Natural Light Alarm Clock

Gradual Light Alarm Clock

No one likes to be abruptly awakened to the sound of a blaring alarm clock. A gradual light alarm clock allows you to be awakened slowly and naturally, so that you're ready to get up at the right time.

A gradual light alarm clock is really a dawn simulator. It works by convincing the body that it's time to get up and out of bed. You set the alarm for the time you want to be awakened, and the light will turn on at a specific time before that -- this might be fifteen minutes, half an hour, an hour, two hours, or another amount of time depending on the particular light alarm clock you have and what you've set it to.

As the name 'gradual light alarm clock' implies, the light doesn't start out full blast. It begins at a low level and grows brighter and brighter over time, until the light is at its brightest. This mimics the way the sun starts out barely visible and gets brighter until dawn. It causes the body to believe that it's just experienced a real dawn, even if it's hours before the real dawn, such as in the winter, or too gloomy outside to trigger the proper response in the body.

This allows the body to get used to the idea of waking up. Most alarm clocks cause a sudden reaction in the body -- you hear the loud noise and are momentarily startled, but once you figure out where the noise came from (the alarm clock), you immediately feel like falling asleep again. The body only reacts to the sound because sudden loud unfamiliar noises might mean danger or some sort of emergency. This is why the body learns to ignore the sound so easily -- over time it learns that the noise doesn't signal any kind of danger, and can be safely ignored in favor of more sleep. It doesn't care that you're supposed to be waking up for work or school, if it hasn't gotten the proper signal for waking up (sunlight), as far as it's concerned it's not time to get up.

A combination of light and sound works well, however, which is why most models do have some kind of sound alarm. This may be a just normal alarm tone, but many gradual light alarm clock models come with either a radio alarm or allow you to load your own mp3s onto them to use as an alarm. This allows the gradual light component to wake up the body slowly, while having the sound alarm available for an extra final nudge if necessary. It also allows new users to start using the new alarm without worrying about not waking up to the light, which is a common concern for those who haven't used a gradual light alarm clock before.

Most of these alarm clocks have adjustable brightness settings as well as adjustable wake-up times, usually between fifteen minutes and two hours. Most people find the maximum brightness enough to wake up in the morning, but for some people, particularly those with extreme cases of seasonal affective disorder, more brightness may be necessary. Due to this, many models can be expanded with additional light bulbs for a reasonable price. The majority of people are fine with the normal brightness levels, so additional bulbs shouldn't be purchased until the need is certain.