No Stupid Questions

If there's a life-or-death situation that I absolutely cannot miss, I'll set two alarms 15 minutes apart.

But in all honestly, you should be able to wake up fresh without even having an alarm. It requires that you practice good sleep habits, including a consistent sleep schedule.

It sounds really counter intuitive, but wake up slower. It's really easy for me to startle awake just enough completely turn off my alarm, not just snooze, and fall back asleep hard. If I wake up to an alarm that slowly increases in volume from barely audible, then I tend to wake up much more gently and slower. That little bit of extra time means makes it much harder to fall back asleep and by the time I reach for my alarm to silence or even snooze it. I'm clear headed enough to not either actually snooze the alarm instead of turning it off or be awake enough to not fall back asleep at all. Going from awake straight to sitting up or standing is super stressful and just makes everything awful. Being mostly awake before my head even leaves the pillow is much less stressful.

In college, this came down to me finally crossing the bridge to being an adult, and agreeing with myself that the alarm would go off, and I would wake up. When I went to sleep, how distracted I was at night, and why and when I was getting up were all on me, but I had to get up to the alarm. It changed my thinking knowing no magical parent was going to force me to get up. I either went to the morning class, or failed the class.

If you're going to bed with music or sound, make sure it's at a barely audible level or shuts off after you fall asleep. Otherwise your brain gets used to tuning out the noise and will tune out your alarm

I personally use Sleep as Android which comes with a bunch of options to help ensure you've actually woken up. I utilize the "captcha" option in which when I go to turn off the alarm, it displays a screen full of sheep and all of them but one are sleeping - you have to click the one that is "awake" in order to dismiss the alarm. I guess the process wakes up my brain just enough so that I don't go back to sleep, whereas with a regular alarm that has just a simple dismiss button I'll absolutely either hit dismiss or one of the volume buttons to turn off the alarm before I've fully woken up.

I also have it set to buzz on my watch for 90 seconds before playing a sound on my phone (which escalates in volume) - I've not had a problem waking up with this in the years that I've been using it.

There are other options too, such as answering math questions, scanning a QR code, pressing your phone to an NFC tag, heavily shaking the phone, one called "Say cheese!" that makes you smile as hard as you can and uses the camera to detect it, and one that you have to "laugh out loud".

Electric shock alarm

Get some smart bulbs and set them to a timer. The lights coming on helps wake you up naturally since your body thinks the sun is coming up.

Despite the name being stupid, Alarm Clock Extreme is a great app. I paid for it years ago, and have recently paid for it again due to it being bought out by another company. I do not feel cheated by this fact. It's been worth it.

Get a timer controlled power outlet and hook a Hitachi magic wand to it. Place the wand under your pillow. The vibration is super intense and gets uncomfortable at the highest setting. Bonus points you can wake and bate since you have a massager handy.

It's a bit microtransactional but alarm clock extreme for Android is a good solution for me https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.alarmclock.xtreme.free

It was a lot better before AVG labs bought it from the original dev though. They discarded all original purchases making it like they never happened. That said, I've bought it twice because it's so good.

There are alarm clock apps which can help. You may configure how unforgiving the alarm becomes.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kog.alarmclock

Changed my life.

• Get a cheap old fashioned alarm clock (we're talking about something that costs maybe 10 bucks).
• Put it out of reach so that you have to physically get out of bed to turn it off.
• Configure it to go off at the appropriate time with the nastiest sound (usually they have an "alarm with a radio" and an "alarm with alarm sound" modes and you definitely want to have it in the latter mode, not the former).

It's a pretty horrible way to wake up if you went to bed late (protip: stop drinking coffee and using a computer after 11PM to deal with the whole only falling asleep late part of the problem) and that's why it works.

I've also heard that you can get alarms that either turn on a light, or slowly increase a light intensity in the room to mimic a sunrise. I would try one of those in combination with a proper alarm or three, unless you use like a sleep mask or something.

Back in the '90s when we were teenagers, my sister had to get the loudest possible alarms you could find and set it up on a dresser on the far side of her bedroom.

Personally, I always set two alarms when it's time to get up. Put the loudest, most obnoxious ringtone on you can think of, set them to repeat every 5 minutes, and offset them by a few minutes so that you're basically getting an annoying alarm every 2 to 3 minutes. I taught this trick to my fiancee because she's a heavy sleeper and a reluctant waker too. You can combine both tricks too if you need to.

I use an app called QR alarm or something. It only turns off when I scan its QR code which I've pinned to the other side of the room. Having to get up and actually think about scanning something helps me more than when I just used an alarm clock across the room

Sleeping earlier should help, if the issue is falling asleep earlier, consider light exercise a couple hours before trying to sleep. I'm personally not a big fan of medicated sleep assist, but some people may need it.

I used to be a very deep sleeper. The things that helped me wake up on time were making sure I was tired enough at the end of each day to sleep soundly, and getting up at the same time daily. I usually wake up a bit before my alarm goes off these days.

I set about five alarms.

Practice getting up in response to your alarm.

Seriously.

Once or twice a day, in the middle of the day, go lay down in bed, like you're going to sleep, and set your alarm for maybe 5-10 minutes. The moment it goes off, shut it off and stand up. Teach your body the habit of standing up, immediately, in response to the alarm. So long as you're getting enough sleep, you'll start doing it in the morning, on reflex.

Check your settings to see if the alarm isn't giving up after a set amount of time, had this happen to me. Try changing the ringtone to a song you hate and putting it the furthest away you can inside your room so you have to get up.

Put your phone/alarm somewhere that makes you get up to turn it off. Then you're already out of bed.

Be super anxious that your spouse is going to start belittling you for not getting anything done so that the moment movement anywhere in the house happens you bolt awake and start cleaning something, get a divorce, move to a new house so all the noises are different and everything sets off the "oh fuck I need to wake up and clean" response, then carry that anxiety over to assuming your super caring new roommate is going to secretly hate you unless you're always awake and cleaning something. Worked for me anyway I can wake up hours earlier than I used to I don't even need an alarm

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kog.alarmclock

I use a smart alarm app. It uses your mic to track your breathing, and uses that information to identify when you're in deeper and lighter phases of sleep. You set a range of time for the alarm, and when it detects you coming out of a deep cycle it starts the alarm. I've always slept through alarms, and this works like a dream.

There is an app called Sleep As Android that I used to use. You put your phone on your bed next to you and it tries to determine what level of sleep you’re in. You tell it when you’d like to get up and if it detects that you’re in a lighter stage of sleep within a certain amount of time before that, it triggers the alarm. You’re then more likely to hear it, and more likely to feel rested, than if it went off like, twenty minutes later.

Also played nice with WearOS watches.

I set 3 alarms. If 3 wasn't enough, I'd set 4.

Etc.

Android lets you set custom alarms. The best one I have is a recoding of me screaming into my phone to "get the fuck up"

I use an alarm captcha, simple math problems so I can't accidentally dismiss the alarm instead of snooze. I also keep a similar sleep schedule throughout the week so I'm sometimes already awake a little before the alarm and I have an alarm to remind me when to go to bed.

Layer it so that you have 5 alarms 5 minutes apart. You might miss the first or second but generally your ass is up by the 5th

I’m really sensitive to light when I sleep. I’ve got blackout curtains, no annoying little lights on any devices, the usual. One of the advantages is that by having a smart light bulb set to gradually turn on alongside my alarm, it really wakes me the hell up. Maybe try incorporating a light to yours?

I use an app called AMDroid, it makes me do math in my head before I can shut it off. Works every time.