Need Multiple Alarms to Wake Up in the Morning?早上需要多个闹钟才能醒来？

Let’s say you need to wake up by 7 am to get to work on time. You set your first alarm for 6：30 am， your second at 6：45 am and your third at 6：55 am. And you throw in 7：05 am just to be cautious.

“Hitting the snooze button at a time does the same thing. It’s satisfying in the moment to hit the snooze button but it does actually undermine the sleep quality，” said Dr Brandon Peters， a neurologist and sleep medicine physician from the US.

For the last hours of sleep， people usually go in and out of the fourth and last stage of the sleep cycle， known as rapid-eye-movement sleep. This stage is particularly important for memory processing and creative thinking， he added. Having that stage of sleep fragmented could impact the brain function.

He recommends setting one alarm， allowing for deep sleep to continue uninterrupted until you need to wake up in the morning.

假设你需要早上7点起床以确保准时上班，你设置了三个闹钟，分别在早上6：30、6：45和6：55，以确保自己能够按时醒来。以防万一，你还加了一个早上7：05的闹钟。

美国的神经学家兼睡眠医学医生布兰登·彼得斯博士说：“每次按贪睡按钮也会产生同样的结果。按下贪睡按钮，这在当时会让人感到满足，但实际上破坏了睡眠质量。”

在睡眠的最后几个小时里，人们通常会进入并退出睡眠周期的第四个也是最后一个阶段，即快速眼动睡眠。他补充说，这个阶段对记忆处理和创造性思维特别重要。这个阶段的睡眠如果被打乱，可能会影响大脑的功能。

他建议设置一个闹钟，让深度睡眠继续进行，直到你早上需要起床为止。

“If you have to wake up at 7 am， and the alarm starts at 6 am， you are getting an hour of bad-quality sleep，” said Dr Alicia Roth， a clinician from the US. While setting just one alarm is best， it might be hard to wake up to only one after using multiple alarms as your safety net， she added.

How to wake up to one alarm？

It is important to wake up and go to sleep around the same time each day， said Dr Cathy Goldstein， a sleep medicine physician in the US. “If you’re somebody who sleeps really well from 3 am to noon， and that’s how you sleep on the weekends， but on one Monday morning， you have to wake up at 6 am to commute， that will be hard，” she said. “That’s earlier than your biology is prepared to wake up， and it’s going to be very difficult to get up.”

Goldstein recommends shifting bedtime 30 minutes earlier every few days， or an hour earlier once a week for those looking to change their biological clocks. Avoiding harsh lights and limiting screen time up to four hours before bed can also help promote the body’s natural melatonin production， she added.

美国的临床医生艾丽西亚·罗斯博士说：“如果你必须在早上7点醒来，而闹钟在早上6点响起，那么你将获得一个小时的低质量睡眠。”她补充说，虽然设置一个闹钟是最好的，但在使用多个闹钟作为安全保障之后，可能很难只用一个闹钟就醒来。

如何用一个闹钟唤醒自己？

美国的睡眠医学医生凯西·戈德斯坦博士说，每天在同一时间醒来和入睡很重要。“如果你是那种从凌晨3点睡到中午的人，而且周末你也这样做，但是在某个周一的早上，你必须早上6点起床去上班，那将会很困难。”她说，“这比你的生物钟准备好的起床时间要早，所以起床会非常困难。”

戈德斯坦建议那些想改变生物钟的人，每隔几天就将就寝时间提前30分钟，或者每周提前一个小时。她补充说，避免强烈的光线和在睡前四小时内限制手机等设备的使用时间也有助于促进人体自然分泌褪黑素。

Word Bank

undermine /'ʌndə'maɪn/ v. 破坏；使逐步减少效力

uninterrupted /'ʌn'ɪntə'rʌptɪd/ adj. 不间断的；持续不断的

harsh /hɑːʃ/ adj. 强烈刺眼的