When I started to get up early in the mornings I found it pretty hard. So I devised a plan to help me out.
I have three lights on timers. The first is a short string of blue lights, the second is a longer string of blue lights and the last is a 40watt bulb pointed indirectly at the wall.
First the short string turns on about 30 minutes before I have to get up, then the longer string 15 minutes later, and lastly the the white light.
I also have two alarms, the first is the radio followed by the oh so annoying standard alarm sound.
Most days I wake up with the white light and the radio. The alarm sound is my drop dead, get the heck out of bed, notification. If it goes off I need to get moving.
Up here in the dark north, bright-light sunrise-simulating alarms are becoming commonplace[1]. Mine increases in intensity over 30 minutes and uses a bird tweet as the sound alarm (I have it set to 14/20 final intensity, brighter means a headache). This works quite well.
All of the simulated sunrise alarms I found before I cobbled my own together were out of my price range and limited to one bulb. I like my solution because it uses long strings of colored lights which politely brighten the room.
Off the shelf. My alarm clock has two alarms. The lights are on standard power plug timers I got at the hardware store.
I'd like to custom build a system that uses LEDs. It'd be nice to have it fade transition from red, to yellow to yellow/blue to white. And it'd be nice to hide it all behind crown molding.
I have three lights on timers. The first is a short string of blue lights, the second is a longer string of blue lights and the last is a 40watt bulb pointed indirectly at the wall.
First the short string turns on about 30 minutes before I have to get up, then the longer string 15 minutes later, and lastly the the white light.
I also have two alarms, the first is the radio followed by the oh so annoying standard alarm sound.
Most days I wake up with the white light and the radio. The alarm sound is my drop dead, get the heck out of bed, notification. If it goes off I need to get moving.
It's my own personal sunrise.