Studies about waking up by alarms

[Mohamad&Issa]

Studies about waking up by "alarms"

Hello..
I'm searching-I search the whole web but-for links about statistics and studies about the "struggle" that faces people when waking up, and numbers for people who wake up--> snooze the alarm --> then sleep again.
If anyone has such links or studies please help.

 

[OmCheeto]

Hello..
I'm searching-I search the whole web but-for links about statistics and studies about the "struggle" that faces people when waking up, and numbers for people who wake up--> snooze the alarm --> then sleep again.
If anyone has such links or studies please help.

I can't find much either.

But I used to struggle to wake up in the morning. No matter how loud my alarm clock was, I would simply not wake up. Then I watched a daytime talk show where a doctor said that people with this symptom have a mild form of hypoglycemia. He said the cure was to eat a piece of chicken before going to bed. It worked for me. I've also recommended this to an acquaintance a few years back who claimed to suffer from this. He said the chicken worked for him also.

I've also found that I no longer need an "alarm" clock, but a "wake up" system. About 30 minutes before I want to get up, I have a lamp on a timer come on. Then I have a clock radio set to a fairly low volume, such that I only hear a talk radio show, and no buzzer. My guess is that hearing voices makes my semi-conscious mind curious as to what's going on. I'm usually out of bed within 5 minutes.

I haven't used my snooze bar in at least 10 years.

And you were right about searching the web. I'm not finding much to back up my claims.

 

[Evo]

I can't find much either.

But I used to struggle to wake up in the morning. No matter how loud my alarm clock was, I would simply not wake up. Then I watched a daytime talk show where a doctor said that people with this symptom have a mild form of hypoglycemia. He said the cure was to eat a piece of chicken before going to bed. It worked for me. I've also recommended this to an acquaintance a few years back who claimed to suffer from this. He said the chicken worked for him also.

I've also found that I no longer need an "alarm" clock, but a "wake up" system. About 30 minutes before I want to get up, I have a lamp on a timer come on. Then I have a clock radio set to a fairly low volume, such that I only hear a talk radio show, and no buzzer. My guess is that hearing voices makes my semi-conscious mind curious as to what's going on. I'm usually out of bed within 5 minutes.

I haven't used my snooze bar in at least 10 years.

And you were right about searching the web. I'm not finding much to back up my claims.

Sorry, but the sources you linked made claims that I could not substantiate with the links they provided.

If you can find the actual studies in approved journals, please repost with those links.

Thank you Om.

 

[Pythagorean]

Your question is really vague. I'll give you some general background and maybe you can focus your question based on the tidbits.

You are referring to sleep inertia, which can vary from 1 minute to 4 hours, depending mostly on sleep deprivation [1]. The simplified (qualitative) model of sleep is a homeostatic model[2]:

You have a 24 hour circadian rhythm (C), and sleep demand (S). When you're awake, sleep demand is increasing, when you're asleep, sleep demand is decreasing. And, ideally, once the S and C meet, you should wake up quite easily; sleep inertia shouldn't last more than 30 minutes if you've gotten enough sleep and you're a healthy neurotypical individual [1]. The mechanisms behind this have been explored. Basically parts of your brain are being "turned on". A lesser known set of neurotransmitters called orexin and hypocretin are involved [3]. The need for an alarm clock is often associated with sleep debt [4][5]. And of course, sleep debt will exasperate sleep inertia.[1]

[1] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1087079200900984
[2] http://jbr.sagepub.com/content/14/6/559.short
[3] http://pharmrev.aspetjournals.org/content/61/2/162.full
[4] http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.1081/CBI-100101031
[5] http://www.dublinschools.net/Downloads/apa.pdf

 

[OmCheeto]

Sorry, but the sources you linked made claims that I could not substantiate with the links they provided.

If you can find the actual studies in approved journals, please repost with those links.

Thank you Om.

Okay. I don't think I'll be able to find any reputable sources about eating chicken, so I'll stick to the light:

It would appear that melatonin is responsible for putting us to sleep, and a lack of melatonin allows us to wake up.

Melatonin | University of Maryland Medical Center

Melatonin is a hormone secreted by the pineal gland in the brain. It helps regulate other hormones and maintains the body's circadian rhythm. The circadian rhythm is an internal 24-hour “clock” that plays a critical role in when we fall asleep and when we wake up. When it is dark, your body produces more melatonin; when it is light, the production of melatonin drops.

So darkness makes the pineal gland produce melatonin, and light shuts it off.

Action spectrum for melatonin regulation in humans: evidence for a novel circadian photoreceptor.

The photopigment in the human eye that transduces light for circadian and neuroendocrine regulation, is unknown. The aim of this study was to establish an action spectrum for light-induced melatonin suppression that could help elucidate the ocular photoreceptor system for regulating the human pineal gland. ... which identifies 446-477 nm as the most potent wavelength region providing circadian input for regulating melatonin secretion.

This indicates that it is specifically blue light that shuts down the production of melatonin.

So how long should our blue light be on in the morning, before we pop out of bed?

Melatonin for Treatment of Sleep Disorders

Approximately 90 percent of melatonin is cleared in a single passage through the liver.

I have no idea how long a single pass through the liver takes.

Excretion

The results of pharmacokinetic parameters calculated from serum melatonin showed no significant gender differences in adults. However, developmental differences were significant between prepubertal children and adults for terminal elimination rate constant (1.08 +/- 0.25 vs. 0.89 +/- 0.11 per hr), elimination half-life (0.67 +/- 0.12 vs. 0.79 +/- 0.10 hr), and area under the concentration-time curve (250.9 +/- 91.8 vs. 376.9 +/- 154.3 (pg/mL)hr, respectively).

I understand half life, so it appears that half of the melatonin is removed from an adult in about 45 minutes.

Anyways, it's late, and I'm going to bed. If anyone knows how long a single pass through the liver takes, and what a "terminal elimination rate constant" is, I'll check it out in the morning.

:zzz:

 

[Borek]

You are referring to sleep inertia, which can vary from 1 minute to 4 hours, depending mostly on sleep deprivation [1]. The simplified (qualitative) model of sleep is a homeostatic model[2]:

Interesting, but definitely oversimplified, as it completely ignores existence of the secondary sleep gate.

 

[Mohamad&Issa]

Thanks for this information, but I'm searching for a statistical study "numbers" about people who struggle when waking up.Those who usually snooze alarms.

 

[Pythagorean]

Interesting, but definitely oversimplified, as it completely ignores existence of the secondary sleep gate.

Well, certainly it depends on the question you're asking. This model is generally introduced as background in talks, and built off of to understand the homeostatic goals of competing neural systems (mutual inhibition, etc.) in sleep.

But my assumption is that if you looked at this model in the case where you wake up before C meet S, then you'll still have a sleep debt and now it will be climbing again, but your C will be climbing as well. However, when your C peaks out and starts dropping, while S is still climbing (a little after noon) then you will feel a pull towards "second sleep".

So, in general, I think the second sleep gate is associated with the circadian rhythm heading downhill after it's mid-day peak... if not the S of a person who didn't get a full night's sleep reaching some critical maximum (or a combination of both).

Your interpretation might depend on which causal theory you think is correct for sleep. There's a bit of a debate currently about whether sleep is restorative or if it's somehow functionally relevant for CNS organization, or both. Homeostatic approaches seem to favor the restorative view.

Thanks for this information, but I'm searching for a statistical study "numbers" about people who struggle when waking up.Those who usually snooze alarms.

You mean you want to know the number of people who struggle to wake up in a given sample? You might find my reference [4] of interest. But I'm still not sure if I understand your question.