It was created in 2010 and hummed along unnoticed until early this year, said David Shaw, the 24-year-old engineer who created it. Sleepytime is not a new product, although I heard about it only earlier this week. Although I got less sleep, I felt more refreshed than I expected. I kept myself up until around 1 a.m., and then got ready for bed. Although I was exhausted, it was already 11:30 p.m., and I still had a few more work-related tasks to slog through. I typed in my desired wake-up time and the app told me to get in bed by 11:55 p.m. to catch up on e-mail and maybe squeeze in a run before work. One night, for example, I decided I wanted to wake up at 7 a.m. Sleep cycles last around 90 minutes, and it is thought to be easier to get out of bed in between those cycles than while in the midst of one, the application counts in 90-minute intervals.īut after testing it out for a few nights, I was surprised to discover that it works relatively well. You tell the application what time you’d like to wake up, and it calculates your bedtime. It’s fairly bare bones, less of a fancy app than more like a nifty Web hack. Nothing has worked for more than a day or two.īut earlier this week, a fellow tech reporter told me about, a service that he’s had some luck using. I’ve tried bribing my mom and close friends to call me when they wake up and hidden alarm clocks But setting multiple alarms proved futile, as did programming automatic wake-up calls. Over the years, I’ve devised several systems to get myself out of bed at a reasonable hour in the morning and curb the bouts of chronic oversleeping that have Long-term exposure to light at night in shift work has even been associated with an increased risk of breast and prostate cancers.I’m not a morning person, not even close. It is likely that disruption of the clock contributes not only to sleep problems, but the development of depression, metabolic disorders and cardiovascular disease. 'As our clocks are very sensitive to blue light, the use of tablets and smartphones at night can be disruptive. 'Problems arise when we disrupt our clock with light at night, essentially tricking our clock into thinking it is day when it is night,' Cain explains. This means that when we have computer screens and televisions and bright lights on into the evening (something 54 per cent of Australians do, according to a new survey by Koala mattresses), we confuse our SCN. When there is less light – like at night – the SCN tells the brain to make more melatonin so you get drowsy.' 'Since it is located just above the optic nerves, which relay information from the eyes to the brain, the SCN receives information about incoming light. 'The body's master clock, or SCN, controls the production of melatonin, a hormone that makes you sleepy,' explains the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. There are a couple of simple ways to rest easier. This is most obvious in situations where the clock is disrupted, like in jet lag and shift work,' Cain explains. When you are sleeping at a non-optimal time, sleep suffers. If you sleep at the right biological time, you'll get optimal sleep. 'Sleep quality depends very much on the timing of sleep relative to your internal clock. For starters, it's not just about REM sleep, it's about when we sleep. Trying to calculate a bedtime based on sleep cycles is problematic for several reasons. Luckily, I don't think many people would actually follow the advice.'

It's potentially harmful, if the advice in that article gets around. 'Sleeping an extra hour, but feeling a bit groggier when waking would most likely be better for your alertness across the waking day.

This is likely to be a temporary benefit. In REM, the brain is about as active as it is when awake, so it may feel easier to wake. 'I'd definitely disagree that it is more important to wake out of REM than to get more sleep. 'It is easier to wake out of REM, but the advice on when to go to bed is terrible,' says Cain, a senior lecturer whose research focus is sleep and circadian rhythms.

Sleepyti me sleep calculator