Waking up is hard, and the coming winter months bring additional challenges to getting out of bed. We do not have the sun and chirping birds to naturally wake us up anymore. Plus the idea of getting out of a warm bed to meet cold air feels amost unbearable. For people with disabilities, the difficulties of getting out of bed can be impacted even more so if memory, staying on task, or self management is an everyday challenge.
Alarmy (Sleep If You Can)
Alarmy is an Android and iOS compatible and easy to use alarm app that forces users to take action in order to shut the alarm off. It does this several ways.
Straight from the Alarmy website –
Take a Picture
Alarmy forces you to move to a specific location.
You set it up by registering a photo of an area or room in your house. Then once the alarm is set, the only way to make it stop ringing is to get out of bed and go take a photo of the registered area.
Shake
Alarmy forces you to physically exert yourself.
Shake off all your sleep with this Shake Mode! Shake your phone until you reach your preset goal to dismiss Shake Mode alarms. Your body could use some exercise in the mornings!
Solve a Math Problem
Alarmy forces you to wake up your brain, as well as your body.
Solve some math to stop your alarm! Don’t underestimate seemingly easy math problems: (61 X 8) + 12 is a lot harder in bed. Customize the level of difficulty and number of questions to solve in the morning.
My Own Experience
I tried this alarm my own and boy did it work! Programming the alarm was simple. The app moved me through each step – it was very intuitive. I set it so I had to solve 3 math problems before the alarm shut off. The math problems are timed so you have to solve them quickly. When the alarm went off to wake me up I tried turning the phone’s sound off to stifle the noise but the app just kept turning it back on! To save my poor husband from the sound of the alarm, I threw it out of our bedroom so I could compose myself before I got up. By the time I solved the 3 math problems I was wide awake and ready to go.
The next day I tried the shake feature. It required me to shake the phone thirty times before the alarm shut off. (You can adjust this to require more or less shakes.) After the alarm went off, I assumed gently jiggling the phone back and forth thirty times would shut it off, but no – I had to sit up in my bed and vigorously shake my phone back and forth with a lot of force. My dogs were incredibly confused and thought it was play time! Needless to say, I was wide awake by the end of it surrounded by two excited dogs, and I suppose that’s the point.