No Stupid Questions

Back in the '90s when we were teenagers, my sister had to get the loudest possible alarms you could find and set it up on a dresser on the far side of her bedroom.

Personally, I always set two alarms when it's time to get up. Put the loudest, most obnoxious ringtone on you can think of, set them to repeat every 5 minutes, and offset them by a few minutes so that you're basically getting an annoying alarm every 2 to 3 minutes. I taught this trick to my fiancee because she's a heavy sleeper and a reluctant waker too. You can combine both tricks too if you need to.

I've also heard that you can get alarms that either turn on a light, or slowly increase a light intensity in the room to mimic a sunrise. I would try one of those in combination with a proper alarm or three, unless you use like a sleep mask or something.

I set about five alarms.

It's a bit microtransactional but alarm clock extreme for Android is a good solution for me https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.alarmclock.xtreme.free

It was a lot better before AVG labs bought it from the original dev though. They discarded all original purchases making it like they never happened. That said, I've bought it twice because it's so good.

If you're going to bed with music or sound, make sure it's at a barely audible level or shuts off after you fall asleep. Otherwise your brain gets used to tuning out the noise and will tune out your alarm

It sounds really counter intuitive, but wake up slower. It's really easy for me to startle awake just enough completely turn off my alarm, not just snooze, and fall back asleep hard. If I wake up to an alarm that slowly increases in volume from barely audible, then I tend to wake up much more gently and slower. That little bit of extra time means makes it much harder to fall back asleep and by the time I reach for my alarm to silence or even snooze it. I'm clear headed enough to not either actually snooze the alarm instead of turning it off or be awake enough to not fall back asleep at all. Going from awake straight to sitting up or standing is super stressful and just makes everything awful. Being mostly awake before my head even leaves the pillow is much less stressful.

• Get a cheap old fashioned alarm clock (we're talking about something that costs maybe 10 bucks).
• Put it out of reach so that you have to physically get out of bed to turn it off.
• Configure it to go off at the appropriate time with the nastiest sound (usually they have an "alarm with a radio" and an "alarm with alarm sound" modes and you definitely want to have it in the latter mode, not the former).

It's a pretty horrible way to wake up if you went to bed late (protip: stop drinking coffee and using a computer after 11PM to deal with the whole only falling asleep late part of the problem) and that's why it works.

I use an alarm captcha, simple math problems so I can't accidentally dismiss the alarm instead of snooze. I also keep a similar sleep schedule throughout the week so I'm sometimes already awake a little before the alarm and I have an alarm to remind me when to go to bed.

Layer it so that you have 5 alarms 5 minutes apart. You might miss the first or second but generally your ass is up by the 5th

I set 3 alarms. If 3 wasn't enough, I'd set 4.

Etc.

Although the app's designer went and somewhat enshitified things by placing a few features under a subscription, my app for waking up is the best app I've ever come across.

Its called Alarmy and the free version is more than enough to make anyone wake up if they really need to.

Despite the name being stupid, Alarm Clock Extreme is a great app. I paid for it years ago, and have recently paid for it again due to it being bought out by another company. I do not feel cheated by this fact. It's been worth it.

This might sound blunt, but you need to grow up and accept that you need to wake up on time. Missing three alarms every day is childish.

Go to bed when you need to.

2 alarms, one on the iPad, one on the phone. Full volume, spaced 10 minutes apart.

Edit: these go off almost 2 hours before I have to leave, and I'm asleep 7-8 hours before they go off. My biggest difficulty in waking up on time is not going to bed with enough time to fall asleep for 8 hours.

I have a hard-stop alarm, set 9 hours before I have to wake up, to remind myself to get ready for bed. A full sleep cycle (including morning routine) is an 11-hour time investment for me.

I have an alarm clock with two alarms on it. The first is radio, at a reasonable volume. The second is beep Beep BEEP with ascending volume. If the first doesn't wake me the second will. Unless I press the off button and fall back to sleep.

I'm amazed the clock with the bell doesn't wake you (if you mean one of the traditional alarm clocks with the bells on?). Those things are LOUD.

As sound isn't working, maybe try one of those "silent alarms" which just turns a light on to help you wake up naturally (I haven't tried these and would definitely have a beeping alarm as a backup!), or something like a Fitbit which can wake you up by buzzing on your wrist (and will adjust when it wakes you to match your sleep cycle)

Get a timer controlled power outlet and hook a Hitachi magic wand to it. Place the wand under your pillow. The vibration is super intense and gets uncomfortable at the highest setting. Bonus points you can wake and bate since you have a massager handy.