Can waking from sleep to the sound of a particular alarm affect the rest of your day? According to new research, yes. In fact, the new study found that melodic alarms may actually be the key to keeping you alert after you wake up from sleep.
How you wake from sleep matters
The lead author of the study, Stuart McFarlane, says that how awake we feel after our alarm goes off influences how efficiently we do tasks later.
“If you don’t wake properly, your work performance can be degraded for periods up to 4 hours, and that has been linked to major accidents,” says McFarlane. “You would assume that a startling ‘beep beep beep’ alarm would improve alertness, but our data revealed that melodic alarms might be the key element. This was unexpected.”
How melodic alarms may help
As is explained in the study paper published in PLOS One, the researchers used self-reporting from 50 participants to determine their type of alarm clock and to measure sleep inertia, which is defined as “the transitional state between sleep and wake, marked by impaired performance, reduced vigilance and a desire to return to sleep.”
Although the researchers didn’t find a correlation between the sound of the person’s alarm clock and ACTUAL sleep inertia, there was a significant association between the sound of the alarm and the person’s PERCEIVED sleep inertia.
Why does this matter?
For people who need to be suddenly responsive—such as emergency room doctors—it could be helpful to use melodic alarms.
“These findings are particularly important for people who might work in dangerous situations shortly after waking, like firefighters or pilots, but also for anyone who has to be rapidly alert, such as someone driving to the hospital in an emergency,” explains McFarlane.
Why would the alarm’s sound matter?
The scientists believe that harsh alarms may confuse the brain activity while waking.
