3:51pm Monday 17th November 2008
By Helen Backway
Like many people I find the winter months dark and difficult and feel more sluggish getting up in the morning.
So I thought I would try using a dawn simulator in a bid to make me jump out of bed in the morning, rather than drag myself out from under the duvet.
With more and more publicity about Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) there are quite a few products on the market but I tried Lumie’s Bodyclock Advanced.
The model is quite bulky so unless you have quite a big bedside table it takes up too much room.
It also took me a while to get to grips with all the various functions.
But the basic premise is that it comes on 30 minutes before the alarm goes off with the light starting off dim and getting brighter and brighter.
You can also chose to go to sleep to it with the light getting dimmer over 15 or 30 minutes.
And extra functions mean you could use it to come on at different times in the day as a security light.
Unfortunately, the particular machine I had seemed to keep losing time so it wouldn’t always come on in the morning when it should.
Having said that, when I did get it to work properly it was so nice to wake up gradually rather than being startled from sleep by a piercing alarm.
I certainly wasn’t leaping out of bed but it did get the day off to a better start.
But retailing at £99.95 it’s an expensive treat.
Rating: 2/5
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