How did I go from hitting snooze a dozen times, to waking up an hour earlier each morning without an alarm clock? In this article I’ll share with you how I changed my morning routine literally overnight by waking up without an alarm clock overnight.
But first let me clear something up.
I am NOT a morning person. I would rather stay up all night and sleep in until noon.
I’ll be honest an alarm clock has little impact on me. For the past twenty years I have set an alarm for the time I “would like” to wake up. Only to find that when the alarm clock goes off, I’m nowhere near ready.
Enter the snooze button… Repeatedly.
My best friend for the past few decades has been the snooze button. Though it wouldn’t know if from the way I hit it multiple times every morning.
Why Wake Up Earlier?
Every highly productive person I know gets up early.
The appeal of it has been so great, that I began to feel guilty with my sleeping in.
Then I heard Pat Flynn say that he would get up an read for a set amount of time every day and I thought to myself; “That’s it, tomorrow I’m waking up at 5:30.”
How I used to Wake Up
So like most people, when I decided I was going to wake up early, I set my alarm clock for an hour earlier 5:29 to be exact.
The next morning I was awoken by the jarring beep of my alarm clock. and then it happened…
I threw my hand down on my alarm clock with the might of Thor’s hammer.
…and hit “Snooze”
I would do this until my normal wake up time of 6:45 and then hastily start my day.
At which point my wife told me to never do that again.
Apparently it’s quite unsettling to be woken up every 9 minutes for over an hour. (She likened it to being in some type of ineffective torture chamber.)
Pure will was not going to work for me. Neither was this alarm clock
There had to be a better way
If you have ever woken up to an alarm clock blaring like a siren you know how unsettling it is to wake you up. A loud siren beeping in your ear is not how humans were built.
This is a terrible way to wake up and it’s very easily a way that starts your day off wrong..
Finding a Better Way To Wake Up Without an Alarm
Sometimes the answer to something is staring you for the longest time.
You just need to see it.
Take the sun for instance. Every morning it rises, everynight it sets.
We go about our days, largely based around the rise and setting of the sun. So when I decided to start waking up without an alarm clock. This was what seemed to make sense.
Light. I need to wake up with light.
Only problem was the sun wasn’t rising at 5:30.
So I set out looking for a solution.
How to Wake Up Using a Light
My online searching led me to the Philips Hue Wake Up light. I ended up buying their Hue starter kit. And it changed my life over night.
What is the Philips Hue Light?
Philips Hue has come out with a bunch of smart light bulbs.
Essentially, you can program them to turn on when you want, and turn off when you want.
But what drew me in was that they had a natural wake up mode and a natural sleep mode.
This means that it uses red
Why wake up without an alarm clock?
Quick nerd fact, when you sleep your body is releasing melatonin. When you wake up you need your body to start producing serotonin. The light helps you do this.
So by having a light come on gently it cues your body to stop releasing melatonin and start releasing serotonin. Making it incredibly easy to wake up
Get Philips Hue Wake Up Lamp Here.
CLICK HERE TO BUY PHILIPS HUE
Do sunrise alarm clocks work?
I wasn’t sure if this would work. It’s a big ask for anything new to change an old habit.
But the first morning I woke up naturally.
IT WAS AMAZING!
No blaring alarm clock. No noise.
Just my Philiips Hue light. gradually getting brighter and by 5:30 it reached full brightness. That’s when I woke up.
No room to fail
What I like about this light, besides the obvious health benefits of waking up to light, is the fact that there is no snooze button.
I can’t hit snooze. Light bulbs don’t have snooze buttons.
So when the light comes on, I get up.
I’m shocked at how easy and effortless this whole thing was.
CLICK HERE TO BUY PHILIPS HUE
Then I took it to another level
As I got up, I realized there were a few other things I could automate.
First I set my coffee maker to come on a few minutes before hand so that I could wake up to a fresh cup of coffee. Now I have coffee ready when I wake up.
After that I put another light in my sunroom (it’s where I read in the mornings). So my reading area is properly lit and my book is right there for me.
To do this I had the Philips Hue light come on to a reading light setting. So when I get up I just have grabby cup of coffee, and move over to my favorite reading spot.
Works with the Big 3 Assistants.
One other thing that I liked about the Philips Hue is that they worked with all 3 voice assistants (Siri, Alexa and Google Home).
This is a big plus since most on work with one or two, but working with all 3 meant that if I changed from Siri to Alexa (which I just did) makes things so much easier.
Upgrading to Philips Hue
After I got my my Philips Hue white light bulbs, I decided I wanted the cool factor of the multi-colored light.
These lights are incredible. You can literally make your light any of the 16 MILLION colours available.
Plus you can take a picture of a cooler you like and Hue will let you change to that color.
Think your favorite sports team colors when watching a game.
So Much More You Can Do With Philips Hue
Now there are other features you can use with Hue, you can have them come on from anywhere in the world as long as you have your smartphone with you.
And let’s face it we always have our smartphones with us.
The other thing you can do is make the lights change color to simulate being home.
Or change rapidly to create a dance party type of effect.
There are tons of things you can do with these lights.
They are my official favourite gadget of this year.
CLICK HERE TO BUY PHILIPS HUE
