Heh, that’s kind of the reason I resisted getting one so long. I didn’t want to feel like I was dependent on that kind of machine to sleep safely. But I’m glad I broke down and got one. I was having a hard time staying awake driving into work on the freeway, and that’s a worthwhile trade.
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I resited because of the mask/nose hose. But once I got a REAL good nights sleep I was hooked. I snored for twenty years and used to get up 3 times a night. But now I sleep like the dead. It’s a great feeling.
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After I was tested - sleeping with a special CPAP machine that figured out the optimal air pressure - I was told that the air pressure I needed was one of the highest they’d ever set a CPAP machine to.
And so even with the straps on the mask uncomfortably tight, the air pressure would eventually lift the mask off my face, making a godawful racket and waking me up. A full-face mask didn’t work much better. I also have trouble sleeping the entire night on my back, which the mask and hose requires.
I used the CPAP machine for a few years before trying without, and finding that I was getting a better sleep without it.
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Yes, these things are clearly the same.
Because the existence of people with sleep disorders implies the non-existence of people who keep shitty hours …
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I’m sorry sleep therapy didn’t work for you. There’s always Ambien.
Because the existence of people who keep shitty hours implies people with sleep disorders don’t exist…
Where does this trail end? Hmm, I wonder?
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Students with assignments and exams - no matter how minimal their social life - often don’t have the luxury of going to sleep at a decent hour. Nor do the vast number of people on shift work. Nor do many people with small children. Nor do many people in apartments where loud neighbors keep different hours
You can live an isolated existence where you avoid bullies, avoid violence, avoid catching illnesses from others etc. by avoiding people altogether. You can stay home and avoid injuries.
But like your Pro Tip, what’s possible is for many people not practical or realistic.
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I enjoyed this greatly! Thanks for posting. Love that she took a random idea and went with it. Reminds me of the crazy inventions in the beginning of many Disney movies. Love that she took such a wacky idea and ran with it. Great sense of humor as well.
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If you keep up with science, you’ll find there’s substantial evidence that keeping odd hours may well be a fundamental biological truth for some. Here’s a layman’s summary of some of the basic ideas. They’ve known about this stuff for decades, it isn’t remotely new.
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It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye…
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I’m waiting for the pocket watch version! 
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I’d need to adapt it, as my bed is bigger and my head is not goign to be under such a small area
Although frankly, as I’m sleeping lately, maybe I need to rig this so it catapults me out of bed, straight at the wall, to actually wake up.
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Something like this?
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And a tooth-brushing machine! This woman is living in the future — or at least the morning of the future.
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I just turned the whole mask/hose thing into part of my everyday insanity. So I’d walk around the house wearing the hose, making trumpeting sounds, and referring to myself as the Elephant Man. Or I’d tell my daughter it was my first step to becoming a cyborg. That and being able to sleep like the dead in any event allowed me to acclimate pretty quickly.
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I’ve got a teenager. Research has shown that teenagers are wired to go to bed and get up later than school schedules account for. The American Academy of Pediatrics is now recommending that school should start as late as 11:30am for high school students.
My daughter has to be there at 9, and that’s only because she’s a senior and doesn’t have a 1st period 4 days of the week. School starts at 8am. It takes her 2 hours to get ready because she’s so slow in the morning. The solution isn’t getting up earlier, because then she’s more tired and takes even longer. It’s not going to bed earlier, because then she can’t fall asleep until midnight anyway. She’s had a sleep study. We’ve tried a dozen different alarms; the kind that sound like a jet engine and shake the bed, the kind that light up to simulate sunrise, etc.
But yeah, I’m sure the solution is just “go to bed at a decent hour” like Scott says.
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I have no idea what the Arduino is doing in there. There’s no timing going on, that I can see.
Doesn’t this project just require a relay?
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I so so wish. Insomnia can be a bitch. Normally I only get it bad when staying in hotels I dunno why.
My current fun is figuring out which blood pressure medicine will work for me. So the one that seems to get my bp down to something not above 120 also give me hella crazy vivid dreams and I wake up every freaking hour or so. On the plus side since I take it in the morning for this trial run after 2 weeks off of it makes me AWAKE more than coffee does for me and don’t feel tired/dopey so I am not thinking lets just telecommute cause I am no shape to drive the car much less take the motor with 2 wheels. Yet. It has only been 3 days now I am betting by the middle of next week I am gonna be taking sick days…If I keep taking it anyway.
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Kids these days. Hmmmph.
Reminds me of a story a while back where some ‘maker’ built a light-beam-triggered device, that, back in the day, would have used a photocell, a relay and a solenoid.
They were very proud of themselves for NOT using an Arduino - instead, they used a “simple pair of 555 integrated-circuit timer chips.”
Now, me, I was severely hypothyroid, and made it through my first year of college by turning a timer, a burglar-alarm buzzer, a Christmas-lights flasher, and a Radio Shack project box into an alarm clock.
You could plug a lamp and a coffee maker into it, and it would flash the room lights on and off along with with the LOUD intermittent burglar-alarm buzzer, and start the coffee maker.
On really critical days, I’d plug a cassette recorder into the coffee-pot outlet with a tape nagging myself to get out of bed, as well.
I still managed to oversleep this arrangement sometimes, though - I’d leave the alarm across the room so I’d have to get out of bed to silence it - but I still found myself asleep on the floor next to the silenced alarm several times.
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