Using Music As Your Alarm Makes You Less Groggy
By Hope Bidegainberry on February 13, 2020
If you are always groggy in the mornings, you might need to get more sleep. OR, you might just need to make this simple change to your alarm .
A recent study in Australia found that waking up to MUSIC makes us more alert than waking up to a beeping sound.
The researchers expected the opposite. They thought the sudden jolt of a loud beep would make people more alert. But that was not the case.
They think repetitive beeping sounds might mess with our brainwaves at the crucial moment when we’re transitioning from being asleep to being awake.
People in the study were much more alert when their alarm was a, quote, “combination of melody and rhythm” . . . a.k.a., music. And highly melodic songs might work best. One example they gave was “Good Vibrations” The Beach Boys.
Most phones make it easy to set a song as your alarm now. So it shouldn’t be too hard of a transition if you want to try it out. Or you can set your alarm clock to wake you up with the radio.(Ideally the station you’re currently listening to.)
By the way, if you’re still using an old-fashioned alarm, you’re in the minority. A survey this month found 43% of us now use our phone as our alarm. Only 25% still use a clock. Everyone else wakes up some other way.
