Discussion

Knocker uppers and candle clocks: How people woke up before alarm clocks

Apreche: Roosters

expedition32: People went to bed when the sun went down because candles cost money. The light bulb changed everything.

Frieren: > "In many pre-industrial societies, daily life followed the rhythm of sunrise and sunset, which naturally shaped circadian rhythms."Having an office job that allows for flexible hours, I start my working day at different times during the year. Setting the alarm to the latest hour that I can start to work it never wakes me up, but it is there just in case.Overall, I feel that I am less stressed, sleep better and have more energy that if I force myself a schedule to wake up. What I have is a schedule to go to sleep, the rest I leave to nature.> Mary Smith, a much-loved knocker upper in East LondonGreat picture.

tayo42: One of the benefits of remote work is not waking up with an alarm clock. It's been so long I forgot how much that sucked. And the snooze button.

LoganDark: When I started ADHD medication, I started to be able to wake up on time without an alarm. All I need is a nearby source of the current time and somehow I can just wake up when I plan to.I do still use alarms sometimes when I don't expect I'll be able to check the time and continue to fully waking up, but mostly I haven't needed them nearly as much as I used to.

pinkmuffinere: > Setting the alarm to the latest hour that I can start to work it never wakes me upFunny enough, I have the same strategy but the exact opposite experience -- it _almost always_ wakes me up, even when it's set for 11 am. I don't disagree with you though, I just think it's funny how different human experience is. And there are benefits too, it's easy for me to stay up late, and a lot of my best work comes naturally at 1 am. But basically nothing good happens before noon.

asah: um, candle with a nail stuck in the side ?https://www.google.com/search?q=candle+alarm+clock

tkgally: [delayed]

ghewgill: Electricity costs money too? I don't know how the cost of power compared to the cost of a candle in the beginning of the 20th century though.

xeromal: I find that when I go camping, I get sleepy early around 9pm and I wake at 6 feeling more refreshed than I do at home. Fresh air and birds chirping. It's honestly a dream

richev: Lighting was the killer app for electricity.

devsda: > but they had no weeks, hours, or minutes.I don't think this is true.We Indians make a big deal out of beginning and doing important tasks at auspicious times. That wouldn't be possible without some means of measuring time of day even if its not perfect.

triceratops: Indigenous Americans. Not East Indians.

Zambyte: How did roosters.wake up before alarm clocks?

somenameforme: You can make and light a long-burning torch from the materials found in most any lush yard, let alone the much greater areas of wilds available to people in the past.

randypellegrini: I write historical fiction set in the medieval period and spent a ridiculous amount of time researching this exact topic. The candle clock with a nail (comment 18 mentions it) is one of my favorites — you'd stick a nail at a specific height in the wax, and when it burned down to that point the nail would drop onto a metal plate and clang. Monks used these extensively because they had to wake for the canonical hours (Matins, Lauds, etc.) regardless of season.What I found most interesting during my research was how much the concept of "oversleeping" is really a post-industrial anxiety. In the medieval sources I've read, sleep was biphasic — people had a "first sleep" and a "second sleep" with a waking period in between. The idea that you need to hit one specific wake-up time is genuinely modern.

FreePalestine1: I'm pretty much the same. Nothing done before noon. I show up to the office on time just for the sake of it, I then get my work done at night. My manager is okay with it but it is not sustainable, I feel like it takes unnecessary time out of my day. But it is genuinely hard.

taeric: I haven't used an alarm clock in my adult life. I don't remember using them when I was younger, but think that is just not remembering.I'm not convinced everyone can just wake up, but I am increasingly convinced it is more possible than most people care to admit.