The human body is designed to get sleepy when it’s dark and to wake when it is light.

However, it is not always feasible to wake up with the sun, and this is especially true if you use light blocking shades to keep your room as dark as possible.

Solution: Use a dawn-simulating alarm clock.

Research shows that when people are slowly roused by gradually increasing light levels, they feel much more alert and relaxed than when they’re woken up by a sudden, blaring alarm.

Increasing light has also been shown to raise cortisol in the morning (which is an important signal to your body to wake up), and to improve sleep quality.  It can even decrease depressive symptoms in seasonal affective disorders.