Kava For Sleep: Tea Vs. Tincture

So, you’re interested in trying out kava…

But maybe you don’t have time to sit and sip a cup of this sleep stuff in its tea form.

Problem solved… with the tincture:

Use is pretty intuitve. You take a couple of drops, plopped into a beverage of choice, and drink up.

The one pictured above is the one I use – by Herb Pharm. Tinctures can come with both an alcohol or water base. (Although the only one I saw at my grocer was the grain alcohol based one.) I never really understood this because they say not to mix kava and alcohol – which is the perfect segue into talking about pros and cons. The one con of all kava is that long term, every day use can cause side effects like liver damage, scaly skin, and a bunch of other weird stuff I’m going to make you look up. I’ve never made this an everyday thing because A.) I finally built a life for myself where escape wasn’t a daily need anymore (10/10 stars; highly recommend) and B.) because all these slumber supplements aren’t cheap. (Cue Dana White quote about ski slope street drugs being expensive.) This goes for either form, though – it’s just adding alcohol is a bit less good for you. The flipside is that – whether you get it with water or alcohol – it is more concentrated in tincture form, meaning that although you pay more, it goes a longer way. It’s also, obviously, going to work far faster than tea – taking only the ten or fifteen minutes after you swill it down to start going to work.

And what was my personal experience?

(What? If y’all can dry-scoop your pre, I can straight-drip my kava.)

It wasn’t terribly dissimilar.

Within a short while of “adding it to a beverage” (AKA dropping it directly into my mouth, as seen above, because I’m a monster and I’m not sorry), I was already feeling the effects. It was as if the tension-ometer on my world had clicked down a couple notches. Still, something was missing. I didn’t feel that same body calm. No cozy-toe feeling. That sensation of vertical breathing suddenly becoming slow, full, and horizontal was missing. And why? I’d say it’s probably because it’s that whole Western vs. Eastern philosophy of approaching something like relaxation and sleep holistically versus treating it like another button on your phone you click for instant results. The tea offers an experience. There’s the aroma, the soporific quality of the steam rising up from your mug and slowly seducing your olfactory centers, and the warm beverage itself – inviting calm into your body. You can’t mimic that with a quick tincture. The whole problem with our approach to sleep is that we don’t want to take the time to make space for it. We aren’t willing to turn off our phones an hour before bed. (Guilty.) We aren’t willing to carve out space for pre sleep rituals. We want to go straight from escaping our brains to shutting them down without sitting for a moment to connect to our senses. Yogi’s kava tea will force you to do that. And you’ll be reluctant to, at first, but grateful for it after.

Final winner decision?

Tea if you have time and love yourself. Tincture if you have money and hate feeling good.

And winner over both’ve those is moderation – because, again, long term daily use is not suggested.

Kava For Sleep: Tea Vs. Tincture

Once I’d finally escaped years of benzos at bedtime, I knew I’d need a replacement.

At the very least, I needed something to help me sleep.

The entire Tyrd site has been an inadvertent homage to that – capitalizing on all the many remedies I’ve tried to calm my noggin and sleep deeply after relying on pharmaceuticals for too long. My holistic aisle herbal experiments in that first year were diverse. But, among the very first I tried along my journey was none other than one many don’t even know about: Kava. Kava comes from the root of the Piper methysticum shrub and it’s classified as a “depressant”. It slows down messages to your brain, calming and relaxing you all the while. (I can personally confirm.) And it’s been utilized for ages in faraway lands – not in our watered down tea and tincture forms, but actually chewed or brewed in South Pacific ceremonies and rituals. Mind you, it doesn’t exactly come without risk – and I knew that before giving it a try – but when used sparingly, it gets the job done. And how do you take it? Well, while it comes in many available forms, I’ve only tried a couple. (That’s all I needed really to find what I needed.) It came down, for me, to the tea versus the tincture. And I’m here to share my experience with both.

First up, let’s spill the tea on the tea…

(Yes, that’s me… enjoying my sacred tea time. You can follow @missashleyprimps for reviews)

Kava by Yogi tea is the only brand I’ve tried – because it’s all I needed.

And I could define this one the way I do a fine wine: With cinnamon and cardamom scent on the nose, the heat of the drink already causes and aromatherapeutic effect before your first sip. And when you do take it, you’re welcomed immediately with the warm spice on the palate, a slight numbing sensation, and pleasant surprise of sweetness (I think it’s stevia sweetened) on the end which lingers. (Intentional, likely, seeing as kava itself is a bit bitter – like myself, after a long sleepless night.) I like sitting with this one cradled in my hand, just below my face so that it’s like I’m getting a spa treatment of herbal steam between sedative sips. Before halfway through the mug, I begin to feel that cozy-toed calm, which slowly spreads over my body. The world takes on a more welcoming hue. My filter of reality feels kinder and calmer. And, if I’ve made the mistake of remaining anything but perfectly vertical on the couch, my mattress a few rooms over will start to sing its siren song.

Now, I’ll admit, I am a “blend” kindofa gal. I like wines that are blends and I do the same with my tea. So, my more current regimen will also include Tulsi Tea’s goodies (keep posted for reviews) as well as some other fun ashwaganda based bags. However, I can reflect fondly on my simpler days before my polyamorous tea bag lifestyle, when I practiced herbal monogomy. Indeed, I’ve had exclusive relationship with kava. And, I can confirm, it’s very effective all on its own. Don’t want to mix herbals but just want a bigger effect? Sometimes I’ll steep and reheat (letting it marinate for a while and then heating it back up – I’m sure some tea afficionado is rolling over in their day grave reading this); however, another option for non weirdos like me is obvious: just use two bags. Only caveat? Sometimes I want all of that – but don’t have the time to sit around and drink a full jar of dream juice – not to mention the time it takes to steep if you’ve decided to drink it last minute.

Oh, that’s you too?

No worries then… because this snooze time root also comes in other forms…

Click here to read my kava tincture review.

Natrol Melatonin For Sleep: Downsides

So, we’ve heard the wonders of sublingual melatonin.

As discussed in part 1 of this review, my go to is Natrol, at the 10 mg dosage.

(Which I only recently learned is a safe amount to take.) And, for me… it works perfectly. I’m out within the hour. I’m up right with the alarm. I’m not groggy the next day. And I sleep straight through the night. No midnight wakeups (followed by 1:00 A.M.,  1:30 , 2:00, and so on…) None of that. And, after months of anxiety keeping me awake and me finally considering taking scripts to nix the insomnia, this was a dream come true. (No pun intended.) But, speaking of dreams, let’s talk about *what’s* happening once you zonk out for the night.

To make a review fair, I’d do a disservice if I didn’t mention the “cons”. And, among the cons (or the closest to a downside I can say), are the uber vivid dreams you get when you take this stuff. Now, when they’re pleasant, no one really cares. (Right?) But when they get weird or even scary, that’s when melatonin’s effects could be considered detrimental. Usually, it’s just weird for me. But, the other night, I made the mistake of eating to close to sleep (something I often do, but never mixed with 10 mg of melatonin) and was rewarded with the most detailed, realistic, and terrifying dream about being kidnapped and sprayed with bleach. I woke up screaming. Not an awesome time, am I right?

No, but there are two “yes buts” to that. The first is that this is less a “Natrol” thing and more just a melatonin thing. It’s simply the cost of getting some quality shut eye. Why? Studies show that melatonin can up your REM sleep (that cyle of sleep notorious for causing crazy dreams that seem all too real). REM sleep on its own is important and normal. We need it. However, when that stage lasts longer than it’s meant to, that’s when the poop hits the room cooler. (Trialing that phrase out for “when the shiz hits the fan”; give me feedback on whether we love or hate it.) A too long REM cycle is when our brain’s creations get super detailed, crazy, and can turn into the downright horror show like I had. But, to reiterate, I can confirm this is not a Natrol thing. I tried a couple of other brands before settling on Natrol (mostly for the price point) and all melatonin does this.

In sum? The pros with Natrol are:

It works for getting you to sleep, keeping you asleep, and keeping you from waking up groggy.

The cons?

Any melatonin, regardless of brand, may make your eyelid films ultra vivid – and not always so great.

Natrol Melatonin For Sleep: Upsides

“Well, I can prescribe you something for sleep – or I can recommend something over the counter…”

My therapist officially had my interest.

She knows I’m not big into popping pills.

And that goes especially for those with long lists of possible side effects (and that are possibly habit forming), so anything au natural is optimal. For years, I was stuck on meds that left me dependent. I had to work hard to dig myself out of that hole. And, once out, I mostly had a handle on insomnia. But, lately, anxiety was getting the best of me, so I decided to reach out to my life advice giving pro. And I was totally open to it; however, to be honest, I was a little upset. Why didn’t I already know the answer? I write about sleep. I have been for years. I’ve tried it all. The herbals. The tinctures. The teas. The special pillows. The amber screen fliters. So, what could I have possibly missed? As it would turn out, I hadn’t missed anything. What I was doing just needed some tweaks. When I prompted her to offer her advice, she said:

“Melatonin.”

She saw my disappointed look straight away (I’ve got a crap poker face) and asked if I was already taking it. When I confirmed, she then asked how much and what form. And that’s where the mistake lay. Now, because I was misinformed somewhere along the way (or perhaps the research evidence has changed over the years), I had a misconception. And that was that only 3 to 5 mg was safe or healthy. When I relayed this to her, she shook her head. Apparently, 10 mg is the top recommended amount. Also, I wasn’t taking mine as a dissolvable. Also-also, I wasn’t taking mine as pure melatonin. (It was mixed with some other stuff, making me groggy the next day.) So, armed with my new knowledge of soporifics, I opted to hit my local Wegman’s and give this stuff a try:

Natrol’s Melatonin comes as a pink dissolvable (although, honestly, I just chew it).

It does come in 5 mg options as well – but that’s what I started with before my therapist’s suggestion – and got nada from it. I like this one because it’s pure melatonin with nothing else mixed in. The result? Finally… a night of sleep. And when I say “sleep”, I don’t mean take ten hours to get there and then wake up every half hour after midnight. I’ve been taking this for two months now, nightly. And each night I do, I’m starting to nod off within half an hour to an hour. Once it’s lights out, I stay out until it’s time to be up. But that’s not the best part. I had tried so many other sleep aids before. And, to be fair, many of them are good at taking you down for the count. However, each seemed to come with the price tag of a groggy morning where the snooze button seduced me into missing more and more of my morning workout. Not with Natrol. Often, I’ll even wake up right before the alarm (which is great because the mere sound of it now gives me PTSD) and have no desire to play the “five more minutes game”.

The only caveat? The weird azz dreams you sometimes get.

Keep reading here for some “drawbacks” to taking this little tablet.

Sleep Snack Hacks For A Better Rest

By now, we’ve learned when to eat for a better sleep.

Okay… but what should we eat during that window?

(Probably not a McBovineBurger like this guy, for starters…)

Can our foods help us snooze?

Indeed. Whether it’s three hours before bed or one, the things we eat can either steer our sleep ship toward theta waves or wakeful wakes. While sugar, spice, Starbucks, and other caffeine is out’ve the question, some things can facilitate that sleepytime transition. And what exactly are these soporific snacks? Well, let’s start with everyone’s favorite: carbs. To be specific, complex carbs are the favorable kind. Aside from being a notorious comfort food, they deliver a massive dose of snack ambien too. Whether it’s whole wheat toast or a bowl of oats, each trigger serotonin and don’t take too terribly long to digest.

But maybe you didn’t want something so heavy – so you went to bed hungry. If you’re still laying awake thanks to that low blood sugar we talked about in part one, fear not. You can still snack without going nuts – by munching some almonds. Indeed, almonds and walnuts (a great source of melatonin) are perfect for lulling you to slumber land. And if that’s too much fat for you (or you’re just allergic), try a kiwi. High in serotonin, this deliciously tart fruit that bites back makes a great late night dessert that’ll help you zonk out faster. Then again, perhaps you’re palpitation free, not too hungry, can’t sleep, and don’t wanna reach for drugs or supplements alike. To enjoy the benefits of food without the fill factor, try a nice bedtime beverage. Sipping some tart cherry juice or passionflower tea can be relaxing enough to help you rest. The tart cherry harbors both tryptopan and melatonin while the passionflower tea possesses the special chemical gamma aminobutyric acid (GABA). Because this chemical lowers some activity in brain cells, you feel more relaxed – and more apt to nod off.

(Not to mention how comforting a warm cup of kava can be…)

And your big meals can help you too.

If we rewind to three hours ago when we’re still choosing a nice sizable dinner to enjoy, we’ve also got some great options for stuff that’ll help us power down later. Turkey, for example, is one food we’re all familiar with putting us out moments after the meal ends. The mere thought of it elicits memories of impromptu holiday naps on the couch and feeling too lazy to move. Why? Well, most of us have heard about tryptophan being the reason. However, it’s also (again) to do with serotonin levels. By now, you may be thinking it’s weird that serotonin is the reason for feeling sleepy – especially when serotonin is correlated with other activities and brain states that don’t equate to feeling tired. However, according to some studies, it has to do with the amount at play. And, with certain foods that have enough of it, it gets metabolized into melatonin – the sleep agent with which you are probably far more familiar (and perhaps have used as a supplement in times past).  Fatty fish will similarly offer the same benefit for exactly the same reason. So, either will make a great dinner option.

And, there you go.

Ideally, yes, we’d time our plate cleaning a few hours before hitting the hay.

But whether you’re tardy or on time for chow, these hacks can all help you rest better tonight.

Should You Eat Right Before Bed?

You may know what to avoid eating before bed.

Drinking coffee after noon isn’t helpful. Eating chocolate will keep you up.

Also, sugar and spice alike make for wide eyes while horizontal.

(“Well there goes my Valentine’s day plans…”)

But what about when we eat?

According to the Cleveland Clinic, the window between food and snooze time should actually be about three hours or so. Why? Because when you sleep on a full stomach, your body is trying to multitask between two crucial processes: one is the entirety of all of your sleep functions and the other is digestion. Granted it may not seem like you’re doing much when you sleep (after all, you’re just laying there – how hard could it be?). However, this time is when your body goes to work to do repair and restoration. That takes energy. But, since digestion does too, the problem when you go to sleep too soon after eating is that neither thing happens in a quality way. (Worse yet, this definitely won’t help with your weight loss goals if you have any, inasmuch as it correlates with a higher BMI.) Also, heartburn may become an issue if you lay down too quickly after a meal.

So, that’s why you don’t want to slumber too close to supper.

Okay, but what if you wait too long?

Is it so bad to go to bed hungry? Well, that depends. Although they say it’s better to go to bed on an empty tummy versus a freshly filled one, there’s always a caveat. For example, it matters how long ago you ate. If you haven’t had anything since that on-the-run snack you shoved between your teeth at 2 P.M., then your blood sugar is probably gonna be a bit low. This is one I’ve had the unintentional misfortune of realizing when I’m going through busier times of my life. I’ll accidentally skip my evening meal, head to bed, and… proceed to lay there for the next three hours with my heart absolutely racing. Why? Well, it might be because rapid heart rate is a common side effect for those suffering from low blood sugar. It’s pretty tough to zonk out when your body’s acting like it’s running an ultra and missed the memo that it’s time to deactivate for the day.

The fix?

Well, it’s actually in the advice itself: it’s better to eat nothing than to go to bed on a full stomach, sure. But this doesn’t mean you can’t have a light snack to appease your blood sugar. (You’re still not “stuffing” your stomach.) The logic here is that you can either lay awake all night anyway with a racing heart or take an hour to enjoy and digest a small snack that will regulate your sugar levels (and bring your rate back to normal) before you lay down. Since it’s not a full meal, you may feel just fine laying down far sooner than the dinnertime three hour window normally allotted for a fuller meal’s necessary digestion time.

And what should we eat before bed?

Keep reading to find out…

What’s Causing Your RLS?

After a long day, your body is exhausted. Your spirit is weary.

Your brain is beaten into submission by a day full of problem solving.

And then… there’s your legs. Doing the can can to beat the band.

Restless Leg Syndrome is a term you’ve probably heard by now.

But it goes beyond the legs themselves just feeling restless. In fact, symptoms can vary from simply feeling like you’ve had too much pre-workout all the way up to straight up pain. Creeping and crawling feelings. Pulling and pressure. Throbbing and aching. Lightning bolts that make you wanna scratch. There are many ways RLS can present. And, while there are also many remedies for this intolerable condition, it’s always best to know the cause. Finding herbals that lull us into unconsciousness is awesome as a quick fix. However, it doesn’t address the why. So, what’s at the root of your foot kickery? What causes that nocturnal hurdle jumping to happen?

While it would be nice if there was just one cause, there are unfortunately more than one possibility to consider. The first? Dopamine irregularity. This brain chemical helps control muscle movement. So, when it’s off kilter, you can see how your legs would think it’s time to be doing the flutter during slumber time. The second? Nerve damage. Often caused by conditions such as diabetes (or alcoholism), this can make for aching as well as incessant motion. The third big factor? Deficiencies in iron or magnesium. Circling back to dopamine, iron plays a role in the normal functioning of dopamine. And, if that’s your issue, that’s great news because it means you could potentially “iron” out the neurochemical kinks with a quick trip to the shelves at your local pharmacy. In that same vein, another RLS cause can be solved in that same trip: magnesium deficiency. Because this stuff helps block calcium from turning your nerves on at night, you wanna make sure you’re all stocked up on it. Otherwise, you’ll find muscle contractions firing off when the rest of you is ready to rest. And, for less common causes – kidney failure and spinal cord conditions can definitely be reasons. However, if you’re suffering either of those things, RLS is probably the least severe symptom you’ve noticed thus far. (Which is why it’s listed last.)

And for my preggo friends suffering RLS?

The good news is that it usually disappears after delivery. The bad news is that now you’ll have something else keeping you awake every night. (*insert teeth sucking emoji*) All this said, yes it’s nice to have an idea of what might be going on (which is why I write this stuff). However, if this issue is plaguing you on a chronic level, get into a doc. Ask a medical professional for a workup first. That way, if it’s an easy fix (like taking an iron or magnesium supplement), you can quickly address that via over the counter supplements. (But adding a supplement when you’re not sure you need it may make things worse – not better – so you need to check for a deficiency first.) If that’s not the cause, then you can start addressing the other possibilities one by one, and undergo more in depth testing. Then, finally, if you and your medical professional reach an impasse, maybe spitball some of the above ideas as plausible causes and indications for further testing. Any health care practitioner worth their weight will hear you out before dismissing an opportunity to bring you relief. And if they don’t?

Then walk those twitchy limbs over to a new doc!

Do You Have Sleep Apnea?

Going to bed at nine on the nose?

Logging the recommended 8 hours?

And still waking cranky, exhausted, and longing for more snoozery?

Well, you just might have sleep apnea.

Sleep apnea is an especially difficult issue to diagnose if you’re single because most cases are noted not by the direct sufferer (you) – but by the secondary sufferer: your significant other. This is the person who has to hear the loud sound of your respiratory distress all night long. The snoring. The moment of panic when you stop breathing altogether. If you’re fortunate enough to have someone to notice this, the fix is simple. You head in for a sleep study. Then you get fitted for a CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machine. And, voila. So long as you don’t rip it off during the night, you’ve got a means to breathe, your sleep is unbothered, and you rise next sunrise, fresh as a daisy.

Okay, so what about us single folk with no S.O. to watch out?

If a snore happens in the forest and no one hears it – is it legit apnea?

Yes, and while you may not be able to hear yourself desperately hoovering in oxygen nocturnally like a reverse face fart, there are signs. But they’re all things you might notice the next day. (Not when it’s actually happening.) The first? A dry mouth. Because your oral cavity’s been ajar all night, fighting to keep you alive, it’s gonna be a little light on saliva. Hence the desert in your face hole. The second sign? A morning headache. While there’s no consistent reason for this one across the board, one contributing cause is often the position we put our neck in to optimize airflow. When your cervical spine is in a poor ergonomic position, it can cause not only neck pain but cervicogenic headaches.

Then, there’s sign number three.

Excessive daytime sleepiness.

it’s probably the most noticeable one because, while the other two might dissipate within the first hour of waking (causing you to forget about them altogether), this symptom tends to last most of the day – even if you roll around an I.V. pole of espresso like I do. Chronic grogginess (also called hypersomnia) is a telltale sign that you didn’t get a quality slumber. You might have not been conscious of it, but you didn’t achieve all the normal cycles of sleep we require to be fully rested come sunrise. Your body was too busy waking you up intermittently to remind you to breathe so that you wouldn’t, ya know, never wake up ever again. And this dovetails with the final sign that you’ve got apnea: difficulty paying attention when you are awake. Being perma groggy makes concentration pretty tricky. You might just notice that you’re a bit less clear than you usually are… or you might feel like you’re experiencing your whole world through a foggy filter and that your mind is moving like a drugged slug through mud. So, if you’re suffering any one of these symptoms consistently, don’t waste your days in a haze.

Go schedule a sleep study, stat!

Why You Still Sleep Badly With Amber Screen Settings

You’ve probably heard before to avoid screen time before sleep.

(And not just because it’s gonna hit you in the face one’ve these days, either…)

So… why?

In the past, we’ve all been told to eschew it due to the light factor. Blue light is the enemy of sleep. And, unfortunately, this is indeed the kinda light that radiates from a T.V., phone, or laptop. (But not your lamps and other ambient light sources in the home.) Bummer for us and our Revenge Bedtime Procrastination. (Yes, that is an actual term people apparently use.) On a deeper level (*pops on geek specs*), blue light suppresses melatonin. And melatonin is what’s required for us to snooze serenely through the eve. Now, this is probably all just a review for most of you avid readers of this site (or just researchers of sleep). Which means you probably also know that switching to amber light settings on your phone and laptop can counter this inconvenient fact, allowing you to keep scrolling or slaving away on those late night projects without melatonin being impeded by blue light.

So, that solves it, right?

Wrong. In studies done on the sleep cycles of those who utilized technology before bed, sleep was consistently interrupted. They even hooked people up to EEG machines to actually see what was happening in their domes as they dreamt. And even the snoring test subjects who kept their eyes shut through the night still had sleep cycles that were punctuated. (Also, light modification settings had no effect.) The non techie at bedtime folks, on the contrary, slumbered like winter grizzlies. And the real kicker? Even when the phone addicts tried to change their ways – they still didn’t resume a quality nocturnal cycle. Not straight away, at least. It took a solid week for their brains and bodies to reinstate business as usual. After that, they were golden. So, if not light – what was the reason these people were still missing out on a restful rest time?

In a word: dopamine.

Typically, many who tend to stay up late, staring at a glowing brick, aren’t doing it just for work. They’re scrolling. Facebook. Insta. TikTok. Reels. And, yes, even LinkedIn. (Sorry, you’re not special just because it’s “professional”.) When we scroll, we’re chasing one dopamine hit after the other in that anticipation for the next engaging post to come along. It’s that addiction reward game. The same goes for someone awaiting a text or email – or browsing through the more, shall we say, *ahem* adult content sites. One dopamine hit after the next.

(“Why did he only thumbs up instead of heart my post? Is he mad at me?!”)

And why does this matter?

Because dopamine can potentially inhibit norepinephrine – which, in turn, causes you to feel more alert. So, if you hit the hay with a brain doused in dopamine, you’re already going to feel awake. Add on a lack of amber filter for your screen, and good luck catching so much as a wink. The fix? Get your fix of screen time early on in the eve – and then stow your phone 30 to 60 minutes before it’s time to power down. If you need a good wind down to help your body calm down, try a relaxing yoga sequence or meditation. Journaling can be a good catharsis. Indulging in a bath or skin care routine also can be a nice pre-sleep ritual. Or, some people also just find that preparing for the next day (laying out clothes, packing up a lunch, or planning out tomorrow’s to-do’s) also help them feel less anxious and more accomplished so they can rest without an anxious brain prodding them back to consciousness.

That all said, we must appreciate that pre-bed screen time has become such a habit, that many of us are unknowingly addicted to it. If we weren’t, now that we know it’s bad for us, we could quit easily. And, make no mistake, it is very bad for us to do this. Without quality sleep, our immunity reduces. With lowered immunity, we can’t fight the ever evolving plague that even our best vaccines can’t seem to combat. Don’t care about Omicron? Then maybe the vanity or intelligence angle will worry you. When we rest, our memory is fortified and our skin heals itself. Take that away, and we age twice as quickly and can’t think on our feet – affecting our performance in all areas of our lives. The point of all that being to say: if you recognize you have this addiction to evening dopamine hit distributing devices – acknowledge it, and map out an alternative plan for a replacement ritual.

So, don’t delay. Ditch the brain melting rectangle, find a new nighttime routine, and you’ll be on your way to sleeping sweetly in just a week.

This Alarm Is Lit – Literally…

Sick of the sound your iphone alarm makes every morning?

Of course you do. We all hate it.

And it’s so universal, that even if we hear someone else’s, we still have a Pavlovian response.

(Wait. Does he sleep with the bat for intruders? Or so he can do this every morning…?)

But what is about the sound of an alarm that makes us so miserable?

Is it the noise itself? Sure, it’s not pleasant to hear a blaring sound. But what we truly detest about the alarm is the association. Normally, when we hear that sound, we’ve been abducted from slumber. Plucked from our peaceful reveries. Kidnapped from our all too brief dream time. And it’s so sudden. There’s no warning. No countdown or cool down. One minute, you’re at the park, trying to catch a unicorn alligator hybrid so you can fly it to work because your car is in the shop. The next, you’re awake in winter darkness and still half wondering where you put Reginald the unigator’s harness. It takes a while to come back to reality.

What’s more, it takes a while to become functional. Because, when our sleep cycle is interrupted and we’re not waking organically as we do with the sun, we spend the day feeling less than rested. This is why the professionals will tell you it’s better to sleep in specific incremental levels to complete all the phases of snooze time. Even if you log less time sleeping like a log overall, it’s better to wake up on the end of a cycle than to start another and interrupt it. Usually, however, we don’t. It’s rare that said alarm matches up with that. So, then, what happens by day? You’re tired from your unfinished sleep. So, obviously, you reach for your Caribou coffee all day or something similar from the ubiquitous Emerald Mermaid. And what happens by night? Sleeplessness again because of the caffeine. It’s another delayed snooze, another unfinished sleep cycle, and another tired morning ushered in by that nasty ringing digital brick. Right? Right, but that doesn’t help me when I have to wake up at 4. So what’s the fix for that? How do we end the cycle – so to speak?

A great many of us must rise prior to our solar orb. So organically getting up with the sun’s not an option.

But you know what is?

A simulated sun…

(Dear diary, I hate myself for not getting this sooner…)

That’s right.

It’s a light that slowly spends the first thirty minutes of your morning glowing from a rosy rising morning star to a bright white luminescence, filling your room, and taking you from witching hour to midday just like that. Ya know – like the sun – but much faster. Once you’re exposed to this simulated morning light, you naturally feel inclined to rise. Now, you know me. I don’t endorse dumb ideas. Granted, I’ll write about all of the various sleep hacks to be had. I’ll give them each their spotlight. But if I think something’s a waste of money and that you can do much better with something cheaper – you’re gonna hear about the economical option. Why? Because I don’t get paid to be a liar like some influencers and writers do.

So, with that said, I think this thing might just be worth the $99 they demand for it. (Even though I feel like you should just say it’s $100. You’re not fooling anyone with sacrificing a dollar to say it’s in the double digits…) Many an expert will tell you that the best option would be to naturally rise with sunlight. They actually did a study on this with people they took to the mountains who had no watches, alarms, or phones and they all rose at the same time with the sun, felt more rested, and became healthier. (Although if I could spend a week away from work, people, alarms, and technology, I probably would be too…) Bonus? For those diagnosed (or self diagnosed, whatever) with Seasonal Affective Disorder, this could be a game changer. It’s difficult to start your day in darkness, be stuck inside all day for the actual sunlit hours, and then experience early darkness again for your few hours of freedom before a brief nap prior to returning to your prison made of paychecks. This could help your mind feel more like you’re getting the extra photons you’re missing in the winter, while also naturally nudging you to get up. The literal only downside to this that I can think of is the fact that anytime I wake up before my alarm, I’m in a panic, thinking my alarm didn’t go off. Especially on my late days and weekends. With that being the only downfall, though, this thing (which, incidentally, is called the Lumie Bodyclock Rise 100 Wake-up Light, if you’re trying to find it specifically) is definitely going on the winter wish list. That is, unless one of you loyal readers can quote me a cheaper option. And then I’ll get that instead.

Pro-tip, though?

If you’re getting one too, I’d still set that annoying alarm…

Just in case.