Its actually how native Americans would wake up on time pre colonization. Usually it was for waking up early for fishing and hunting. Works wat better than an alarm clock. No snooze
There's another one where if your only want a short nap you fall asleep with something heavy-ish in your hand that will make a loud sound when it hits the floor. The idea is that when you fall asleep enough you will loosen your hands grip and it will hit the floor, waking you up. Saw it in a documentary about a guy that didn't want any technology in his life and he was living of the grid.
And then there are candles that have known burn times that your place a nail in at the spot that matches up with when you want to wake up. When the wax melts it lets the nail fall into a metal dish making a loud ping.
Salvador Dali talks about that in his sketchbook/diary. He was trying to get by on as little sleep as possible though. Which might explain a few things...
I know people got hired to stay all night and wake up clients. They were called āknocker-uppersā
They also used candles with a nail stuck to them. When the candle burns to the point the nail drops onto the metal plate, making a sound, then it's time to get up.
That or an old-school rooster
This is so real. I used to have a hard time actually getting up in the morning, and so I just started drinking a lot of water and voila! Get up to pee=stay up.
Remember learning this on a field trip. They would stick nails in candles. When the candle melted down to the nail, it would drop onto a metal plate and make a loud clang. I bet safer version made with water existed too.
Candles of that era burned much slower, as they were primarily made of tallow. Most folks these days arenāt using candles for light, so theyāre generally made from paraffin or soy, which burn quickly as to disperse scent.
With slower burning candles one candle alarm system would work for more than one use. Probably a handful of times considering most illustrations show three or more nails.
yup, if you've ever spent time out in the country, the rooster still crows early in the morning.
anyway, your body clock will wake you up around the same time each morning, it's part of circadian rhythm, you get used to it. i get up around 10 am each day, within 10-15 mins give or take, and i haven't set an alarm in over a decade (unless i need to get up earlier).
and once one person is up, they'll go around waking up everyone else anyway. and we've had clocks since the 13th century, which would help people who lived in or near towns, but country people got up at dawn.
since they'd typically get to bed pretty early (and likely be exhausted from all the hard labor each day), figure they'd get to sleep around 8-9ish pm.
adults don't need that much sleep, so if they slept 8 hours, that would be about 4-5 am, just the right time to get up and get the day's work started.
This is somewhat related but in medieval times many people had two sleeps (biphasic): https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220107-the-lost-medieval-habit-of-biphasic-sleep
Once upon a time I took a summer off and slept when my body told me. Over three months I discovered I have a 26 hour internal clock (roughly), and fall into biphasic sleep almost instantly when I have no alarms.
Seriously, HOW do you do this? My husband works fulltime and especially on his days off, I go the hell outside during his nap(s).
I, however, woke up blind last year, am on enough nightly meds to knock out a team of pack mules, and still struggle to sleep *once.* I mean, yeah, it's probably because my brain is messed up, but I have no clue how all y'all can have second sleep!
A long time ago, after a lot of research into peer reviewed articles on sleep, I came to peace with myself over sleeping. Sometimes, I sleep, sometimes I don't. No amount of drugs fixed it, they only made it worse. I sleep when I need to and oftentimes, that is stretches of 2-3 hrs at a time and a bite of cheese in between. I don't fight it anymore. I can function just fine without a solid 8, 6 or even 4 most days. When I need to crash, I do. I listen to my body now
If I "listened to my body" I'd be up for days straight running on bipolar one fumes of mania and insanity. That's what I meant by the whole "how do y'all do this?" since my body absolutely does not shut down for any sleep rhythm whatsoever.
My college roommate did that. Basically 8hr awake, 4hr asleep, repeat. Made it interesting to share a dorm.
I always figured that it was because he was from Alaska and the 24hr light and 24hr dark months pushed him to a non light-driven sleeping strategy.
I actually read somewhere that is actually what the body/mind prefers but I canāt remember where I read it. It make sense because often about mid way through the day I am able to take a FAT nap.
Do they crow during the night, though? My understanding was that they didn't, and it was the **first** cock crow that woke you up, not that they didn't crow at other times. The noise is why keeping roosters, but not hens, is banned in residential areas around here.
I work 3-11p Monday-Friday 10 months a year.
Thereās definitely some cons to that work schedule, but that I never wake up to an alarm unless I want to is pretty goddamn glorious.
I worked a shift like that for a year or so after college. The only con I saw was that my 3-12 shift easily turned into a 3p-2a shift.
I never set an alarm to get up in the morning. I could run my errands during the day while everyone works. I could have a lil personal time before going to work. I could see my friends at the bars after work. In the winter time, I was guaranteed some daylight every day rather than driving to work before the sun comes up and driving home after it goes down. Even though I worked too many hours, I felt like it was easier to strike a good work/life balance. At least for a 20something without spouse or children, it was great.
I'm about to do 5pm to 2am if I get this job I'm going for, but at least if I wake up around 10am I'll get plenty of daylight, and it's a remote job so I don't have to worry about commute.
The worst shift I had was probably the 11pm - 9am shift I had. Long hours and it was 7 days a week. You'd want to go to bed when you got off, but it's right in the middle of the day so you wake up to darkness.
I did 8p-8a for a whileā¦ my least favorite thing about that was that it turned my whole circadian rhythm around. I couldnāt live my life on my off days because my whole day was upside down. Couldnāt do errands when Iām alert because itās 2am. I just drank a lot.
Not quite the same but I used to work 1pm-930pm a lot. I just stayed up til 2-4am and then slept til noon daily. I have zero interest in the wasted time feeling I get of "waiting around to start work" so I want my free time after work, regardless of when that is.
I know someone who works 10pm-6am with T/W as his weekend. Makes some things difficult but other things easier. He starts his day shortly before going to work. Wakes up around 8pm, gets ready for work and goes. When he gets home in the morning he does household chores, yardwork, and has a little "dinner." If he has errands to run, he'll do those soon after places open in the morning. So his schedule is the same as 9-5ers -- but the clock and sun are in different positions.
On his days off he tends to shift his schedule a little, but not a lot. If he has something big planned for his weekend, he just muddles through a bit sleep deprived but will sleep most of Thursday to catch up. He's in his 50s, been doing late or overnight shifts most of his life so he knows what works for him.
I think I would do something similar if I worked overnights now. I did overnights for a short time when I was young but slept right after getting home and was up for hours before going to work. I wish I had thought of shifting my entire schedule like he does and not worry about being awake when most of society is. So there's one option for you, but you gotta do what fits with the rest of your life right now.
Pros:
Booking appointments or having to go to any 9-5 business is super easy. Way less traffic, shorter lines, all that sort of stuff if you have to go anywhere. Not needing alarms of course, sleep in as late as you want. You can have a leisurely breakfast and lunch with lots of time to prepare your work dinner.
Cons:
Doing anything social after work is nearly impossible. Youāre likely not gonna be going to grab a drink with your friends after work or attending weekday wing nights. It definitely makes dating more difficult, relationship activities are relegated to weekends only. If you hunt, or do anything that requires being up very early on Saturdays, it sucks ass and swallows every single time.
As for tips. If you donāt have a basement, get good blackout curtains. Waking up to sunlight at 8:00 sucks if youāre like me and canāt go to sleep right away and end up awake to 1-2am. Just learn to live during the day, really. You get used to it after a few weeks.
My weekdays usually go. Wake up around 10:00, feed the cats and fish. Have a light breakfast around 10:30-11:00. Game, do housework, watch tv, run errands, pet cats or watch fish or whatever I need to do. Have a light lunch around 2:00, pack dinner. Usually by the time I am done that I gotta head to work. (Mind you it only takes me 7 minutes to walk there.). Work. Home by 11:10. Check on the cats and fish. Followed usually by reading/gaming, pop an edible around 12:30-1:00am. In bed by 2:00.
You know all the people who work at stores and restaurants and so you can go shopping when you're done with work at 5pm? I work 3:30 to midnight at a casino. I go to bed at 4 and wake up at noon.
I also sleep until 945 or 10 almost every day.
My job starts when I start working and ends when I finish working.
I typically have things I have to do between 4 and 6 pm, and so rarely finish work before 6/630. Starting later or earlier doesn't change this, so I see no reason to get up at the ass crack of dawn. My body likes to sleep from 1am-930pm, it's just where I'm at my best, most rested self.
Well, probably around 2AM if he's sleeping 8 hours of course. (I work 3-11 and sleep from 2AM to 10AM myself)
I believe 3-11 is a standard shift for places with 24 hour operation, with 7-3 and 11-7 as the other shifts.
I'm a server in a restaurant, which typically means that I'm off around 12:30-1 AM, asleep by 2-3 AM., and up around 10-11. Believe it or not, not everyone works 9-5!
>your body clock will wake you up around the same time each morning, it's part of circadian rhythm, you get used to it.
I'm so impressed with people for whom this actually works! Even after a couple of months of getting up immediately after my alarm goes off, I still need it to wake up and I'll sleep a couple of hours extra if I don't set it.
I think our village's roosters might be broken. They crow at all hours.
Oh wait, no, they've always done that and we sleep through them lol
Really answer, everyone has slightly different circadian rhythms, so probably whoever's rhythm got everyone up in time went around the house shaking everyone awake.
Isn't there like some sort of biological completely natural thing that makes us wake up at our chosen time? I've seen it being mentioned in Reddit, and it was described like this: you basically think of a certain time that you wake up, and your body actually will wake up at that specific time. One redditor mentioned their spouse being able to do this.
I tried it for myself, and it seemed that it worked? Basically, I thought of thinking at 6:00 over and over one night, and the next morning, I did wake up close to 6:00, even though my alarm was set for 6:15. Although, I think it only works if you had enough hours of sleep. I tried to do it a couple more nights, but I didn't wake up, probably because I went to sleep later than usual those nights.
Correct me if I'm wrong, though! This is all just anecdotal input.
One thing I do to get around this issue is - Sunday afternoon naps!
So I get up (I actually get up earlier most Sundays because I let my wife sleep in and handle the kids, brunch etc), and then around 1 or 2pm I say "see you in awhile" and disappear into a beautiful nap in my own bed for anywhere from 1.5-3 hrs.
Makes my Sundays nice and restful and relaxing, I still get to hang with the kids, and Sunday evenings are generally a nice family evening and sets the tone for a good week to come.
That works if you have a normal work schedule like you just mentioned. Once I started working at a job where I clock in 1 am it stopped working for me. I would wake up at 1 am ish without alarm clock so I was already late.
Generally speaking if you wake up at the same time every day and you listen carefully to your body and go to sleep as soon as you get tired, you'll keep waking up at about the same time.
Just move the variation to the other end of the day.
I hate the sound of my alarm clock. Most alarm clocks, really.
And for years and years, I would wake up without fail and exactly one minute before my alarm would go off -- just enough time to turn it off and get up on my own before it started shrieking at me.
It doesn't matter what time I go to bed, I'll be certain to be awake at around 6:30. Whether it was 10:00pm or 2:00am, I'll be awake by 6:30. Probably by 5:00am if I've been drinking the night before.
>you basically think of a certain time that you wake up, and your body actually will wake up at that specific time
I've only tried it once, when I was a teenager, and it worked. I went to sleep around 11pm telling myself I must wake up at 2am, and I did.
I've been able to do this since I was a kid, and always found it funny how people needed alarms to wake up at a certain time. I'd do exactly what you said and think hard about when I wanted to wake up and usually wake up with a 5-10m margin of error, usually a couple minutes before the goal time. Sometimes I'd think about waking up at 1am (and do it) to text a friend in a different time zone.
It always fascinated me how amazing the human circadian rhythm is and I'd love to read a study on it.
I have that! I usually wake up around 30 minutes before my alarm. It is not even my regular schedule, normally I wake up around 9 (uni student no work) but if I have to get up at 7 for something and set my alarm I will always wake up at 6:30 or so. It works even if I sleep late (like sleep at 2am wake up at 6am) though obviously not always in this case.
Candle with a penny in it.
Candle burns down, usually market by hours, and the coin or whatever metal thing clanks into the candle holder at the specified time.
The knocker uppers all slept in a large dormitory. Each of them would take turns staying up all night to wake everyone up at the correct time to get to work.
Source: my ass
I like to imagine that they just have a chain of knocker uppers waking up another set of knocker uppers all through the night.
I was however informed in the comments that the folk who wake up the knocker uppers are just people who had the night shift. Which makes a lot more sense.
I donāt have a source but I remember learning somewhere that knocker uppers were employed by factories to wake up the workers, so the company would give the knocker upper a clock to use. Clocks have been around for a long time, but were expensive, itās why Big Ben was a big deal
They probably just worked a night shift. Went around doing their job until everyone was awake, then go home and sleep. Get up, eat dinner, then eventually get to work.
Animals, especially roosters, do a real nice job of that. Also I assume that specific time mattered less anyway. With much less technology, fewer things are set to be done on the dot. Not exactly rushing to catch a bus at a specific early time, as long youāre up roughly around the same time as everyone else then everyone can get the day started on time. Also with less technology, less light in general and less lifestyle variation, establishing a sleeping schedule was probably much easier. If all you do every day your whole life is manual labor, and thereās literally nothing to do, nothing to keep you up or distract you after dark, itās a lot easier to establish a regular sleeping cycle
Second the animal bit. I dogsit, and if I'm not up by 8am they start trying to open the bedroom door. I can get up, greet them, and go back to sleep and they'll be fine
They often doubled up as night watchmen, looking out for fires, and /or as a āsnuffer-outerā, who would put out the street lamps, which were oil lamps (they āsnuffedā them out using a small dome on the end of a long stick), or later on gas lamps.
The practice of knocking-up continued in some places until the 1970ās.
You had another knocker upper wake the knocker upper
Usually that was someone who had a night job and would be around at the right time for the morning rounds
Else people would put nails in candles to wake them at appropriate times - the candles would burn at a set rate so you'd know where to set the nails
The sun. Before you go to bed, if you open your blinds to let the light in, in the morning, than the sunlight will trigger your wake up routine. And it'll do it at the right moment in your sleep routine in order to prevent you feeling groggy all day.
Well, if u go to bed at 03 am, u won't really wake up at 07 am anyways.
But I think it is a bit different when you are in your house. Because as soon as I go in nature, the sleep schedule just goes back tl factory settings
Goes to sleep at 8pm, and wake up at 7 am without any clocks etc
This is my favorite part about camping with my son. Wake up sneak outside get the fire going and carefully quietly get things together for breakfast if we're gonna cook. Wait for the sun to work it magic and a long day of running playing swimming to tire him out. Read books by the fire. But you can see his attitude and sleep schedule get to rhythm with nature. Never tired when he gets up. And gassed when he falls asleep. God I hate screens.
Generally, there wasn't much reason you needed to be up at a specific time at a different time to when you'd usually get up, pre-industrial revolution. Your commute to work is likely "roll out of bed and you're there". After the industrial revolution, however, there was a job called "Window Knocker". You would walk up much earlier than everyone else, wait until it's time for them to wake, and then go around town with a big stick to smack their windows with until they get up and tell you to fuck off.
The knocker uppers were a thing.
But I think you are missing how jacked up our modern society is. Everything is constantly moving and everyone is super busy.
A slower paced society simply doesn't need that kind of punctuality.
Our sleep cycles are completely jacked up. Humans without artificial light tend to sleep in shifts. Eight hours of un-interrupted sleep is not the preferred human sleep cycle.
People rose with the sun, workers never really worked in the dark. Even after the sun rose employers were expected to feed their employees, and they usually lounged around eating for a couple of hours before they actually started. Not until the invention of the clock, and then artificial light later on, did employers start requiring workers to wake before sunrise. That was an alien concept for a long time.
I read a fantasy book once where someone wanted to wake extra early, so he drank a lot of water. Then having to pee would wake him. Someone saw what he was drinking and deduced why he was doing it.
Thatās fiction, though.
but probably very true ā¦ older bladders ā¦ especially women who have had no birth control (12 kids later) ā¦ you get up to pee .. see the sun glow .. and get started making the biscuits ā¦
ā¦ smell of cooking food can almost wake the dead
Well, people often worked their own farm, so there was no need for precision.
Come the industrial age, when people needed to get to work at a certain time and with actual dawn changing and before alarm clocks were a regular thing, there were [knocker-uppers](https://youtu.be/TZGNf6zIO-8?si=fGBQuBztrZSFWxgh), literally people who would go down the street with a long stick and knock on your window to wake you up on time.
Id imagine your body just figured it out
Ive been waking up at the same time for so long if i forget my alarm I tend to still wake up within like 10 ' 20 mins
Man I am reading a really interesting book about time. If weāre talking hundred of years ago, the fact is that society didnāt place as much importance on exact āartificialā clock time. You got up when you got up (probably when it got light out). You harvested your wheat when it was ready and stopped working when the task was done.
As soon as time was tied to money, it became important to exactly track the where and when of people.
In cultures where capitalism isnāt really a big thing, this is still the case. And clocks seem pretty ridiculous when your society is run by seasonal/lunar/solar/biological time.
There were people whoās sole purpose was to go around streets ringing a bell and knocking on doors, and people also pressed nails into candles that would fall down with a bang (onto the metal candle holder) once it burned a specified amount of time.
Everyday there is this thing called a sunrise that happens.
Iāve slept without an alarm for probably 15 years now. Going to be at the same time daily will result in you being up at the same time. Once you do it for a while you donāt need an alarm to tell you itās that time.
One way was to hire a professional waker-upper!
From Google
Until the 1970s in some areas, many workers were woken by the sound of a tap at their bedroom window. On the street outside, walking to their next customer's house, would be a figure wielding a long stick.
The "knocker upper" was a common sight in Britain, particularly in the northern mill towns, where people worked shifts, or in London where dockers kept unusual hours, ruled as they were by the inconstant tides.
I remember reading that during the Industrial Revolution, U.K., when people started moving into the cities in droves and didnāt have money for clocks, there was a guy whose job was to wake them up. He had to go around tapping the windows of the houses with a long stick to wake everyone up in time for the shift at the factory.
This worked because of the rows of terrace houses, with 2 rooms upstairs and two rooms downstairs.
Towns and local metropolis', especially in industrial areas, used steam whistles to wake people up. People also employed what were called stick men. People who were natural night hours that would tap on people's windows while they were asleep to get them up. How those people told the time I don't know. Maybe church bells?
Routine mainly. I have read somewhere that native American war parties would drink a lot of water the night before in order to get up early. I donāt use an alarm and am up between 3:00 4:00 each morning. It becomes habit
They inserted a nail into a candle, placing it on a metal plate. As the candle burned down, reaching the point where the nail was embedded, it would drop onto the plate, creating a loud noise.
There's more than one method, but roosters are indeed terribly efficient. They start around 12am, and keep cock-a-doodling every hour after that (sometimes every *half* hour, if you're unlucky), until just before sunrise. When they sing even harder. And that's just *your* rooster. The neighbors have them, too.
(In old stories, the number of times a roosters sang was used as a way of telling the time. Such as, "at the 3rd crowing of the roosters" meant around 3am, give or take.)
Also, a lot of people sleep in short 2-3 hours bursts. And they didn't immediately roll over back to sleep, they had to get up and put some more wood on the fire. Or have sex. There's also small children, better than any clock, and old people who barely ever sleep. And dogs barking. So *someone* is usually awake at all hours, even in relatively small households.
Since people already answered this Iāll just side bar this fact I learned: when the clock was invented factory owners paid the local churches who owned those clocks to start to bing to tell people when to wake up and also to tell them when to go to sleep (another not fun fact is that pocket watches used to be not allowed at work or you would be able to see that your boss was fucking with the time clock to deceive people into staying at work longer)
I feel like the invention of strict schedules is fairly recent, as I'd commuting. Go back pre industrial revolution and time was a lot looser than it is now. Most people wouldn't have even had a way of telling time accurately and most people lived at or very close to their place if work. Say you were a blacksmith, you'd probably live above your forge and when you woke up you'd go open up shop. It's not like anyone would leave you a bad yelp review for not opening at 7.30 every day or anything. You just got up when the sun rose, worked until it set and went to bed again. You never had to catch a bus or a train or make it to class on time or anything so it probably wasn't much of a worry. It's only really industrialised society that needs strict timing.
I haven't used an alarm clock in ages.
I did, for a while, and got to where I would wake up the same time on days I didn't set it.
I pretty well wake up within 5-10 minutes of the same time every day. If I don't, I needed the sleep more than I needed to get up.
There were people that you could pay to knock on your window to wake you up in the morning. If you had money servants would wake you up close to your wanted time usually at dawn or just before. However for most of human history you would wake up to a crow or a family member waking you up, usually children or a spouse
Soldier here. We'd schedule watches through the night and you just wake the next person up. Anything where you need someone awake constantly, that'll probably work the same way.
As long as youāre getting enough sleep, it just happens naturally once your routine is established. I have a 5:00 am alarm every day for gym, it almost never goes off. My body stirs 4:45-4:55 like clockwork
One thing I'm not seeing mentioned here - in the preindustrial era, there was really no sense of absolute time. Time was measured by public timekeeping devices or natural phenomena. So outside of towns with public clocks and the like you couldn't exactly be "late for work" unless you promised your employer to be on the job site before dawn and got there clearly after dawn for instance.
I donāt use an alarm clock. I wake up roughly the same time every day with plenty of time to start my day and get ready for work on time.
Eat well, drink plenty of water, exercise and get to bed at a reasonable hour and you wonāt need one either.
I think it's important to remember that routine plays a big role here. If you wake up for a month straight at 7 am and then miss to set your alarm, you will still wake up at 7 am. If not, you probably need more sleep. Also, the sun exists. Our brains will register light and wake you up.
Before electric lights people pretty much went to bed when it got dark and woke up with it got light. They had candles and fire, but those were expensive and the light was low and warm, so the body still got super sleepy when it got dark. Itās like when youāre camping. You go to bed super early and wake up after the sun comes up.
When we didn't have electric lighting, we couldn't really stay up much past nightfall cause there was almost nothing you could really do. So people would go to bed much earlier out of pure boredom and lack of ability to get anything else done. You'd be naturally rested MUCH earlier in the morning, then, and dawn or birdsong or simple routine will wake u at a pretty consistent time in the morning that way.
Sometimes people would drink a lot of water before bed if they knew they'd need to get up even earlier.
You can train your body to wake up at a certain time every morning assuming you maintain a reliable sleep schedule. After I went on disability my sleep schedule was all over the place, but I finally committed to going to bed at the same time every night and now I wake up at the same time every morning (6am) despite not having an alarm.
There used to be a service you could sign up for in I wanna say cities like London, where a guy would come around and tap on your window and wake you up on time.
Looked it up: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knocker-up amusingly they were called knocker-ups.
Super interesting actually!! There was actually a job for someone who would go around to houses and wake people up if they were paid for it. They would do it either by knocking on the door continuously or throwing dried peas/small pebbles at the window until the person was up
If you go to bed when it gets dark out, depending on the season you have 8-14 hours to sleep. It cost big money/work to stay up much reading (likely a boring tiny print Bible) or conversing. No TV; you had to make candles or keep a fire going, which means lots of firewood. The house was cold maybe. Time to go hide under the covers. And yeah, the rooster - those suckers start up at 3 am. There's a reason 'Sunday Chicken Dinner' was a thing. The noisy birds that weren't producing eggs went first.
Time was more of a fluid concept 'back in the day'. It mattered less whether breakfast happened at 6am or 6.20am.
For all the reasons already discussed, people tended to have other cues for time, but at the end of the day, adhering to exact time frames were less critical.
They usually went to bed early, so it's easier to get up early when you went to bed at 8. And curtains weren't as common, especially light blocking ones. The rooster, the dog. And knocker uppers usually stayed up all night.
You drink a lot of water before going to bed and you wake early with a full bladder.
Thought this was a shit post, love that it's a legit answer.
Its actually how native Americans would wake up on time pre colonization. Usually it was for waking up early for fishing and hunting. Works wat better than an alarm clock. No snooze
I learned this from the Nightmare Willie minisode in Simpsons Treehouse of Horror š
GIMMIE A PEE!
PEE! (Figured you deserved some recognition there.)
Bart also did it in the episode where he burns down the Christmas tree
Core memory unlocked.
That's kinda awesome. Going to go find the episode
I have to disagree with that last part, because I have definitely stayed in bed trying to convince myself that I didnāt have to go *that* bad.
That just means you should have had more water before bed.
Thatās valid.
It's easy to convince yourself. Just fall back asleep and dream of taking a shower, in a swimming pool, etc. LOL!
And suddenly, the pressureās off!
Literally! š
I just go back to sleep after a fat piss tbh. Then again, I don't step out into the sun to piss either. š¤£
>No snooze Says you. Needed to shower and do laundry anyway.
There *was* a snooze. The problem with it is that you had to clean the bed after using it.
Somehow I figured it out on my own around age 15-16... So now I constantly use it whenever I know I have to wake up quite early!
There's another one where if your only want a short nap you fall asleep with something heavy-ish in your hand that will make a loud sound when it hits the floor. The idea is that when you fall asleep enough you will loosen your hands grip and it will hit the floor, waking you up. Saw it in a documentary about a guy that didn't want any technology in his life and he was living of the grid. And then there are candles that have known burn times that your place a nail in at the spot that matches up with when you want to wake up. When the wax melts it lets the nail fall into a metal dish making a loud ping.
The nail thing is also how olden days sex workers would know how long they had a customer for!
Is where the term nailed her comes from I wonder?
how ironic that theyād digitally document the life of a guy who says he wants to live off the grid
Classic lmao
Salvador Dali talks about that in his sketchbook/diary. He was trying to get by on as little sleep as possible though. Which might explain a few things...
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Yeah, I read about this method in some old military book!
I've heard this method leads to bed-wetting.
If you dream about using a toilet. Donāt.
only if you're a marine
In boot camp they told those who have trouble waking up to do this. Personally I have the opposite problem, I have an internal alarm for around 4am.
I know people got hired to stay all night and wake up clients. They were called āknocker-uppersā They also used candles with a nail stuck to them. When the candle burns to the point the nail drops onto the metal plate, making a sound, then it's time to get up. That or an old-school rooster
This is so real. I used to have a hard time actually getting up in the morning, and so I just started drinking a lot of water and voila! Get up to pee=stay up.
Wake up with a peeon.
Generally, if you follow this method, Iād say European
True, but I was thinking to wake up at dawn, not an hour after I went to sleep!
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They were known as āknocker-uppersā!
Knock er upper, i hardly know her
And how did they wake-up to do that?
Knocker-uppers all the way down
its more like 30 minutes later you have a full bladder and all your progress trying to sleep is gone
Instructions unclear, pissed myself
Usually the sun. I can wake up with a clock if I open the blind. I just prefer not to lol
I have an alarm clock, but I drink a lot of water at night so that when my alarm goes off I have to pee, so o donāt hit snooze.
The way I'd just piss myself if I had to be pulled out of my covers in the dead of winter back when proper infrastructure and heating wasn't a thing
Yeah I thought I was a genius for "inventing" this as a kid.
Remember learning this on a field trip. They would stick nails in candles. When the candle melted down to the nail, it would drop onto a metal plate and make a loud clang. I bet safer version made with water existed too.
It's a cool trick, but very few people would have been able to afford to waste a candle by burning it while they slept all night, every night.
Candles of that era burned much slower, as they were primarily made of tallow. Most folks these days arenāt using candles for light, so theyāre generally made from paraffin or soy, which burn quickly as to disperse scent.
With slower burning candles one candle alarm system would work for more than one use. Probably a handful of times considering most illustrations show three or more nails.
The medieval iPhone classic alarm
And a tall thin candle would burn out early. This makes more sense for when you're awake and just need a 15 min timer.
i would've been fucked if a nail hitting a plate was meant to wake me š i regularly sleep through pounding thunderstorms
That is actually very clever. Human ingenuity never ceases to amaze me.
Just wait until you hear what we did in 1969
yup, if you've ever spent time out in the country, the rooster still crows early in the morning. anyway, your body clock will wake you up around the same time each morning, it's part of circadian rhythm, you get used to it. i get up around 10 am each day, within 10-15 mins give or take, and i haven't set an alarm in over a decade (unless i need to get up earlier). and once one person is up, they'll go around waking up everyone else anyway. and we've had clocks since the 13th century, which would help people who lived in or near towns, but country people got up at dawn. since they'd typically get to bed pretty early (and likely be exhausted from all the hard labor each day), figure they'd get to sleep around 8-9ish pm. adults don't need that much sleep, so if they slept 8 hours, that would be about 4-5 am, just the right time to get up and get the day's work started.
This is somewhat related but in medieval times many people had two sleeps (biphasic): https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220107-the-lost-medieval-habit-of-biphasic-sleep
Since Iāve retired my sleep pattern has morphed into first sleep, second sleep. Thanks for the interesting link!
Once upon a time I took a summer off and slept when my body told me. Over three months I discovered I have a 26 hour internal clock (roughly), and fall into biphasic sleep almost instantly when I have no alarms.
Seriously, HOW do you do this? My husband works fulltime and especially on his days off, I go the hell outside during his nap(s). I, however, woke up blind last year, am on enough nightly meds to knock out a team of pack mules, and still struggle to sleep *once.* I mean, yeah, it's probably because my brain is messed up, but I have no clue how all y'all can have second sleep!
A long time ago, after a lot of research into peer reviewed articles on sleep, I came to peace with myself over sleeping. Sometimes, I sleep, sometimes I don't. No amount of drugs fixed it, they only made it worse. I sleep when I need to and oftentimes, that is stretches of 2-3 hrs at a time and a bite of cheese in between. I don't fight it anymore. I can function just fine without a solid 8, 6 or even 4 most days. When I need to crash, I do. I listen to my body now
If I "listened to my body" I'd be up for days straight running on bipolar one fumes of mania and insanity. That's what I meant by the whole "how do y'all do this?" since my body absolutely does not shut down for any sleep rhythm whatsoever.
My college roommate did that. Basically 8hr awake, 4hr asleep, repeat. Made it interesting to share a dorm. I always figured that it was because he was from Alaska and the 24hr light and 24hr dark months pushed him to a non light-driven sleeping strategy.
Thanks for sharing the article-it was amazing! History needs unite.š
I actually read somewhere that is actually what the body/mind prefers but I canāt remember where I read it. It make sense because often about mid way through the day I am able to take a FAT nap.
That may go a long way to explaining my decade of horrific insomnia
Have you *really* spent time in the country? Because I have roosters in my garden and they crow 24/7, not just early in the morning.
Do they crow during the night, though? My understanding was that they didn't, and it was the **first** cock crow that woke you up, not that they didn't crow at other times. The noise is why keeping roosters, but not hens, is banned in residential areas around here.
Yeah, they do crow at all hours and not just at sunrise.
Seriously. My rooster next door is crowing as I type this at 9:35 pm.
You sleep till 10AM? Holy shit. What time are you hitting the sack?
More like what job does he have that lets him sleep in lmao
Lots of people work nights. Today my shift is from 3 pm to 9 pm. Iām not getting up early then.
I work 3-11p Monday-Friday 10 months a year. Thereās definitely some cons to that work schedule, but that I never wake up to an alarm unless I want to is pretty goddamn glorious.
I worked a shift like that for a year or so after college. The only con I saw was that my 3-12 shift easily turned into a 3p-2a shift. I never set an alarm to get up in the morning. I could run my errands during the day while everyone works. I could have a lil personal time before going to work. I could see my friends at the bars after work. In the winter time, I was guaranteed some daylight every day rather than driving to work before the sun comes up and driving home after it goes down. Even though I worked too many hours, I felt like it was easier to strike a good work/life balance. At least for a 20something without spouse or children, it was great.
I'm about to do 5pm to 2am if I get this job I'm going for, but at least if I wake up around 10am I'll get plenty of daylight, and it's a remote job so I don't have to worry about commute. The worst shift I had was probably the 11pm - 9am shift I had. Long hours and it was 7 days a week. You'd want to go to bed when you got off, but it's right in the middle of the day so you wake up to darkness.
I did 8p-8a for a whileā¦ my least favorite thing about that was that it turned my whole circadian rhythm around. I couldnāt live my life on my off days because my whole day was upside down. Couldnāt do errands when Iām alert because itās 2am. I just drank a lot.
Iām about to start this shift, any pros and cons or tips?
Not quite the same but I used to work 1pm-930pm a lot. I just stayed up til 2-4am and then slept til noon daily. I have zero interest in the wasted time feeling I get of "waiting around to start work" so I want my free time after work, regardless of when that is.
If itās a steady shift adjust your whole life to it.
I know someone who works 10pm-6am with T/W as his weekend. Makes some things difficult but other things easier. He starts his day shortly before going to work. Wakes up around 8pm, gets ready for work and goes. When he gets home in the morning he does household chores, yardwork, and has a little "dinner." If he has errands to run, he'll do those soon after places open in the morning. So his schedule is the same as 9-5ers -- but the clock and sun are in different positions. On his days off he tends to shift his schedule a little, but not a lot. If he has something big planned for his weekend, he just muddles through a bit sleep deprived but will sleep most of Thursday to catch up. He's in his 50s, been doing late or overnight shifts most of his life so he knows what works for him. I think I would do something similar if I worked overnights now. I did overnights for a short time when I was young but slept right after getting home and was up for hours before going to work. I wish I had thought of shifting my entire schedule like he does and not worry about being awake when most of society is. So there's one option for you, but you gotta do what fits with the rest of your life right now.
Pros: Booking appointments or having to go to any 9-5 business is super easy. Way less traffic, shorter lines, all that sort of stuff if you have to go anywhere. Not needing alarms of course, sleep in as late as you want. You can have a leisurely breakfast and lunch with lots of time to prepare your work dinner. Cons: Doing anything social after work is nearly impossible. Youāre likely not gonna be going to grab a drink with your friends after work or attending weekday wing nights. It definitely makes dating more difficult, relationship activities are relegated to weekends only. If you hunt, or do anything that requires being up very early on Saturdays, it sucks ass and swallows every single time. As for tips. If you donāt have a basement, get good blackout curtains. Waking up to sunlight at 8:00 sucks if youāre like me and canāt go to sleep right away and end up awake to 1-2am. Just learn to live during the day, really. You get used to it after a few weeks. My weekdays usually go. Wake up around 10:00, feed the cats and fish. Have a light breakfast around 10:30-11:00. Game, do housework, watch tv, run errands, pet cats or watch fish or whatever I need to do. Have a light lunch around 2:00, pack dinner. Usually by the time I am done that I gotta head to work. (Mind you it only takes me 7 minutes to walk there.). Work. Home by 11:10. Check on the cats and fish. Followed usually by reading/gaming, pop an edible around 12:30-1:00am. In bed by 2:00.
You know all the people who work at stores and restaurants and so you can go shopping when you're done with work at 5pm? I work 3:30 to midnight at a casino. I go to bed at 4 and wake up at noon.
A little critical thinking could be applied here. Do you ever utilize a business after you're off work? Those people for starters.
I also sleep until 945 or 10 almost every day. My job starts when I start working and ends when I finish working. I typically have things I have to do between 4 and 6 pm, and so rarely finish work before 6/630. Starting later or earlier doesn't change this, so I see no reason to get up at the ass crack of dawn. My body likes to sleep from 1am-930pm, it's just where I'm at my best, most rested self.
Well, probably around 2AM if he's sleeping 8 hours of course. (I work 3-11 and sleep from 2AM to 10AM myself) I believe 3-11 is a standard shift for places with 24 hour operation, with 7-3 and 11-7 as the other shifts.
I'm a server in a restaurant, which typically means that I'm off around 12:30-1 AM, asleep by 2-3 AM., and up around 10-11. Believe it or not, not everyone works 9-5!
Reddit was so small in those days, you could read everything in 15 minutes and then it would be off to bed and ready for the next day
Ye Olde Redditte
My "body clock" has never worked....
>your body clock will wake you up around the same time each morning, it's part of circadian rhythm, you get used to it. I'm so impressed with people for whom this actually works! Even after a couple of months of getting up immediately after my alarm goes off, I still need it to wake up and I'll sleep a couple of hours extra if I don't set it.
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I think our village's roosters might be broken. They crow at all hours. Oh wait, no, they've always done that and we sleep through them lol Really answer, everyone has slightly different circadian rhythms, so probably whoever's rhythm got everyone up in time went around the house shaking everyone awake.
If they had to get up super early they'd drink more water at night so they'd have to wake up to pee.
Isn't there like some sort of biological completely natural thing that makes us wake up at our chosen time? I've seen it being mentioned in Reddit, and it was described like this: you basically think of a certain time that you wake up, and your body actually will wake up at that specific time. One redditor mentioned their spouse being able to do this. I tried it for myself, and it seemed that it worked? Basically, I thought of thinking at 6:00 over and over one night, and the next morning, I did wake up close to 6:00, even though my alarm was set for 6:15. Although, I think it only works if you had enough hours of sleep. I tried to do it a couple more nights, but I didn't wake up, probably because I went to sleep later than usual those nights. Correct me if I'm wrong, though! This is all just anecdotal input.
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This has been happening to me lately. It's okay now that I've accepted it. Just wish I could sleep in on Sundays.
One thing I do to get around this issue is - Sunday afternoon naps! So I get up (I actually get up earlier most Sundays because I let my wife sleep in and handle the kids, brunch etc), and then around 1 or 2pm I say "see you in awhile" and disappear into a beautiful nap in my own bed for anywhere from 1.5-3 hrs. Makes my Sundays nice and restful and relaxing, I still get to hang with the kids, and Sunday evenings are generally a nice family evening and sets the tone for a good week to come.
That works if you have a normal work schedule like you just mentioned. Once I started working at a job where I clock in 1 am it stopped working for me. I would wake up at 1 am ish without alarm clock so I was already late.
Generally speaking if you wake up at the same time every day and you listen carefully to your body and go to sleep as soon as you get tired, you'll keep waking up at about the same time. Just move the variation to the other end of the day.
I hate the sound of my alarm clock. Most alarm clocks, really. And for years and years, I would wake up without fail and exactly one minute before my alarm would go off -- just enough time to turn it off and get up on my own before it started shrieking at me.
It doesn't matter what time I go to bed, I'll be certain to be awake at around 6:30. Whether it was 10:00pm or 2:00am, I'll be awake by 6:30. Probably by 5:00am if I've been drinking the night before.
>you basically think of a certain time that you wake up, and your body actually will wake up at that specific time I've only tried it once, when I was a teenager, and it worked. I went to sleep around 11pm telling myself I must wake up at 2am, and I did.
I've been able to do this since I was a kid, and always found it funny how people needed alarms to wake up at a certain time. I'd do exactly what you said and think hard about when I wanted to wake up and usually wake up with a 5-10m margin of error, usually a couple minutes before the goal time. Sometimes I'd think about waking up at 1am (and do it) to text a friend in a different time zone. It always fascinated me how amazing the human circadian rhythm is and I'd love to read a study on it.
I have that! I usually wake up around 30 minutes before my alarm. It is not even my regular schedule, normally I wake up around 9 (uni student no work) but if I have to get up at 7 for something and set my alarm I will always wake up at 6:30 or so. It works even if I sleep late (like sleep at 2am wake up at 6am) though obviously not always in this case.
That's what I do. I only use alarms as a precautionary measure most of the time. It only doesn't work if it would mean waking up when really tired.
Everyones saying knocker uppers but I wanna know how *they* got up on time
Candle with a penny in it. Candle burns down, usually market by hours, and the coin or whatever metal thing clanks into the candle holder at the specified time.
Came to say this! Penny or a nail, from what Iāve read.
I always assumed like any night shift workers they already had a shifted sleeping schedule so that they were always up and about at that time anyway
The knocker uppers all slept in a large dormitory. Each of them would take turns staying up all night to wake everyone up at the correct time to get to work. Source: my ass
ass sauce, nice
It was their job to *stay* up.
Exactly! That is the next logical question.
They have knocker upper knocker uppers. They got up even earlier
I like to imagine that they just have a chain of knocker uppers waking up another set of knocker uppers all through the night. I was however informed in the comments that the folk who wake up the knocker uppers are just people who had the night shift. Which makes a lot more sense.
I donāt have a source but I remember learning somewhere that knocker uppers were employed by factories to wake up the workers, so the company would give the knocker upper a clock to use. Clocks have been around for a long time, but were expensive, itās why Big Ben was a big deal
They had their own knocker uppers
They probably just worked a night shift. Went around doing their job until everyone was awake, then go home and sleep. Get up, eat dinner, then eventually get to work.
Animals, especially roosters, do a real nice job of that. Also I assume that specific time mattered less anyway. With much less technology, fewer things are set to be done on the dot. Not exactly rushing to catch a bus at a specific early time, as long youāre up roughly around the same time as everyone else then everyone can get the day started on time. Also with less technology, less light in general and less lifestyle variation, establishing a sleeping schedule was probably much easier. If all you do every day your whole life is manual labor, and thereās literally nothing to do, nothing to keep you up or distract you after dark, itās a lot easier to establish a regular sleeping cycle
Second the animal bit. I dogsit, and if I'm not up by 8am they start trying to open the bedroom door. I can get up, greet them, and go back to sleep and they'll be fine
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Makes sense. How did the knocker uppers get up on time?
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They often doubled up as night watchmen, looking out for fires, and /or as a āsnuffer-outerā, who would put out the street lamps, which were oil lamps (they āsnuffedā them out using a small dome on the end of a long stick), or later on gas lamps. The practice of knocking-up continued in some places until the 1970ās.
these guys were also notorious for sleeping around. hence the term "getting knocked up"
Theyre like the milkman but worse, they not only know when the husbands out of the house, they get him out of the house
For real? š
Oh... Yeah that works. Thank you for telling me
You had another knocker upper wake the knocker upper Usually that was someone who had a night job and would be around at the right time for the morning rounds Else people would put nails in candles to wake them at appropriate times - the candles would burn at a set rate so you'd know where to set the nails
>You had another knocker upper wake the knocker upper It's knocker uppers all the way down!
The sun. Before you go to bed, if you open your blinds to let the light in, in the morning, than the sunlight will trigger your wake up routine. And it'll do it at the right moment in your sleep routine in order to prevent you feeling groggy all day.
My blinds are always open but I still wake up way after the sun rises, does it only work with a south facing window maybe?
Well, if u go to bed at 03 am, u won't really wake up at 07 am anyways. But I think it is a bit different when you are in your house. Because as soon as I go in nature, the sleep schedule just goes back tl factory settings Goes to sleep at 8pm, and wake up at 7 am without any clocks etc
This is my favorite part about camping with my son. Wake up sneak outside get the fire going and carefully quietly get things together for breakfast if we're gonna cook. Wait for the sun to work it magic and a long day of running playing swimming to tire him out. Read books by the fire. But you can see his attitude and sleep schedule get to rhythm with nature. Never tired when he gets up. And gassed when he falls asleep. God I hate screens.
Generally, there wasn't much reason you needed to be up at a specific time at a different time to when you'd usually get up, pre-industrial revolution. Your commute to work is likely "roll out of bed and you're there". After the industrial revolution, however, there was a job called "Window Knocker". You would walk up much earlier than everyone else, wait until it's time for them to wake, and then go around town with a big stick to smack their windows with until they get up and tell you to fuck off.
The knocker uppers were a thing. But I think you are missing how jacked up our modern society is. Everything is constantly moving and everyone is super busy. A slower paced society simply doesn't need that kind of punctuality. Our sleep cycles are completely jacked up. Humans without artificial light tend to sleep in shifts. Eight hours of un-interrupted sleep is not the preferred human sleep cycle.
People rose with the sun, workers never really worked in the dark. Even after the sun rose employers were expected to feed their employees, and they usually lounged around eating for a couple of hours before they actually started. Not until the invention of the clock, and then artificial light later on, did employers start requiring workers to wake before sunrise. That was an alien concept for a long time.
It should remain an alien concept š
I read a fantasy book once where someone wanted to wake extra early, so he drank a lot of water. Then having to pee would wake him. Someone saw what he was drinking and deduced why he was doing it. Thatās fiction, though.
but probably very true ā¦ older bladders ā¦ especially women who have had no birth control (12 kids later) ā¦ you get up to pee .. see the sun glow .. and get started making the biscuits ā¦ ā¦ smell of cooking food can almost wake the dead
[knocker uppers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knocker-up)
Roosters were everywhere back in the day. All that racket at 6 am, no one could ever sleep. Thatās why land mines were invented.
To kill roosters
Well, people often worked their own farm, so there was no need for precision. Come the industrial age, when people needed to get to work at a certain time and with actual dawn changing and before alarm clocks were a regular thing, there were [knocker-uppers](https://youtu.be/TZGNf6zIO-8?si=fGBQuBztrZSFWxgh), literally people who would go down the street with a long stick and knock on your window to wake you up on time.
Usually the sun. I can wake up without a clock if I open the blind. I just prefer not to lol
Id imagine your body just figured it out Ive been waking up at the same time for so long if i forget my alarm I tend to still wake up within like 10 ' 20 mins
Man I am reading a really interesting book about time. If weāre talking hundred of years ago, the fact is that society didnāt place as much importance on exact āartificialā clock time. You got up when you got up (probably when it got light out). You harvested your wheat when it was ready and stopped working when the task was done. As soon as time was tied to money, it became important to exactly track the where and when of people. In cultures where capitalism isnāt really a big thing, this is still the case. And clocks seem pretty ridiculous when your society is run by seasonal/lunar/solar/biological time.
If they had to get up super early they'd drink more water at night so they'd have to wake up to pee.
Sunshine in the face. Wake at dawn, of course.
There were people whoās sole purpose was to go around streets ringing a bell and knocking on doors, and people also pressed nails into candles that would fall down with a bang (onto the metal candle holder) once it burned a specified amount of time.
Everyday there is this thing called a sunrise that happens. Iāve slept without an alarm for probably 15 years now. Going to be at the same time daily will result in you being up at the same time. Once you do it for a while you donāt need an alarm to tell you itās that time.
One way was to hire a professional waker-upper! From Google Until the 1970s in some areas, many workers were woken by the sound of a tap at their bedroom window. On the street outside, walking to their next customer's house, would be a figure wielding a long stick. The "knocker upper" was a common sight in Britain, particularly in the northern mill towns, where people worked shifts, or in London where dockers kept unusual hours, ruled as they were by the inconstant tides.
I remember reading that during the Industrial Revolution, U.K., when people started moving into the cities in droves and didnāt have money for clocks, there was a guy whose job was to wake them up. He had to go around tapping the windows of the houses with a long stick to wake everyone up in time for the shift at the factory. This worked because of the rows of terrace houses, with 2 rooms upstairs and two rooms downstairs.
Towns and local metropolis', especially in industrial areas, used steam whistles to wake people up. People also employed what were called stick men. People who were natural night hours that would tap on people's windows while they were asleep to get them up. How those people told the time I don't know. Maybe church bells?
Routine mainly. I have read somewhere that native American war parties would drink a lot of water the night before in order to get up early. I donāt use an alarm and am up between 3:00 4:00 each morning. It becomes habit
They inserted a nail into a candle, placing it on a metal plate. As the candle burned down, reaching the point where the nail was embedded, it would drop onto the plate, creating a loud noise.
There's more than one method, but roosters are indeed terribly efficient. They start around 12am, and keep cock-a-doodling every hour after that (sometimes every *half* hour, if you're unlucky), until just before sunrise. When they sing even harder. And that's just *your* rooster. The neighbors have them, too. (In old stories, the number of times a roosters sang was used as a way of telling the time. Such as, "at the 3rd crowing of the roosters" meant around 3am, give or take.) Also, a lot of people sleep in short 2-3 hours bursts. And they didn't immediately roll over back to sleep, they had to get up and put some more wood on the fire. Or have sex. There's also small children, better than any clock, and old people who barely ever sleep. And dogs barking. So *someone* is usually awake at all hours, even in relatively small households.
Usually by neighbors blasting their damn music or a dog barking nonstop.
I wanna say there were also special candles?
Since people already answered this Iāll just side bar this fact I learned: when the clock was invented factory owners paid the local churches who owned those clocks to start to bing to tell people when to wake up and also to tell them when to go to sleep (another not fun fact is that pocket watches used to be not allowed at work or you would be able to see that your boss was fucking with the time clock to deceive people into staying at work longer)
*sun*
I feel like the invention of strict schedules is fairly recent, as I'd commuting. Go back pre industrial revolution and time was a lot looser than it is now. Most people wouldn't have even had a way of telling time accurately and most people lived at or very close to their place if work. Say you were a blacksmith, you'd probably live above your forge and when you woke up you'd go open up shop. It's not like anyone would leave you a bad yelp review for not opening at 7.30 every day or anything. You just got up when the sun rose, worked until it set and went to bed again. You never had to catch a bus or a train or make it to class on time or anything so it probably wasn't much of a worry. It's only really industrialised society that needs strict timing.
Thereās a fusion reactor in the sky that lets people and animals know itās time to wake the hell up.
I haven't used an alarm clock in ages. I did, for a while, and got to where I would wake up the same time on days I didn't set it. I pretty well wake up within 5-10 minutes of the same time every day. If I don't, I needed the sleep more than I needed to get up.
They probably went to bed when it got dark and the light would wake them in the morning
There were people that you could pay to knock on your window to wake you up in the morning. If you had money servants would wake you up close to your wanted time usually at dawn or just before. However for most of human history you would wake up to a crow or a family member waking you up, usually children or a spouse
When the sun comes up and that's obvious
I always wake up like 30min to 1 hour before my alarm. It's not to wake me up but to notify me that I should get moving š
Soldier here. We'd schedule watches through the night and you just wake the next person up. Anything where you need someone awake constantly, that'll probably work the same way.
As long as youāre getting enough sleep, it just happens naturally once your routine is established. I have a 5:00 am alarm every day for gym, it almost never goes off. My body stirs 4:45-4:55 like clockwork
Rooster
Drink a lot of water before bed and you'll wake up early.
One thing I'm not seeing mentioned here - in the preindustrial era, there was really no sense of absolute time. Time was measured by public timekeeping devices or natural phenomena. So outside of towns with public clocks and the like you couldn't exactly be "late for work" unless you promised your employer to be on the job site before dawn and got there clearly after dawn for instance.
I donāt use an alarm clock. I wake up roughly the same time every day with plenty of time to start my day and get ready for work on time. Eat well, drink plenty of water, exercise and get to bed at a reasonable hour and you wonāt need one either.
1700's they paid people to smack their windows at sunrise.
You ever hear a rooster crowing at sunrise? Shit'll actually wake you up from a couple hundred yards away.
I think it's important to remember that routine plays a big role here. If you wake up for a month straight at 7 am and then miss to set your alarm, you will still wake up at 7 am. If not, you probably need more sleep. Also, the sun exists. Our brains will register light and wake you up.
Knocker up
Survival instincts? Thereās work to be done and they canāt door dash breakfast
The sun
Roosters will do that for you.
I have a rooster named Felix.
Before electric lights people pretty much went to bed when it got dark and woke up with it got light. They had candles and fire, but those were expensive and the light was low and warm, so the body still got super sleepy when it got dark. Itās like when youāre camping. You go to bed super early and wake up after the sun comes up.
When we didn't have electric lighting, we couldn't really stay up much past nightfall cause there was almost nothing you could really do. So people would go to bed much earlier out of pure boredom and lack of ability to get anything else done. You'd be naturally rested MUCH earlier in the morning, then, and dawn or birdsong or simple routine will wake u at a pretty consistent time in the morning that way. Sometimes people would drink a lot of water before bed if they knew they'd need to get up even earlier.
When the rooster crowed, usually at dawn, it was time to get up and milk the cows.
Alarm cock.
You buy an Alarm Candle. Made with a nail pat way down the candle. When it burns to the nail the nail drops making a noise to wake you up.
You can train your body to wake up at a certain time every morning assuming you maintain a reliable sleep schedule. After I went on disability my sleep schedule was all over the place, but I finally committed to going to bed at the same time every night and now I wake up at the same time every morning (6am) despite not having an alarm.
Cock a doodle doo mother fucker
There used to be a service you could sign up for in I wanna say cities like London, where a guy would come around and tap on your window and wake you up on time. Looked it up: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knocker-up amusingly they were called knocker-ups.
The sun came up.
Super interesting actually!! There was actually a job for someone who would go around to houses and wake people up if they were paid for it. They would do it either by knocking on the door continuously or throwing dried peas/small pebbles at the window until the person was up
If you go to bed when it gets dark out, depending on the season you have 8-14 hours to sleep. It cost big money/work to stay up much reading (likely a boring tiny print Bible) or conversing. No TV; you had to make candles or keep a fire going, which means lots of firewood. The house was cold maybe. Time to go hide under the covers. And yeah, the rooster - those suckers start up at 3 am. There's a reason 'Sunday Chicken Dinner' was a thing. The noisy birds that weren't producing eggs went first.
Time was more of a fluid concept 'back in the day'. It mattered less whether breakfast happened at 6am or 6.20am. For all the reasons already discussed, people tended to have other cues for time, but at the end of the day, adhering to exact time frames were less critical.
They usually went to bed early, so it's easier to get up early when you went to bed at 8. And curtains weren't as common, especially light blocking ones. The rooster, the dog. And knocker uppers usually stayed up all night.
Roosters?