[One Small Thing: Ditch Your Phone as an Alarm Clock
Phones have replaced many things: computers, calculators, cameras, and maps. However, returning to an old-fashioned alarm clock instead of your phone might help you get up and go in the morning. According to Dr. Shalini Paruthi, a sleep medicine attending physician at John J. Cochran Veterans Hospital in St. Louis and adjunct professor at St. Louis University School of Medicine, keeping your phone in another room will likely decrease the opportunity for distraction from sleep and sleep procrastination.
A phone by your bed could mean easy access to scroll at night and an easy snooze button in the morning. If you’re planning to sleep better or wake up earlier to implement new routines in the new year, a small and helpful step may be trading your phone for an alarm clock.
Ideally, a person has gotten enough sleep that by the time the alarm rings, they are well-rested and actually ready to get up. Hitting the snooze button once might help you psychologically by allowing you to ease into waking up, but more than once isn’t recommended because you aren’t getting good sleep with the extra minutes.
Dr. Brandon Peters-Mathews, a neurologist and sleep medicine physician with Virginia Mason Franciscan Health in Seattle, recommends allowing deep, uninterrupted sleep until you absolutely must wake up. Instead of setting an alarm for earlier than you need and hitting snooze, Dr. Paruthi suggests allowing your body to wake up naturally.
Dedicated alarm clocks have many ways to get you up and out of bed, such as vibration, lights, and noises. Another benefit of not using your phone as an alarm is that you have an easier time removing it from your bedroom, which is helpful for sleep. Having a phone at the bedside makes it easy to roll over and start scrolling, making it hard to relax and unwind before bed.
The bright light and content on your phone can also make you more alert instead of drowsy, and screens can lead to procrastinating about sleep and getting less than you originally intended. Having your phone close by makes it more likely that you will use it, and the feelings of curiosity can entice you to roll over and check your phone, interfering with going to sleep, staying asleep, or sleeping soundly.
For better sleep, the National Sleep Foundation recommends several small steps, including getting bright light in the daytime, exercising for at least 30 minutes five days a week, eating meals at consistent times, avoiding heavy meals, nicotine, caffeine, and alcohol before bed, using a consistent wind-down routine, sleeping in a quiet, cool, and dark place, and putting electronics away an hour before bed.
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