There are a lot of cool alarm clocks out there. Maybe they just look cool or retro or maybe they do something crazy or unique when they go off. Sara has a Moonbeam alarm clock, which starts blinking a light before the actual alarm goes off, to wake you up more “gently”.
I say “gently” because when it is dark in the room, a huge flashing light is just about as jarring as the actual alarm. But I digress.

So there are clocks that try to be a little more gentle waking you up, but now there is an even cooler clock out there, one that actually improves your sleeping. Basically how this thing works is that you wear a head band while you sleep and that head band wirelessly sends information back to the alarm about your brain waves. You can then plug this into a computer and get print outs and graphs about how your sleeping schedule is working for you and even tips about how to improve things.

But here’s where it gets really cool. A tip a sleep doctor gave me about sleeping is that if you feel tired when you wake up, try waking up 30 minutes earlier. This is counter-intuitive obviously, but moving your alarm time might catch you in a lighter sleep cycle, which would make you feel more rested when you wake up.  So, with this clock, you can set the alarm so that if it detects you are in a light sleep cycle and it is almost time to wake up, it will go ahead and wake you up. That way, it avoids waking you up in a deep cycle which would leave you feeling groggy.

That is some pretty sweet technology at work. Is it worth $400? I don’t know. The article kind of indicates that it might fix your sleep simple because you’re like, “I’m not wasting $400 without some results!” so you actually do all the things you know you should be doing anyway.