Learning to rise (or shine–never both)

Confession: I *hate* waking up in the morning.

Another confession: For years I have been relying on my husband to wake me. He does a smash-up job, but finds it uphill work.

Some time ago he told me of a Sleep Rhythm alarm clock, which monitors you through the night via wristband, and wakes you in your lightest sleep so you feel more alert and rested.

(I was in favor.)

(So was he.)

I began researching this, and found an amazing thing. Someone realized one day that the iPhone had all the needed technology to make this work affordably. The technology that used to cost $100 or more is now available for a petty $0.99, as an iPhone app!

Here’s how it works: You download the application, set a couple of preferences (including a half-hour wake-up window), and lay the iPhone face down in the corner of your bed, under your sheet. Sleep Cycle monitors your physical movements through the night to determine the soundness of your sleep, and wakes you when your sleep is lightest. You may choose from a variety of pleasant wake-up sounds, or use any song on your phone.

Sweet coincidence: Ryan has an old iPhone that he’s offered to me multiple times. I don’t want an iPhone. But I do want Sleep Cycle. Voilà!

I’ve been using it for five nights now, and love it. I usually feel like I was waking up already.

Other cool features:

• User-friendly format and instructions
• A “smart snooze”—for the remaining minutes of your wake-up window
• Vibration if the sounds fail to wake you
• A graph of your night! In the morning you can check it and believe me, it’s accurate. It also tells you how many hours you slept, and keeps record of your averages.

Here are three of my nights:

1. First night—I slept poorly, waking an unusual number of times:

2. Second night—In the hospital I slept marvelously, surprisingly enough—waking only when the nurse came in at 1:30 to check Regan’s vital signs:

3. Last night—Up with one of the children at 6-something; otherwise slept so hard I came near death a few times, it seems…

If you’re interested and have an iPhone, download the app here!