Ever wonder why some days, you wake up feeling exhausted and underslept, despite getting eight (or more) full hours of good sleep?
As opposed to other days when you get less than eight hours, but find yourself naturally sliding out of bed with ease?
The cause is twofold: Not only is this influenced by the more widely-known REM cycle of sleep, where the sleeper drifts naturally from a lighter to a heavier state of rest, but also by the lesser-known phenomena called the circadian rhythm. According to the website of the National Institute of General Medical Studies, circadian rhythms are “physical, mental, and behavioral changes that follow a daily cycle.“ Our cycles are the traditional light-based cycles, which encourage us to sleep in low light environments and stay awake in well-lit environments. Maintaining a healthy rhythm can also have a massive effect on an individual’s health and well-being, possibly much more than one might realize:
“Circadian rhythms can influence sleep-wake cycles, hormone release, eating habits and digestion, body temperature, and other important bodily functions. Biological clocks that run fast or slow can result in disrupted or abnormal circadian rhythms. Irregular rhythms have been linked to various chronic health conditions, such as sleep disorders, obesity, diabetes, depression, bipolar disorder, and seasonal affective disorder.”
And while in theory, keeping this rhythm in check should be as simple as going to bed at the same time every night, many working people know that this alone is not a reliable answer. Late nights happen, and one way or another, hours of rest get missed. But how can one mitigate the negative effects on their circadian rhythm while managing their hectic day-to-day lives? The answer is closer than one might expect, and best of all, it’s free.
Meet Sleep Cycle, an alarm clock application on the iOS App Store and Google Play Store and Android that has been growing in popularity (deservedly so) over the past few months. On the surface, this app seems similar to many other free alarm clocks: Set your desired wakeup time, connect to your charger, and place your phone face-down on a bedside table and the app will use highly sensitive breathing cycle tracking to monitor your sleep patterns and wake you up when your sleep is at its lightest – anywhere between the time you set and a half hour before. The app also condenses your sleep levels into a useful chart that allows you to see how well you slept that night, which could help explain continuous feelings of fatigue if one’s sleep quality is consistently poor.
This is the simplest and most automatic way to improve one’s morning moods and also help perfect the circadian cycle. But using it correctly takes a fair bit of self-regulation. For example, one must be cautious to avoid going for “ten more minutes” of sleep, even if their clock says they still have ten minutes until the time they set on their alarm. Waking up from this short “ten more minutes” may prove more difficult than waking up at the time recommended by the Sleep Cycle alarm clock, and could leave a person drowsy or unfocused for a good bit of their morning.
The Sleep Cycle alarm clock app also offers a premium subscription for those looking for that extra bit of analysis on their daily down-time. For $29.99 annually, the premium subscription offers a host of new alarm sounds, safeguarded date storage in an online cloud backup, the ability to automatically track long-term changes in sleep quality, the ability to affect the effect of one’s lifestyle on their sleep habits, a morning heart rate counter, and more. It’s a sweet set of features for a fairly low cost, but the app’s most important functions are still kept totally free. That’s $80 to $120 more free than physical alarm clocks offering a similar set of features.
To learn more about the circadian rhythm, check out its page on the National Institute of Health and Medical Studies, linked above. For more information on the Sleep Cycle alarm clock app and its effects, visit the official website here.
