These days everyone knows about Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), its symptoms and and side effects, and many ways to treat them. One of the best, most natural treatments for SAD I’ve seen yet is the dawn simulator alarm clock.
SAD disrupts your circadian rhythm, your body clock, as the level and quality of light diminishes during the autumn and winter months. Scientists and researchers have been studying the effect of light (or the lack thereof) for years, and among the first treatments for SAD was the “light box.” Since that first light box, light therapy has evolved through several iterations, such that we now have a wide variety of light therapy devices to choose from.
The newest innovation in light therapy for SAD sufferers is the dawn simulator alarm clock. This alarm clock simulates the sunrise that you’re missing in the autumn and winter months. Customers who’ve used the dawn simulator alarm clock love it.
It’s phenomenal.
However, there is a less well-known population out there that could benefit from the use of a dawn simulator alarm clock: shift workers. If you want to know how it feels when your circadian rhythms are thrown off balance, work nights or on a swing shift. You’ll soon find out that the effects of irregular sleep habits aren’t pleasant.
1. You wake up ticked off all the time, feeling like you no more than fell asleep and it was time to get up again.
2. When you get out of bed, your body feels heavy, your muscles hanging from your bones instead of supporting them like they’re supposed to.
3. The refrigerator becomes your new best friend, stocked with sugary treats and those carb-laden breads and cookies that make you feel good all over. You even keep a stash of chocolate for the endorphin rush it gives you that feels like falling in love. (And what could feel better than that?)
4. You regress into the hibernating creature you must have been in a previous life, and sleep walk through your day, leaving your body to fend for itself.
5. You have a new-found ability to shower and sleep at the same time, as long as you don’t lose your balance or run out of hot water.
The really scary part is that, in addition to factory workers and people who clean offices at night, many of our health care and service professionals are shift workers: nurses, ER doctors, firefighters, police officers, paramedics ~ all of whom are at risk of what is now being called Shift Workers Disorder (SWD). The primary cause of SWD is sleep deprivation due to working irregular hours, the most common effects of which are:
1. Diminished capacity of higher order thinking, decision-making, etc. 2. Diminished ability to stay focused and on-task 3. Decreased memory functions 4. Depression and/or irritability 5. Higher risk for health problems
Seek a health care professional’s advice and what you’ll most likely hear are suggestions or solutions that you can’t put in place. One example of this kind of impractical advice:
Try not to work more than a few night shifts in a row.
No kidding? That’s the kind of advice you’ll hear. But what if there were a better way?
How about something like this: create a routine wherein you sleep in a darkened room and use a dawn simulator alarm clock to wake you up? Then, regardless of what part of the day you sleep, your sleep pattern would always be the same.
The dawn simulator alarm clock may actually, if used regularly, help to re-establish your body’s circadian rhythm, making the hours of sleep you get more restful and effective.
Before you buy another alarm clock make sure you check Rebecca Reynolds website for more dawn simulator alarm clock information, and best dawn simulator alarm clock features you don’t want to miss.