Need Multiple Alarms to Wake Up in the Morning?早上需要多個鬧鐘才能醒來？

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.

假設你需要早上7點起床以確保準時上班，你設置了三個鬧鐘，分別在早上6：30、6：45和6：55，以確保自己能夠按時醒來。以防萬一，你還加了一個早上7：05的鬧鐘。

美國的神經學家兼睡眠醫學醫生布蘭登·彼得斯博士說：“每次按貪睡按鈕也會產生同樣的結果。按下貪睡按鈕，這在當時會讓人感到滿足，但實際上破壞了睡眠質量。”

在睡眠的最后幾個小時里，人們通常會進入并退出睡眠周期的第四個也是最后一個階段，即快速眼動睡眠。他補充說，這個階段對記憶處理和創造性思維特別重要。這個階段的睡眠如果被打亂，可能會影響大腦的功能。

他建議設置一個鬧鐘，讓深度睡眠繼續進行，直到你早上需要起床為止。

“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.

美國的臨床醫生艾麗西亞·羅斯博士說：“如果你必須在早上7點醒來，而鬧鐘在早上6點響起，那么你將獲得一個小時的低質量睡眠。”她補充說，雖然設置一個鬧鐘是最好的，但在使用多個鬧鐘作為安全保障之后，可能很難只用一個鬧鐘就醒來。

如何用一個鬧鐘喚醒自己？

美國的睡眠醫學醫生凱西·戈德斯坦博士說，每天在同一時間醒來和入睡很重要?！叭绻闶悄欠N從凌晨3點睡到中午的人，而且周末你也這樣做，但是在某個周一的早上，你必須早上6點起床去上班，那將會很困難?！彼f，“這比你的生物鐘準備好的起床時間要早，所以起床會非常困難?！?/p>

戈德斯坦建議那些想改變生物鐘的人，每隔幾天就將就寢時間提前30分鐘，或者每周提前一個小時。她補充說，避免強烈的光線和在睡前四小時內限制手機等設備的使用時間也有助于促進人體自然分泌褪黑素。

Word Bank

undermine /'?nd?'ma?n/ v. 破壞；使逐步減少效力

uninterrupted /'?n'?nt?'r?pt?d/ adj. 不間斷的；持續不斷的

harsh /hɑ??/ adj. 強烈刺眼的