Set our own wake up calls
Posted on: November 30, 2005
Why we sometimes wake up a minute before the alarm rings?
http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-19990501-000014.html
- Ever wake up five minutes before your alarm rings? This mysterious phenomenon isn’t just bizarre coincidence. We are all equipped with our own internal alarm clocks and, best of all, they even have snooze buttons.
- In a three-night study, Born and team tucked 15 volunteers into bed at midnight the first night, and told them they would be woken at 6 a.m. on one night and 9 a.m. the other two nights.
- When the volunteers knew they would be woken at six, levels of the central stress hormone adrenocorticotropin began rising around 4:30 a.m. But subjects expecting to wake at nine and rudely awakened at six experienced no such hormonal surge. Our bodies, in other words, note the time we hope to begin our day and gradually prepare us for consciousness, not unlike a snooze button.
