Approach #4: Clock Radio

On my quest to find the right device to wake me up in the morning, i'm trying a clock radio at the moment (only £3.49 from ARGOS!). The problem with my initial alarm clock with snooze is that i kept snoozing again and again... until i finally thought "now i'm awake" and turned it off, only to fall completely asleep for another half hour!

Next was the mobile phone alarm. The absence of a snooze feature meant i could set all 3 alarms on it but HAD to get up on the 3rd one. This worked ok except on those days when i was so tired that i either lost count as to whether the alarm going off was the GET UP NOW one, or simply turned it straight off and went back to sleep.

Thirdly, i bought an old-stylie clockwork alarm clock. Advantage being that it had a flipping loud bell for an alarm that would make anybody leap out of bed and either run out the front door shouting FIRE, or grab the nearest makeshift weapon (pillows are less effective than bedside lamps) to defend yourself from seemingly imminent danger. Although, after realising i was neither on fire or under attack, i had a tendency to leap back into bed, whereupon the lack of a snooze feature was again my downfall!

So... here i am at a clock radio. The genius of it all being that the radio comes on, and it stays on! There's no snoozing, or switching off alarms, or even leaping out of bed scared out of my face. Brilliant. The only thing is, radio 4 comes on and i become completely engrossed in what they're talking about and therefore forget to get up, or (more frequently) my mind goes numb and spend the next hour drifting in and out of consciousness, having bizarre dreams which ironically feature similar themes to the radio programme!

Well, the summer holidays must be the best time to experiment as there is considerably less urgency to get up! Hopefully i'll find the best solution by the time uni starts again in October!