Days in the Life of Mo

There’s a special kind of heartbreak that happens at 6:00 a.m.

Not the heartbreak of unrequited love or tragic goodbyes. No, this one is quieter… crueler. It’s the heartbreak that comes from the soft betrayal of your own alarm clock. The one you set the night before, full of hope and lies.

“Tomorrow,” you whispered to yourself, “I’m going to wake up early, meditate, drink lemon water, and be That Girl.”

Then morning comes and your phone becomes a villain.

That sweet, glowing rectangle that connects you to memes and midnight shopping carts now shrieks like a banshee, demanding that you rise from your blanket cocoon. In that moment, the alarm isn’t a productivity tool, it’s psychological warfare dressed in default tones.

The Science of Alarm-Induced Rage

If you’ve ever felt personally attacked by your alarm sound, you’re not being dramatic. Studies actually show that waking up to a harsh alarm tone increases stress levels and grogginess. Researchers at RMIT University in Australia found that melodic alarms (think: something soft and rhythmic) can reduce sleep inertia, that groggy, disoriented feeling that makes you forget your own name for the first 10 minutes of consciousness.

Meanwhile, that default radar tone on iPhones? Yeah, that’s been described as “psychologically scarring” by multiple corners of Reddit, and I stand by that diagnosis.

Our brains weren’t built for sudden auditory violence at sunrise. When your alarm blares, your amygdala (the brain’s fear center) jumps into panic mode, flooding your system with cortisol and adrenaline… the same chemicals used for survival in actual danger. Except there’s no tiger. Just capitalism.

From Wake-Up Call to Existential Crisis

It’s wild how a simple alarm can send you spiraling into an existential monologue. One second you’re dreaming of Bora Bora; the next, you’re staring at the ceiling wondering why humans invented mornings.

We went from sundials and roosters to a phone that screams “RADAR” at you like it’s mad you slept. Industrialization really did a number on us. Before alarm clocks, people had “knocker-uppers”, actual humans who went around tapping on windows with sticks to wake workers up for their shifts. Imagine paying someone to haunt your sleep like that.

Now we’ve just automated the haunting.

The Developer in Me Blames UX Design

Here’s the thing: as a web developer, I get it. The alarm clock is a design problem disguised as a lifestyle issue. Someone, somewhere, decided that the best way to wake people up is to terrify them into consciousness.

And because of that decision, I’ve developed Pavlovian fear toward my own phone. I can’t even hear that default tone in public without feeling my soul leave my body. UX designers, if you’re reading this: why must you hurt us?

If you’re going to design an app that wakes people up, at least include an emotional support message like,

“Hey sleepyhead, I know the world is hard, but maybe let’s start with coffee first?”

Give me a reason to live before 8 a.m., not a reason to throw my phone.

Healing the Relationship

Lately, I’ve been trying to repair my relationship with mornings. I switched my alarm sound to a gentle piano piece, and it genuinely changed how I wake up. Turns out, science backs this up. Waking up to softer tones can help transition your brain from deep sleep to alertness more smoothly, reducing that cortisol spike.

I’ve also started placing my phone across the room. That way, I physically have to get out of bed to turn it off, because apparently, I can’t be trusted with self-control when horizontal.

It’s not perfect, but it’s progress. Every morning that doesn’t start with a mini heart attack feels like a small revolution.

The Moral of the Morning

If your alarm clock feels like an enemy of the state, maybe it’s not you being lazy, maybe it’s your brain begging for mercy.

We live in a world that glorifies early mornings and productivity hacks, but rarely talks about the trauma of being ripped from sleep by a digital scream. Maybe the real self-care isn’t waking up earlier. Maybe it’s waking up kinder.

So tomorrow morning, when your alarm goes off, pause before you curse it. That little sound, annoying as it is, means you’re still here, still trying, still getting another shot at this messy, beautiful day.

And if it makes you feel any better: somewhere out there, another tired human is also fumbling for their snooze button, probably me.

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