Unless I need to catch a plane or get up before 5, I haven't used an alarm clock in at least 20 years. Some of this has to do with the luck of being in a job with a flexible start time, but most of it has to do with going to bed around 10pm and having a natural tendency to wake up at the same time every day. I'm quite awful at sleeping in.
A long time ago, when I had less to worry about I guess, I loved the quiet of my partner's bedroom. There were no windows, no door to the outside, and it was so very quiet. Maybe not "corn farm on 200 acres" quiet, but for being in a city it felt absolutely silent to me.
Then, maybe due to stress, maybe due to little noises of an old house, my partner brought a white noise machine in to the bedroom. I hated it. I wanted to be able to hear if something went wrong in another part of the house. But I got used to it, and it did kind of cover up his snoring. I have even started to miss it when I travel. It might even be helping me sleep.
More recently, my partner started to use an alarm clock. It was jarring, and pointless; a horrible combination. It would wake both of us up, but then he'd go back to sleep and I couldn't. And there were always those times where I'd peer at the clock wondering if we had missed the alarm.
So I suggested we turn the white noise machine into a negative sound alarm.
Now the white noise machine turns off at a set time. It's a subtle change, and sometimes I do wake up immediately, but more often than not I wake up a few minutes after it turns off. It's much more relaxing than waking up to a sound, even a soft sound.
But the best part is, once it turns off, it's always off. So if he drifts off or if I wonder if I overslept, I can always hear whether the white noise machine is off or on. It's kind of brilliant. The only catch is to make sure to turn it off on weekends, so that I have a chance of sleeping a little later. I love how much this works for us, but I'm not sure it would work for many other people.
