the morning assault

In 1787, a guy named Levi Hutchins invented the alarm clock.

He set it for 4am. Every day. No snooze button.

This psychopath gave us acoustic torture devices, and we thanked him for it.

Now, 238 years later, millions of people start their day by recreating the experience of being attacked by a smoke detector.

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP.

Your blood pressure just spiked 74%. Your heart rate went from chill-mode to holy-shit-there's-a-tiger mode. And your body just dumped a cocktail of stress hormones into your bloodstream.

Welcome to The Morning Assault™ - the dumbest thing we do every day.

Here's what's happening inside your body when that alarm goes off:

Your amygdala (the panic button in your brain) hears that noise and thinks: DANGER.

It sends an emergency telegram to your hypothalamus. The hypothalamus calls the adrenal glands. The adrenals dump cortisol and adrenaline into your blood for the upcoming tiger fight.

Your blood sugar spikes. Your blood vessels constrict. Your prefrontal cortex (the smart part of your brain) basically goes offline for 30 minutes.

You know that feeling where you can't think straight for the first half hour? Where you put the cereal in the fridge and the milk in the cabinet?

That's not "just waking up." That's your brain on the gateway drug: alarm clock.

It's like your body is gently parallel parking, and someone rear-ends you at 40mph.

Scientists at the University of Bristol discovered that the alarm doesn't wake you up - it hijacks a process that's already happening. It's like using a flamethrower to light a candle that's already burning.

I discovered this the stupid way.

For years, I woke up to iPhone's "Radar" alarm. Sounds like R2-D2 having a panic attack.

Every morning: instant rage. Heart pounding. Brain fog so thick I once brushed my teeth with face wash.

Then I tried a sunrise alarm. You know what happened?

I woke up... confused.

No panic. No anger. Just... awake?

I’m sitting there checking my pulse to make sure I'm not dead. Turns out, I was just experiencing what humans call "waking up normally" for the first time in 10 years.

Alternatives to alarm clocks:

Sunrise Simulator (this is what I use) - Light that gradually increases over 30 minutes. I didn’t want to buy the $100 one, so I bought some dimmers and connected them to my lamps (incandescent bulbs) with routines that increase brightness over 30 minutes.

Progressive Audio - Sounds that start at whisper-level and build.

Sleep Cycle Apps - Wake you during light sleep instead of deep sleep.

We optimize everything. Cold plunges. Bulletproof coffee. 47-step morning routines.

But then we start the morning race by shooting ourselves in the foot.

The best part? When someone asks what changed, you get to say:

"I stopped taking The Morning Assault™"

-Jacob, The Renewal

P.S. - Levi Hutchins, the alarm clock inventor? He never patented it. Never sold a single one. He just wanted to wake up at 4am to get more work done. Even he knew better than to inflict this on others.