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Waking up is hard to do. (Tell us something we don’t know, right?)
Your alarm goes off, you hit snooze. It goes off again—snooze. Then you just turn off the alarm completely. (No? Just me? Yeah, OK.) The struggle is real.
What if the process of forcing yourself out of bed was easier? Instead of snoozing your phone until you’re late, what if you had to actually get out of bed to make the alarm stop?
Meet: Ruggie, a rug alarm clock. You simply put Ruggie on the floor where you would step out of bed and it senses your pressure, then stops the alarm. The product description says Ruggie is loud (ranging from 90-120 decibels) and will need pressure for three seconds to stop. If that’s not enough to keep you out of bed, you can set it to 30 seconds.
You can also personalize your Ruggie with music to reward yourself for getting out of bed. Ruggie connects to a USB, so you can play your favorite motivational tunes. It is also wrapped in memory foam, making your first step of the morning quite luxurious.
With Ruggie being, you know, a rug, it takes up less space, meaning you can clear off your nightstand if you still use an old-fashioned alarm clock.
The best benefit though is really just getting up and starting your day without the option to snooze. Doctors say when you hit snooze after your alarm wakes you up, you’re setting yourself up to feel less alert and productive all day.
“When you hit the snooze button repeatedly, you’re doing two negative things to yourself,” said Robert S. Rosenberg, medical director of the Sleep Disorders Centers of Prescott Valley and Flagstaff, Arizona. “First, you’re fragmenting what little extra sleep you’re getting so it is of poor quality. Second, you’re starting to put yourself through a new sleep cycle that you aren’t giving yourself enough time to finish. This can result in persistent grogginess throughout the day.”
Just skipping the snooze button isn’t the key to better sleep, however. Rosenberg says the urge to get a few more minutes of sleep is actually a symptom of a larger problem.
“Most people are doing this because they’re not getting enough sleep on a daily basis,” he said.
Ruggie may be key to getting you up in the morning without snoozing, but be sure to make sure your sleep issues aren’t indicative of that larger problem Rosenberg points to. Need some extra help getting quality shut-eye? Check out tips from the Mayo Clinic here.
Ruggie costs $99 on Amazon.