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I'm retired now, but when I was working my alarm was set to go off at 5:38 a.m. Many days my internal clock would wake me up before the alarm went off. The local station always had a weather report at 5:38, so I'd listen to the weather report, get out of bed, walk across the room, turn off the alarm, and then go to take my shower, and dress for work. I've never used any snooze function. I just got up when it was time to get up. Now after over four years of retirement, and no alarm clock, I still wake up at 5:38 most days. My goal is to sleep until 7:00, but it hasn't happened yet.
The question is about people who were alive before the snooze button. But it makes an unfounded assumption. That people were alive before the snooze button. Maybe they were zombies all day.
The snooze button was to stop the alarm. On my cheap free for opening a savings account 40 years ago clock radio, the turn off the alarm button is a slider, next to the volume slider.... much easer to hit the snooze, put on my glasses so I can see and turn off the alarm. Then I lay back and flex my feet to stretch my hamstrings, and point my toes about 10 times to prevent the plantar fasciitis pain. Then I lift my legs one at a time and pull to stretch my gluts, roll my knees side to side to stretch my back, stretch my arms and chest.... and then out of bed. Takes about 5 minutes.
Now that I don't use the alarm, I wake up when I wake up, but still do the stretching.
I used to set the alarm an hour before I needed to get up and I kept hitting the snooze button every 10 minutes. Drove my then wife nuts ! It disturbed her sleep, but it was the only way I could wake up in the morning.
Now, I generally somehow wake up just before the alarm goes off for the actual time I need to wake up. Some kind of built in alarm, or maybe it is the cat staring me in the face that does it.
I really only needed an alarm clock when I was a teenager/young adult and my internal clock was running on a different schedule than my life. Now that I'm middle-aged, I automatically wake up around 5:00. I can't remember the last time I relied on an alarm clock to wake up each morning. My grandfather says it was his father who woke him and his siblings to do the farm chores each morning.
OP, if you want to see what it was like, try doing this. First spend a few days with no computers, tablets, and cell phones. If you have wifi, unplug the wifi. Cut off power to all electronics (TV, DVD, DVR, game console, etc) in the bedrooms. In the living room, cut off power to all those electronics except the TV. Don't turn on the TV before 5am and turn it off right after the local evening news. An AM/FM radio is allowed. Limit your TV watching to ABC, CBS, NBC, & PBS. With so little to choose from, you're likely to open a book, go for a walk, clean house, work in the yard, wash the car, go to the park, or engage in some other outdoor activities. Drink no more than 2 cups of coffee in the morning, no more than one can of cola, and the rest of the day drink milk or water. Warning, if you are use to drinking plenty of caffeinated drinks and you try this, you'll have an intense withdrawal headache at the end of the first day. If there's plenty of night time street lights coming into the bedroom window, put up room darkening drapes. Don't go to bed until you're ready to sleep. Get the mind and body to associate the bedroom with sleep only. Today's culture has turned the bedroom into a place of entertainment (TV, DVD, DVR, video games, smart phones, tablets, or laptops). All these things have bright light that your eyes are focused upon and this effects your sleep cycle.
Alas, some of us don't live on the daytime sleep cycle. I honestly do this once a year for a week: turn off my computer, turn off my tv, turn off my phone/cell phone, and do nothing but walk the dog, hang out outside working in the yard, and reading all day and night. Short of perhaps turning off my power so I don't have electric lights, what happens is I end up staying up later than I would if I knew I had to be at work the next day! Within a day of starting my vacation, I can stay up until 4 or 5 am, easily, reading. Murder getting back to work the next week, let me tell you! Oh, and I'm already on a no-caffeine diet since I know I'm a night owl.
If somebody is a responsible, adult-like person who gets sufficient sleep--and if he/she did not take some sort of drugs before going to bed--there is no reason why somebody can't get up when the alarm sounds for the first time each morning.
I never used the "snooze" feature, and somehow I can't imagine that I am really unique in that respect.
That is utter bull****. Talk to night owls who have to work day jobs before you start spouting utter crap like that.
Might have to do with anxiety--excitement--or the horrid alarms they had back then. They were jarring!
I think maybe those days were less noisy as well, which made the sound more "alarming" haha.
I'm so grateful when I awaken moments before the alarm goes off--when I must set an alarm.
Since "idle hands were the devil's workshop" ... never let them see you rest. So you could only rest your eyes--jeez.
We ran on adrenaline for many years for all the wars, depression, etc.
We still do, but now we know about about how to heal the nervous system, and the impact of stress.
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