today, and it works. However, I have been using an alarm on my phone that plays my favorite Pachelbel’s Canon D song. It starts off soft and then gets louder as the music plays. It works well for me these days.

    • Julie Bestry says:

      I agree about light; I need the room to be dark. For years, I had my Dream Machine set on the low-light setting and a strip of painter’s tape across the display, plus I turned the clock toward the tissue box. But many of the newer alarm clocks let you turn the display off altogether, which I think is a superior option.

      I’d love to know more about your talking alarm clock! And while I didn’t mention it in the post — I probably should have — I set the alarm on my cell phone, but keep it in the kitchen. I’m in an apartment, so the sound travels nicely, but it keeps the phone out of the bedroom at night, gets me out of bed to turn off the alarm, and once I’m in the kitchen, I need my hands to make breakfast, so I don’t even reach to read the phone once I’ve turned off the alarm.

  4. Dava says:

    I use my iPad as an alarm clock, but rarely scroll before sleeping and never first thing in the morning. I’ve been trying to pinpoint why I feel so much better on the weekends than weekdays, since I do basically the same things and get pretty close to the same amount of sleep (sometimes it’s 9-10 hours instead of 8-9, though). One of the main differences is that I wake to an alarm during the week. Waking has always been difficult for me. Morning larks can have allll the worms. I’ll take the untethered freedom of late nights 🙂

    • Julie Bestry says:

      I’m curious whether an alarm that was just the sound of nature, like a babbling brook, crickets, and birds might be a more preferable way for you to wake up, Dava. It would be less like an alarm and more like someone opened a window.

      And yup, we late night girls are happy to eschew those worms!

  5. Seana Turner says:

    Such a fascinating history of alarm clocks. I think the idea of getting to wake up to my own natural biorhythm is very appealing. The whole “knocker upper” thing is hilarious. I do remember calling the hotel desk for a wakeup call. In fact, doesn’t feel like all that long ago when I did this!

    I purchased Clocky for my daughter because she used to just snooze the alarm. It worked, until she put it next to her bed. Once she got her phone, she stopped using it all together.

    Personally, I loved my Dream Machine. Believe it or not, I still own it (it’s in my guest room). My husband still uses a very old, brown alarm clock.

    I think the Ruggie is my favorite. VERY clever idea! Once you are up for 3 seconds, you are less likely to try to get back to sleep, so might as well stay up, right?

    I only use my phone as an alarm when I’m traveling. I don’t keep my phone in my bedroom. I actually love that I can plut it in downstairs, walk away, and be “off duty.” I will admit I can only do this because I have a landline for emergencies next to my bed.

    Having said all of this, I usually wake up about 5 minutes before my alarm, regardless of when it has been set to go off. Weird, right?

    • Julie Bestry says:

      I read three stories about the knocker uppers and realized that people who hated waking up probably gave the knocker uppers the equivalent of the current nightmare customer service stories. “You hired me to do this, but now you’re throwing the chamber pot out the window at me? You’ll be oversleeping tomorrow, dude!”

      I still have my Dream Machine for guests, too. It’s ancient at this point, and only picks up a few radio stations, but it works!

      And I’m envious; I either wake up three+ hours before my alarm, or when it goes off. Thanks for sharing!

  6. I leave my phone in my office at the end of the day unless I am expecting a call or text. I then check it first thing in the morning before even making my coffee to see if anything came in that would change my day’s schedule.
    I have an alarm clock in my bedroom which I set but am almost always awake before it goes off.
    I do use the alarms on my phone during the day. I set alarms for all appointments for the day including my virtual ones. I can get caught up in projects and forget the time so that reminder is important to me.

    • Julie Bestry says:

      That is impressive, Jonda, that you don’t play on your phone at all during non-work hours. And I use my Mac the way you use your phone, setting alarms/alerts so that I know when to prep for a Zoom call or get ready for a telephone call.

      Thanks for sharing!

  7. I have an old-fashioned battery operated alarm clock next to my bed. I’ve had it for decades and love that it works so well.
    I only set an alarm to get up in the morning. I don’t use the alarm or alert function on my phone.
    My brain appears to be wired to know time. I am typically aware of the passage of time and have no trouble switching tasks.
    I love your history of the alarm clock.
    I’m reading 4 Thousand Weeks and the author has lots to say about time and clocks in general. Fascinating topic.

    • Julie Bestry says:

      I know exactly what time it is all day long, but once I’m asleep, I could sleep 12 or 18 hours if there’s nothing to wake me. (I set a few alerts for when a Zoom is about to start, just so I don’t get distracted by the internet.)

      I read Four Thousand Weeks and found it very powerful for thinking about what was truly important! Thanks for sharing!

  8. Nick says:

    The snooze bar is a greatest invention of mankind to help

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