Whether sleeplessness results from stress, depression, anxiety or diet, it manifests itself through sleep disorders and affects many people by having a negative impact on their daily routine.

Without adequate sleep, people notice a difference in almost every aspect of their lives. The commitments in a person’s schedule do not change for sleeplessness; one must still go to work at a certain time, kids must be taken care of and classes must be attended. Not only does lack of sleep make people tired and less functional but also it may lead to more serious problems. A person’s body must work hard to maintain homeostasis (a healthy balance). Sleep is a very crucial part of this balance and when it is lost, people will notice an increase in health-related problems caused by sleep loss.

One of the most common sleep disorders is insomnia. Caused by a wide variety of factors, this disorder is present in many people. Sleep apnea is also a serious condition related to difficulty breathing and lack of sufficient oxygen. There are many other sleep disorders, but treatments exist for every kind. Sleep apnea is a bit different and may require a breathing mask or other aids that are not used in treating most sleep disorders relating to sleeplessness.

Trying fruitlessly to sleep is a very frustrating feeling for those suffering from sleep disorders such as insomnia, but there are many modern sleep therapies helpful in correcting this issue.

The most common solution for sleep disorders is medication. Several oral sleep aids are available, but often the side effects of these prove more of a hassle than a help to many people. Medications may be successful for some and without side effects. Even if side effects are not experienced, several people develop dependencies on sleep medications to induce sleep. Fortunately, many successful alternative and affordable therapies exist.

Brainwave entrainment is becoming a popular method of correcting some sleep disorders. The human brain receives signal waves which each have different effects. Isochronic tones are known to slow brain waves, inducing sleep. Many people have misconceptions about this method, picturing a machine with a metal helmet and wires attached to their head. Of course, this is not the case. In fact this method is quite simple, with the most popular form of isochronic wave delivery through sound. Several sound therapy CDs are available to help people sleep. Some sound tracks may be downloaded from the internet. For many people this method has proven effective and is less expensive than medications.

Another popular method of correcting sleep disorders is the use of Yoga. Yoga is a practice which mixes concentration, breathing, posture, exercise and meditation to relax a person. An ancient art related with the Hindu religion, this practice was used to assist Hindu people in reaching the ultimate goal of enlightenment in which humans free themselves from the burdens of the life cycle. Many classes are widely available to learn this effective ancient art.

Acupuncture is a popular Chinese therapy which involves the use of placing pins in specific nerves. By puncturing the nerves, this therapy is supposed to help with many ailments and is commonly used to treat several sleep disorders. Contrary to popular belief, acupuncture does not cause permanent and irreversible damage to nerves. Many people are skeptical of this treatment and think it sounds painful, but it is not painful and has proven quite successful for many. Acupressure is similar to acupuncture, however instead of puncturing nerves, pressure is applied to the nerves. Similar to a massage, this treatment is usually sought before acupuncture by skeptics. When treating sleep disorders, acupuncture has proven to be the more effective of these two therapies.

Massage therapy is another easy and common way to treat sleep disorders. Many times a sleep disorder is due to tension. Sleep does not usually come unless a person is relaxed. Massage therapy is used to relax a person’s muscles. Physical touch has proven to be very comforting and relaxing for most people, which means this therapy is two-fold in its effectiveness. Some people may pay to have regular massages while others simply may have their spouse, partner or friend give them a free massage.

Several other things may help when coupled with therapies, such as avoiding caffeine, exercising regularly, eating a balanced diet, drinking herbal tea, taking vitamins and avoiding excessive use of alcohol, tobacco and drugs.

Those who suffer from sleeplessness should visit a trusted sleep institute or sleep laboratory. By staying overnight at one of these facilities, a person is monitored by sleep technicians who are trained to identify disorders through a person’s sleep pattern.

If sleeplessness affects your daily life and routine and is present for more than a week at a time, we recommend that you seek the help of a sleep professional to help identify and solve your sleeping problems.

We wish all of you very pleasant dreams and hope that you’ll wake up refreshed each and every day!

Tags: acupressure, acupuncture, brainwave entrainment, insomnia, isochronic wave delivery, lack of sleep, massage therapy, modern sleep therapies, Sleep, sleep apnea, sleep disorders, sleep institute, sleep laboratory, sleeplessness, yoga

• Down With Sleep Disorders
• The Answer To Why We Sleep
• Sleepwalking And Somnambulism
• Sleep Should Have A High Priority In Your Life
• Eyes Open Sleeping

If most of you are like me, then there have been occasions in your life when sleep is your best friend.

I don’t always sleep in, but occasionally it just feels good to not wake up in the morning. What I realize after I get up, however, is that I have just wasted a lot of time and I am now behind on all of my work. This is the reason why OnlineClock.net believes that Snooze Clocks Are Evil.

There are a few tips that I have found useful for those of us who enjoy the dream world a little too much. I would like to share Seven Tips For Waking Up Faster with you that have helped me to get an early start on the day.

Wake Up Fast Tip #1: Go to Bed Earlier

1. Go to Bed Earlier
We all need sleep, whether it is at night or in the morning. The best thing you can do for your body is to get eight hours of sleep. Instead of staying up until midnight, try going to bed at 10:30. My guess is that the extra hour and a half that you spend awake at night is spent watching TV or playing video games or something similarly unproductive, anyway. Time spent in the morning is generally spent more productively.

Wake Up Fast Tip #2: Jump Out of Bed Quickly

2. Jump Out of Bed Quickly
It is easy for us to rationalize and say “Just 10 more minutes…then I’ll get up”. But this is a habit that needs to be nipped in the bud. If you jump out of bed the first time your alarm goes off, no matter how tired you are, your body will eventually learn that 6:00 is “wake-up time”, not 6:15 or 6:30. So, before you even turn your alarm off, jump out of bed. In this way you’ll train your body that it needs to get up and at ‘em as sound as that alarm strikes the first time. And, after awhile, there will be much less temptation to hit your snooze button.

Wake Up Fast Tip #3: Have Something Planned for the Morning

3. Have Something Planned for the Morning
Before you go to bed, write yourself a note about something you HAVE to do when you wake up. Whether it be a morning run, reading the paper, finishing homework, or any other activity, write a note and leave it right next to your alarm clock. Before you fall asleep, get your mind excited about doing whatever activity you have planned, and then remember this feeling of excitement in the morning. This will motivate you to want to get up more quickly.

Wake Up Fast Tip #4: Find a Friend to Help

4. Find a Friend to Help
Ask your spouse or another friend for help waking up in the morning. If he or she struggles with the same problem, you can keep tabs on each other. This especially works with spouses who can smack you upside the head with a pillow early in the morning (yes, there is no better personal trainer than a wife with a loaded pillow!). If you don’t share a bed with a partner or spouse, then ask a friend to call you the minute their alarm clock goes off to check to see if you’re awake. You can even plan your early morning activities with each other in order to do a better job of checking to see that both of you have gotten up quickly.

Wake Up Fast Tip #5: Eat Healthy Before Bed Time

5. Eat Healthy Before Bed Time
One of the dumbest things you can do before bed is chow down an entire bowl of popcorn and a couple scoops of ice cream. The sugars that you get from these foods will wake your body up and not get it into proper sleeping form. This especially includes any kind of caffeinated beverage or coffee. Your mind may actually fall asleep, but your body will be working overtime. Late night snacks are hard to resist, so eat an apple or some vegetables instead. Your body will return your kindness in the morning by helping you to wake up earlier.

Wake Up Fast Tip #6: Practice!

6. Practice!
This one may sound silly, but it works, trust me! Practicing waking up is the step that has really helped me to get up earlier. In the middle of the afternoon, go lay down as if you are asleep. Before laying down, set your alarm clock to go off in the next 3-5 minutes. Now, as you lay down, make sure that you get yourself as comfortable as possible. Imagine that you are dreaming by trying to think of something completely unrelated to sleep. As soon as the alarm goes off jump out of bed and take a deep breath, then turn off the alarm. Do this 2 or 3 times a day for a week or so. Your body will actually get in the habit of jumping out of bed quickly, taking a deep breath, and turning off the alarm. I know, it sounds incredibly silly…but it works!

Wake Up Fast Tip #7: Use OnlineClock.net

7. Use OnlineClock.net

Finally, we have a tip for waking up quickly that involves our online alarm clocks.

We’ve found that our alarm sound can be an extremely effective motivator when it comes to getting people out of bed quickly. The reason why is that our alarm sound is, well…how should we put this – effectively annoying. That’s right. We’ve received reports from young and old alike praising our peculiar alarm clock sound precisely because it is darn annoying…annoying enough to wake up many light sleepers when played even at relatively low volume levels. It might be interesting for some of you Online Clock fans to note that, several years ago, we did indeed try to change our patented alarm sound to something a little easier on the ears. The feedback we got was resounding: all of the people who wrote us told us they wanted us to switch back to our original alarm sound, which you can still find everywhere on OnlineClock.net today.

So how can you use Online Clock’s alarm sound to help you get out of bed quickly?

Just follow these simply steps:

1. Set your alarm on a laptop or desktop computer which is at least several feet away from your bed. This way you’ll be forced to get up, out of bed, in order to turn off our alarm when the time comes.
2. When setting an alarm on our online alarm clock, turn the volume all the way up on your laptop or desktop computer.
3. For the truly comatose sleepers among you: consider hooking up your computer or laptop’s sound cards to some more powerful external speakers; or hook up our alarm clock to your home stereo using an amplifier!

We hope that these simple tips will help many of you get out of bed more quickly, so that you can get a good, productive start each day.

And remember: avoid snooze clocks like the plague!

In the long run, perhaps the biggest thing that you can do to become an early-riser is to develop the willpower to say “no” to your bed.

Once you get your body in the habit of waking up early, everything becomes much simpler later on.

Online Clock wishes you all good luck getting out of bed quickly – rise and shine!

Tags: alarm clock blog, alarm clocks, alarm sound, early riser, getting up, online clock, onlineclock.net, Sleep, sleeping, snooze, snooze clocks, waking

• The Time For An Alarm Is Now
• Choosing an Alarm Clock
• Your New Job as Human Alarm Clock
• The History of Snooze Clocks, & Why They Are Evil
• The Dark Is Your Friend

When someone refers to dream guides. They’re referring to one of two things. In one reference, a dream guide is a dream dictionary. These are books that mention symbols that are commonly found in dreams and what they mean. We discussed this in a previous blog entry on the subject of Why We Dream.

The other type of dream guide is an “other worldly” being or spirit who meets up with you in your dreams and guides you through your dreams. They may answer questions, provide more questions, explain the meaning of things, or open metaphorical doors for you. This blog entry is about that kind of dream guide.

When I was reading up about this, one question kept coming to mind. Why am I so important that some being or spirit who can act independent of the space-time continuum would want to talk to me and guide me through my dreams? I never found an answer as to why my dreams would be so important as to necessitate the attention of such a powerful being.

The Function of Dream Guides

Dream guides are reported to “provide answers when you are ready for them” while at the same time “provide information years before you can understand what it means”.

Great. Isn’t that lovely? I’m going to get the answers I seek from my dream guide when I’m ready for them even if that’s years before I understand it. How can both of those be simultaneously true?

Dream guides “prepare you to receive information”.

What does this mean? How does someone prepare to receive information? Do you open your e-mail client? Maybe the dream guide gives you some kind of metaphorical mailbox.

Dream guides will provide answers if we’re patient enough. We may not hear the answer, recognize the answer when we get it, or like the answer, but an answer is always provided.

Isn’t that convenient? Let’s try substituting a few words and see if this makes sense. A cow will always provide milk if we wait long enough. We may not see the milk. We might not recognize the given substance as milk. We may not even like the milk, but there will be milk.

Video games taught us that cake was a lie. I’m beginning to suspect the milk is a lie too. This seems to cover all the bases. If you don’t get an answer, you either need to wait longer or look harder. Since you might not recognize or like your answer then anything could be an answer.

This is why I like clocks. Clocks are clocks. They tell the time. They don’t hide time under cryptic “if you think hard enough you will know” crap. They have clear numbers and clear hands that point to the numbers except for some fancy and artistic ones. Digital clocks have a clean and clear readout.

By this point I was asking myself another question. If dream guides are these beings who apparently know a lot of answers, why are they always cryptic? Why can’t a dream guide lead me to a coffee bar, give me a latte, and say, “Look, you need so and so and this and that.” If this being knows so much, how come it doesn’t know plain English?

How to Recognize a Dream Guide

Dream guides are not always human. They might be animals or anything else. If a “figure” or “theme” keeps coming up in your dreams, that “figure” or “theme” might really be your dream guide.

This is just wonderful. I may not recognize the answer from my dream guide and I may not recognize the dream guide itself. To summarize, I’ll get answers I won’t recognize from a source I won’t recognize.

How to Get a Dream Guide

Based upon the information I’ve gathered, not everyone gets a dream guide, but after one is experienced with dream guides they may be able to call one.

If I get enough practice, I can call forth a being that operates beyond the constraints of the space-time continuum. Wouldn’t Scotty be amazed? (That’s a Star Trek reference by the way.) I had no idea I was that powerful.

Dream Guides = New Age Snake Oil

When I was researching the subject of dream guides, one question kept coming to mind.

Why am I so important that some being or spirit who can act independent of the space-time continuum would want to talk to me and guide me through my dreams? Last time I checked, I didn’t rule a country. Heck, I’m not even the ruler of my own house. I’m lord and master of “yes, dear” and few other things you people don’t need to know about. I never found an answer as to why my dreams would be so important as to necessitate the attention of such a powerful being as a Dream Guide (first letters capitalized to show I mean the big mucky-mucks).

To summarize again, I’ll get answers that I won’t understand from a being I won’t recognize that might not actually be there, but if I work hard enough then I can call forth a being that I won’t recognize. Anyone else confused?

How is any of this useful?

Maybe someone who understands this better will explain it to me in the comments.

Until next time, I’ll be carefully avoiding the unknown bull****.

Tags: charlatans, clocks, dream dictionary, dream guide, dream guides, dreams, function of dreams, new age, Sleep, snake oil

• Online Clock On Dreams
• Dreams That Are Lucid
• Your Wristwatch Is Calling
• Your New Job as Human Alarm Clock
• Why Do Swiss Clocks Rule?

Most of us have at best a love/hate relationship with our jobs, right?

I mean, we need our jobs to pay our rent and put food on our tables, but, if given the chance, we’d sure rather be doing something else with our valuable time on this planet, right? Sure, there are some who are lucky enough to truly be doing what they love to do, and are getting paid for it…but these people are definitely the minority. Many of us simply hate our jobs.

And the Online Clock team is probably more like most of you than you realize. This is not (yet) a full-time job for us. We work on Online Clock as a labor of love. Sure, the site earns a bit of money each month from advertising, but if you would calculate how much time and effort we put into this project, versus what we get back from it, you’d probably be shaking your head and wondering why we do all this. And by all this I mean: this blog, our Online Clock Facebook Fan Page, our Online Clock Twitter account, and the constant work on making our various Online Clocks work better, as well as constantly working on new kinds of clock and time services to add to our website.

We do all of this on weekends and after work. So, in essence, we have two full-time jobs: our day job, which actually pays the bills (and it’s a cool day job! please don’t fire us) as well as the work we do on Online Clock before and after the day job. Because the people behind the Online Clock site are old punk rockers, we like to think of the website as being very similar to being in a punk rock band: you know you’re probably never going to see huge money from it, so you do it because you love it. And you do it because it’s fun. You do it because you just want to rock. And hopefully, since this is the motivation behind it, some of that spirit comes through to the people who use the website, so they realize, wow, this website that I’m using is really being maintained and operated as a labor of love.

So what’s the meaning of all this job talk?

We wanted to point out that we can commiserate with the people in the videos we are about to show. While scouring YouTube (the best video site on the planet, hands-down) looking for interesting clock/sleep/time-related videos to post on our Facebook Fan Page, we seemed to hit upon a recurring theme: videos showing scenes of people Napping On The Job. (In the same way that we’d earlier collected the funniest snoring videos we could fine.)

If you operate heavy machinery, or work at the Department of Defense, or have anything to do with managing our lives, we recommend that you please don’t sleep on the job. But for the rest of you, when it’s nappy time and you’re feeling in need of catching forty winks, we reserve the right to laugh at you.

So, without further (unsuccessful) attempts to explain ourselves, we now bring you Online Clock’s first collection of the

Funniest Napping At Work Videos

Let’s start by providing you with a useful tutorial on how you can best Sleep On The Job, should you desire to:

Similarly, here are some Advanced Techniques For Sleeping At Work:

Our favorite quote:

I’ve taken to sleeping a lot at work lately. Frankly, it just makes the day go by a loooot faster.

(Boy, that’s the truth, isn’t it?)

This Sleep Safe Tape is a product that you can buy that comes with an adhesive tape with open eyes printed on it. The idea is that, when you plan on taking a nap at work, you simply tape these fake eyes to the outside of your eyelids. The casual observer, upon walking by, will think that your eyes are glued to the computer screen in front of you:

The Sleep Safe Tape provides you with stick-on fake eyes to paste onto your closed eyelids.

Okay, now let’s move on to the actual videos of people being shown while Sleeping On The Job. In most cases, it seems that this typically happens naturally at someone’s place of work: a worker falls asleep, and his or her coworkers discover this and think it’s so funny that they big filming it, probably with their mobile phones, and then end up uploading the video to YouTube.

How embarrassing – and what a way of becoming famous!

Here’s the first video, which shows the typical scenario of an office worker apparently in need of some shut-eye. If you plan on Sleeping On The Job, here’s one obvious tip for you: try not to snore!

Now let’s begin to escalate things a bit, by showing what your co-workers might end up doing to you when they discover you asleep at your workplace. Take a look at all the plastic office cups piled onto this poor worker’s head. We find it difficult to believe that they remain balanced on his head, even while he snores away! (Note the piece of paper even stacked on top of all the cups.)

One more advanced strategy for Sleeping On The Job is finding a suitable hiding place, instead of sleeping right out in the open where everyone can find you. But, as the following video proves, this doesn’t necessary ensure for a successful snooze. The balancing act of cups from the last video has been altered here, using instead a roll of toilet paper which has been balanced upon the sleeper’s head.

Of course, not everyone works in an office. If you work someplace out in the open, where the general public can see you, then we especially recommend that you try real hard not to doze off on the job, as this gas station worker in Coral Gables, Florida apparently did:

Finally, we think it’s especially important not to Fall Asleep On The Job if you work in the public service sector. While doing research for this blog posts, we actually found videos of some police officers and fire fighters who’ve apparently fallen asleep on the job. And why not? Heck, we’re all human. But out of respect for them, we’re refusing to post such videos online. And no, this has nothing to do with us wanting to avoid any potential speeding tickets in the future…uh, really, it doesn’t

But, since we’re Americans, I guess it’s OK if we show this photo of what appears to be a Buckingham Palace guard taking a dangerous snooze at the tip of his bayonet:

We also found a hilarious video of a prison guard at the infamous Riker’s Island facility in New York who apparently not only Fell Asleep On The Job, but also got caught on video sleeping on the job, accompanied by one of the inmates who poses embarrassingly with her while she’s asleep! It’s interesting to note, for this video, that a second prison guard, a co-worker, is the one who took this video using a mobile phone. And not only did the person who fell asleep get in trouble here; also the prison guard who took the video got into trouble, since you’re apparently not allowed to take a mobile phone inside the prison (it’s one of their policies – even for guards).

So there you have it, Clock Fans, that’s all for our first round-up of the funniest videos we could find on the subject of Sleeping On The Job.

If you know of another video or two that you think deserves to be included in this collection, please just send us a link to it via the comment form below.

We leave you all with the sobering thought that, in this day and age, where just about every mobile phone seems to have a video camera function, you really have it tough, if you plan on catching a nap on the job…so choose your strategies and tactics wisely, in order to make sure that you don’t end up later becoming famous via YouTube and via posts like this one on the Alarm Clock Blog!

Until next time, to those of you reading this at work, we wish you pleasant dreams.

And an absence of cameras.

Tags: alarm clock blog, job sleeping, napping, napping at work, napping on the job, Sleep, sleeping, sleeping at work, sleeping on the job, sleeping on the job videos, sleeping videos

• Waking Up Faster Tips
• The Dark Is Your Friend
• The Answer To Why We Sleep
• Eyes Open Sleeping
• Dreams That Are Lucid

It can make you hallucinate. It can reduce your ability to devise logical and creative solutions to problems. It can lower verbal and mathematical test scores. It can be a contributing factor in depression, psychosis, and obesity. In laboratory settings, it even kills rats.

Question: What is it?

Answer: Sleep deprivation.

How much sleep do we need?

Our need for sleep varies throughout our lives:

• Infants need roughly 16 hours of sleep a day. Most parents with infants will argue that no infant will ever sleep that much and add that infants will never sleep when the parents want to sleep. Although it may feel like that to the parent who is awake for a 3am feeding, infants do usually sleep for 16 hours in a 24 hours period.
• Teenagers need about 9 hours of sleep to function at their full potential. Given the busy lives of an American teenager, this rarely happens. It also explains why a teen son or daughter might sleep in really late on days they don’t have school. Their bodies are trying to recoup lost sleep.
• Adults need 5 to 10 hours of sleep each night. The typical adult needs 7 to 8 hours of sleep.
• The Elderly need less sleep than middle-aged people…this is considered “common knowledge”.  But in truth, the studies that have researched this have come up with conflicting information. Some studies support that claim and say that the elderly need 2-3 hours less sleep than they did in their 30s or 40s. Other say the elderly need the same 7 to 8 hours of sleep as anyone else. Sleep disorders are unfortunately common amongst the elderly and most people should strive for quality sleep over quantity of sleep in order to get the greatest health benefits.

How many people are getting their recommended amount of sleep? The answer is: not nearly enough of us.

Approximately 35% of Americans are “dangerously” sleep deprived. According to Gallup Poll surveys 56% of the population shows some signs of sleep deprivation. Sanford conducted a survey of their undergrads, medical students, and nursing students and learned that as many as 80% showed signs of sleep deprivation.

As a country, we’re doing pretty darn well for a bunch of people who keep missing a date with Mr. Sandman. So how bad is sleep deprivation? What can is actually do to us or than just make us sleepy?

Our bodies need sleep to regenerate, rest, and recover from the previous day. Muscles will regenerate and recover while awake, but still resting. Neurons do not have that same ability. As a result our mental acuity and memory processes suffer when we lack sleep. MRI scans indicates that a sleep deprived brain is more primal in its reactions. This can cause overreactions and emotional outbursts. Sleep deprivation is also considered a causal factor in depression and other mental illnesses including psychotic breaks.

People who are sleep deprived have worse coordination than those are intoxicated. Driving while sleep deprived is responsible for 100,000 car accidents, 71,000 injuries (vehicle related), and 1,550 fatalities (also vehicle related) annually.

All right, so fine, you can’t touch the tip of your nose while leaning your head back and reciting the alphabet backwards while sleep deprived. So what? That’s not worth stopping short of “one more level” in your favorite online game.

Sleep deprivation can make you fat. Now the Americans are paying attention. As a society we’ll shrug off something that might cause a nervous breakdown or kill us, but anything that might mess with our waistlines gets our attention. There are two “tummy related” hormones that are influenced by sleep. Leptin suppresses appetite and ghrelin which increases appetite. Sleep deprived people have lower levels of leptin and higher levels of ghrelin. They also tend to crave high carb foods.

Sleep deprivation has been in the news recently not due to the health risks, but due to security matters.

Sleep deprivation as a means of interrogation is not an urban legend. According to a 2005 memo from the Bush administration as well as a recently declassified report from the Senate Armed Services Committee, the US government uses sleep deprivation during “enhanced interrogation”. It is viewed as one of the more effective means of acquiring information and is often used in conjunction with other tactics. The maximum amount of time a detainee can be kept awake is 180 hours.

In a 1983 study involving rats and sleep deprivation, rats began dying  after being deprived of sleep for two weeks.

What have we learned by our short but detailed look at the effects of sleep loss?

Sleep is important – very important.

So, before you set your next alarm, make sure to give getting a good night’s sleep a high priority in your life!

Stop reading online blogs like this one and go to bed at a reasonable hour.

Tags: depression, ghrelin, interrogation, leptin, mental illness, obesity, Sleep, sleep deprivation, sleep disorders, sleep loss, sleep problems, sleeping

• The Answer To Why We Sleep
• Eyes Open Sleeping
• Down With Sleep Disorders
• Waking Up Strategies
• Waking Up Faster Tips

Who’s afraid of the dark? Things that go bump in the night, shifting shadows, unknown predators, and the boogieman all live in the dark. We often think of a fear of the dark as being a childhood fear. Some children carry this fear into adulthood.

How many people keep this fear their entire lives? As with most phobias, the information on nyctophobia is rare. There is very little data available on nyctophobia which is, confusingly, also sometimes called scotophobia, achluophobia, lygophobia, or even myctophobia (!). Nyctophobia is the most common term for this fear. It comes from “nyx” , a Greek word for night, and “phobos”, a Greek word for fear. I was unable to locate any demographic information on it except that it is considered pervasive.

There have been no etiological studies on nyctophobia also, but with this being a phobia that kind of makes sense. There’s usually no single cause for a phobia. A study that would look for causation wouldn’t necessarily be all that helpful.

Phobias are personal. The reason one develops a phobia is personal. The way a person copes with a phobia is personal and the way a person overcomes a phobia is personal. Everything about these types of fears is very individualistic.

A phobia is different from a regular fear. Fear is an emotional warning signal just like pain is a physical warning signal. It’s our mind’s way of warning us that something is amiss and we should heed caution. Evolution, thankfully, gave us this trait.

We often think of evolution as giving us opposable thumbs or removing prehensile tails. Evolution also gave us personality types and traits. As fledgling nomadic groups, we needed two types of people. We needed the adventurous people who were brave (or stupid) enough to eat the first berries and fruits. These adventurous types were also the ones who went exploring, experienced the first snakebites, and died of ingested toxins. The second type was the cautious type. These are the people who made sure we didn’t die off as species because we kept eating nightshades. Tomatoes are yummy, but only the red parts!

A phobia develops when someone is overly-cautious or when this evolutionary protection mechanism goes haywire. Haywire is a seriously technical medical term. It comes for the ancient Latin word “heytus” meaning “just” and the ancient Greek word “wireos” meaning “go with it”. When a rational air of caution escalates into an irrational fear that interrupts a person’s life, then it’s considered a phobia. Phobias are treated on an individual level. There’s no one cure for a phobia. Sometimes people need anti-anxiety medication especially when the worry over the anxiety becomes a big part of the problem. Most of the time, however, people will overcome a phobia through behavior modification.

Sometimes people do not feel the need to go through treatment for their phobia. A simple nightlight is enough to help them get through the night. Perhaps they keep flashlights tucked away in every room and their car. People will come up with all sorts of creative ways to live with and cope with a phobia. That’s not a coincidence.

Worry, anxiety, and fear are problems of the creative. Creative people write things that do not exist, paint things that are not there, and create something that never was. They’re the people who see the need for something before other people. (Random example: creating a website for an online alarm clock ) These same creative juices feed worry, anxiety, and fear.

Worry, anxiety, and fear are all “what if” scenarios. What if the cat doesn’t really have mild cold? What if the P&O statements from the current quarter or worse than the previous quarter? What if that bump in the dark wasn’t just the house settling? What if there’s something or someone right behind me and I just can’t see it because of the dark? What if I don’t get this blog post turned in on time? It takes a lot of creative energy to imagine the worst or best “what if” scenarios.

Most phobias are rooted in one overarching fear and that’s the fear of the unknown. The fear of the dark is no exception. People are afraid of what they don’t see.

If a phobia has a negative impact on your life, seek the help of a trained psychotherapist. There are a lot of ways of overcoming irrational fears.

Several people have told us that they feel strangely comforted at night, seeing the dim glow of their computer or laptop displaying our clocks in their bedrooms.

If you’re afraid of the dark, please try using us.

Until next time, we’ll keep a light on for you.

Tags: afraid of the dark, alarm clock blog, fear, fear of darkness, fear of the dark, nightlight, nyctophobia, phobia, phobias, Sleep, sleeping

• Waking Up Faster Tips
• The Answer To Why We Sleep
• Funniest Sleeping On The Job Videos
• Eyes Open Sleeping
• Dreams That Are Lucid

In a previous blog post, we explored the question of why we sleep. The biological need for sleep is very different from why we dream. So why do we dream, anyway?

Everyone dreams. Even the people who don’t think they dream do dream. They just don’t remember their dreams and assume that they don’t dream. Every single person who has ever been studied dreams. Age, ethnicity, race, income, level of education, and all other demographic markers do not matter. We all dream.

If everyone dreams, then why do we  dream? That’s a question that has plague philosophers and psychologists for as long as humans have been in existence. In some cultures, dreams are given spiritual significance. Dreams are viewed as a gateway into other realities. Through dreaming, we visit these other dimensions of life. That’s lovely and very sci-fi, but there’s little evidence to support the theory. For the purposes of this blog post, we’re classifying that theory as “gee, that’s interesting” and we’re moving on.

Be careful: short research into the field of Dream Interpretation reveals that there are likely a lot of charlatans active in this field, offering little more than hocus-pocus.

Some people believe that dreaming is the way the subconscious “cleans house” and works through problems that are facing an individual during their waking hours. This idea is so popular that there are a variety of “dream dictionaries” available to help someone interpret their dreams. Personally, I’ve not really found these dictionaries all that helpful. Dream dictionaries seem to come in two types. The first type references other dictionaries and seems to try to legitimize the claims by repeating them. If five books all agree that dreaming of an apple signifies a fear of the dentist, then those books must be correct, right? I keep trying to find an original scientific source for these claims, but that eludes me. The second type seems to disagree with all of the others. If five books all say that dreaming of an apple signifies a fear of the dentist and a sixth book says it means a desire for sin, then the sixth book must be correct, right? I’ve not been able to determine an academic source for those claims either. I’m not saying dream dictionaries are worthless. They might be very helpful for some people, but I’m on the fence about them.

In clinical psychology, dream interpretation works very differently than how it works in “dream dictionaries”. Psychologists who are trained in dream interpretation focus on what the dream means to the individual. They don’t focus on the apple, but what apples mean to the person. This process can be traced back to the fundamentals of psychoanalysis. Sometimes a cigar really is just a cigar and sometimes a cigar is much more.

The first step in all forms of dream interpretation is to write down your dreams. Dreams are very elusive. Keeping a dream journal on a nightstand might encourage you to write down your dreams when they are fresh in your mind. Notice that I used the word “dreams” not “dream”. We experience several different dreams while we sleep. These dreams stop and start as we enter and leave the proper cycle of sleep. The human mind doesn’t like disjointed chaos. When we wake, we stitch together the disconnected dreams into a memory of one long dream.

Once you have your dream journal you can do several things with it. One option is to use a dream dictionary and look up major themes for the past week or just a single night. Another option is to take your dream journal to a therapist who has been trained in dream interpretation. Finally, you can look over your journal and try to find any continuing themes and ask yourself what those themes might mean to you. Is your subconscious trying to tell you something?

What does it mean when we keep dreaming about clocks?

To take a personal example, I often dream of clocks when I’m working on a blog post. They’re typically analog clocks and the hands frantically spin and whirl around the face. As the deadline looms closer, the clocks grow and take on a Salvador Dali-esque appearance. The clocks crash around me and envelop me. They smother and squeeze me. At some point, I’ll scramble over the jumble of numbers or claw over the distorted faces. I’ll climb until I’m free of the murderous clocks and I stand, triumphant, in a wasteland of writhing ticking clocks.

I don’t need a dream dictionary or a therapist to tell me that these dreams are related to anxiety and my inevitable victory represents having never missed a deadline. I’ve looked this up in dream dictionaries and most agree that dreaming of clocks is related to anxiety or a need for order. Some have said that the ticking of a clock represents a heartbeat and a need for more passion in one’s life. I can’t help but feel that’s a thinly veiled jab at my stagnant dating life. Stupid dream dictionaries telling me I need to date more.

On the other hand, some people think dreams mean absolutely nothing and maybe I’m just obsessed with time. I think I’ll go with that. My dating life is fine and I’m simply obsessed with time.

Still…if anyone wants to go out to dinner with me they can feel free to write in the comments.

Tags: clocks, dream, dream dictionaries, dream interpretation, dream journal, dreaming, dreaming of clocks, dreams, Sleep, subconscious, why we dream

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As we’ve gone through this on-going series of blog posts about sleep, we seemed to have skipped one large dominating question. It’s time to address the elephant in the room. Why do we sleep?

Philosophers have been tackling that problem for centuries. Medical doctors and psychologists have been trying to find the answer for at least a century. If you think you’ll find a definitive answer on the blog for a clock site, you’re going to be deeply disappointed. This is not philosophy 350, psychology 220, or med school. There’s not enough room in one blog post to discuss all three of these schools of thought. Sadly, we will be neglecting the philosophical paradigms of thought connected to sleep. We beg Descartes for his forgiveness.

Sleep is the golden chain that ties health and our bodies together.
~Thomas Dekker

To explore why we sleep, perhaps it’s best to start with what happens when we don’t sleep. Sleep deprivation is used as a means of torture and interrogation. In order to “loosen the lips” of agents, governmental entities would deprive political prisoners and suspected spies of sleep. Although the interrogators in the past may have not known why sleep deprivation worked, they recognized that it did, indeed, work.

A few years ago, scientists from University of California, Berkeley and Harvard Medical School got together and conducted as study to see what happens to the brain when someone is sleep deprived. They used fMRI (functioning Magnetic Resonance Imaging not freaking-awesome Magnetic Resonance Imaging) scans to look at brain activity in sleep deprived and non-sleep deprived human lab rats. There’s a lot of technical jargon in the study with a bunch of impossible to pronounce words.

The bottom line is that the researchers found that when the brain’s fight or flight response kicks in the thought process hits one of two places. In one place, we process things logically and recognize that our emotional response might not be the correct response. In sleep deprived people, the emotional response is sent to a more primal part of the brain and that makes us particularly rash and emotional. They concluded that sleep deprived people are not on a “level emotional playing ground” as people who got adequate sleep. This was such a profound study that other researchers are wondering if some psychiatric disorders are actually mislabeled sleep disorders.

Sleep Deprivation: not something you want to experience.

This more primal reaction and more emotional reaction might be why sleep deprivation is a tool used when trying to gain information from suspects.

Sleep provides much more than emotional checks and balances. The healing and restorative functions of sleep are very well documented in medical circles. Sleep is such an important part of our healing process that sometimes when people are very ill doctors will put them in medically induced comas. During our sleep, our immune system fights disease and without proper sleep we are more apt to get sick.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
~Robert Frost “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”

Harvard was at it again when they published a study in May of 2007 that linked sleep with improved memory recall and problem solving skills. They took human lab rats (which they probably called “test subjects”) and asked them to memorize a sequence of colored eggs. Shortly after that, they asked the lab rats to recall the order of the eggs and they tested the subjects again after the subjects had slept for a night. The people were able to recall the sequence more accurately after sleeping. So, all those all-nighters we pulled in college may have actually hurt us more than they helped us. On some levels it seems logical to conclude that mind processes information while we sleep with some kind of shift from short term memory to long term memory. There’s still debate on if this process is limited to sleep or if it could also be conducted in times of quiet contemplation or mediation.

In addition to physical health and emotional stability, sleep seems to bolster our emotional health. At one time sleep problems were considered symptoms of depression, schizophrenia, and other mental illnesses. There are some researchers who are now debating a chicken and an egg debate. Which came first the sleep problems or the mental illness?

That answer may not come any time soon.

Proper sleep promotes physical health, emotional health, and possibly the prevention of mental illness. With all of these important things going on, perhaps the answer to “why do we sleep?” is quite simple.

Why do we sleep?

Because we fall apart without it.

Tags: alarm clock blog, long term memory, short term memory, Sleep, sleep deprivation, sleep deprived, sleep disorders, sleeping, sleepy, why we sleep

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Drive your own dreams! That's the basic idea behind lucid dreaming, the subject of this blog post.

So what is “lucid dreaming“?

If you were to ask twelve people what lucid dreaming was, you’d have a variety of answers. Six people would probably say, “What is what?” The other six would give different answers, but all of the answers would start the same way. Lucid dreaming is when you become aware that you are dreaming. You have a reality check in your dream. You’re in your dream surrounded by aliens, singing Frankenstein posters, backwards running clocks, that really cute girl from third grade (all grown up now), and you’re having a very detailed conversation with Jeremy Bentham at the foot of Mount Vesuvius and all of a sudden you realize you’re dreaming. You don’t necessarily question why that really cute girl is hanging with Bentham in Pompeii, but you’re fully aware that what you’re experiencing is a dream.

Lucid dreaming is a naturally occurring phenomenon. Some people strive to achieve this odd state. There are several tactics all over the web to help one experience lucid dreaming on demand. One tactic involves making oneself very thirsty even going as far as to put salt in the mouth and then going to bed. The theory is that when one drinks in one’s dream one will know they are dreaming, because that person intentionally went thirsty. Just reading that suggestion made my blood pressure go up and I poured myself a glass of cold water.

Other people say that intentional lucid dreaming is just another type of guided imagery meditation minus the “guided” part. (That might make it “imagery meditation”, but that phrase just doesn’t sound right.) For some people this is very easy to achieve.

Step one: make sure you have plenty of sleep.

You don’t want to be chilling with Bentham and in a deep conversation about the Hedonic Calculus and fall asleep. If I were Bentham and if I had crossed the veil of death to talk to someone about some of my more famous work and that person fell asleep, I’d bring a whole host of philosophers and get all cerebral on their butts. Ever seen Socrates upset? Not pretty. Hemlock has nothing on that man!

Step two: play some music.

Many people find it works better to wear headphones that can block out most of the outside noises. Real world noises can yank someone out of any “dreams” they may experience. Some people also say that it’s best to use music with no words. Classical music, new age music, or any other kind of whimsical instrumental should work fine.

Step three: lay down and “chill”.

Lay down in a comfortable and safe spot. Let any muscle tension fade and allow your mind to go where the music takes it.

The theory is that after someone has practiced lucid dreaming via “imagery mediation” (that phrase still doesn’t sound right), they will be able to experience lucid dreaming during their sleep.

Lucid dreaming is fun, but it can also be used to help people who suffer from frequent nightmares. We’ve all had that horrible nightmare where Bentham and Plato end up punching each other while Socrates starts ranting and tells Kant where to shove his free will. I’m sure we all wished we’d had the tools to break out of it too. (Other people have that nightmare, right? Not just me, right?) Lucid dreaming can bring more peaceful nights to people who suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Some people believe that dreams are a way of helping us sort out problems we face during our waking hours. Lucid dreaming is considered a more active way to work that problem-solving skill. It’s a balance though. One needs to be awake enough to know they’re dreaming and to guide the dreams, but not so conscious and heavy-handed with controlling the dreams that the subconscious disengages. It’s important to work with the subconscious and not to fight against it.

There are even companies out there who try to offer people products & seminars on how to achieve lucid dreaming. We say: buyer beware!

All of this is just dreaming, right? It’s all just the subconscious playing around and goofing about with images, right? Some people don’t think so. Some people think that lucid dreaming is a gateway to remembering past lives, astral projection, and other “new age” things. Wouldn’t it be cool if we really could use this form of dreaming to sit down with Bentham and discuss the finer points of the Hedonic Calculus? Wouldn’t it be awesome if we could use time between “sleep well” and when the alarm clock goes off to tell Socrates that free will shouldn’t be shoved there?

On the other hand, if you have to practice something it kind of becomes work.

Do we really want our sleep time to become work?

Isn’t the whole point of sleep to rest, relax, and let nature make the decisions?

Not sure how you stand on this point, well maybe you should sleep on it…and get back to us tomorrow.

Tags: alarm clock blog, dream, dreaming, dreams, imagery mediation, intentional lucid dreaming, Jeremy Bentham, lucid dreaming, lucid dreams, Sleep, sleep time, sleeping, subconscious

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Shown above are the many faces of the African tsetse fly, one of the parasites responsible for spreading the African Sleeping Sickness.

Today on the Alarm Clock Blog, we’re taking the theme of sleeping disorders to a serious place and we’re going to talk about a very perilous disease. African Sleeping Sickness (also called African Trypanosomiasis ) is a parasitic disease found in some parts of Africa. This disease is unfortunately 100% fatal if untreated.

The plight of the people in Sub-Saharan Africa is no secret. The stalwart people of Africa are no strangers to stark conditions, tragedy, and rampant disease. The conditions that the people endure seem incredibly alien to those of us who live in a Western culture. The problems associated with African Sleeping Sickness are compounded by the rough conditions that exist in many villages in Africa. Before going any deeper into that, let’s take a moment to talk about the disease itself.

A map showing the parts of Africa hardest hit by the African Sleeping Sickness disease.

African Sleeping Sickness is caused by two related parasites. Trypanosoma brucei gambiense is found in western and central Africa. This is the most common version of the disease and comprises 90% of the cases. Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense is found in the eastern and southern areas of Africa. T. b. rhodesiense becomes symptomatic more quickly than T. b. gambiense and is considered more acute than it’s more common cousin. A person with T. b. gambiense may go months or years without showing symptoms.

With both versions, there are two stages of this Sleeping Sickness disease. In the first stage, the parasite is in the blood. If people are tested and treated during this phase, the medication is fairly well tolerated and the prognosis is good. There are two medications available to treat the first stage of the disease. By Western standards they’re fairly easy to administer. When one is dealing with a country where clean water is quite scarce, the medication can be very difficult to acquire and administer.

Trypanosoma as seen under a microscope.

In the second stage, the parasite has crossed the blood-brain barrier and has infected the brain itself. (Some people reading this have stopped reading and are staring at that last sentence. A parasite that has broken the blood-brain barrier is positively chilling.)Once the organism has reached the brain, it starts to destroy the neurological tissue on a cellular level. At this stage, the treatment is very difficult to administer and can be quite trying upon the patient. One medication is so caustic that it must be kept in glass containers. It will eat through plastic and it must be injected directly into a vein. If the needle misses the vein, the treatment is extremely painful. This medication kills one out of every twenty patients.

There is another medication that can be used to treat the second stage of the disease for some patients. This medication is less dangerous, but it very difficult to administer in most parts of Africa. The medication must be given as an IV drip. The patient will need a dose every six hours for two weeks for a total of 50 doses. The amount of medication needed for one course of treatment for one patient is 20 kilos (44 lbs). The logistics of treating an epidemic of African Sleeping Sickness is mind boggling.

A kind of African public service art poster delivering a strong message against Sleeping Sickness.

The key to surviving African Sleeping Sickness is early detection. The tests for the parasite can also be difficult and this is where the standard of living of most villages comes back into play. The clinics in many villages commonly affected by the parasite are very sparse. Most clinics are severely understaffed with only one or two nurses. Most clinics lack solid walls and stable roofs as well as electricity and running water. The clinics are under-supplied and unsanitary (by Western standards). The first test is called a CATT test. This is a relatively simple finger prick blood test. The second test draws fluid from a lymph node. The third test is a spinal tap. Getting fluid directly out of the spinal column is considered risky in sanitary Western hospitals. It’s dangerous in the village clinics, but it is necessary.

The disease is commonly called “African Sleeping Sickness” because of one of the second stage symptoms is prolonged sleeping during the day and insomnia at night. The World Health Organization estimates there are 300,000 cases a year, but only about 30,000 people are able to get treated.

If you’re dealing with personality changes, anxiety, agitation, numbness in the extremities, and a disruption of your sleep cycle, chances are you do not have African Sleeping Sickness. However, if you’ve been to Africa and you were bitten by a tsetse fly, it’s wise to at least get the blood test.

Tags: Africa, African Sleeping Sickness, African Trypanosomiasis, alarm clock blog, disease, parasite, sleep disorders, sleeping sickness, sleeping sickness disease, Sub-Saharan Africa, Trypanosoma, Trypanosoma brucei, tsetse fly

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