How did people get up at certain times before alarm clocks? Surely not everyone got up at the crack of dawn?

Answer 1

I'm sure they got up at the crack of Dawn, Mary or Virginia.

Answer 2

I can wake up whenever I want without an alarm clock no matter how tired I am. The real key however was that people new how long they needed to sleep so they would just go to bed at the time that corresponded with their awakening time. I do it all the time and still awake at 5:30 every morning to work out. This process is so much more natural and one wakes with much more energy.

Answer 3

I think we all have an internal clock. Often, I know I need to be up by 5:30 am and I wake about 5:25 am and shut the alarm off before it goes off. This is a seven day a week activity, so its not like flippping a coin or randum activity. I find that when I don't have to be up at 5;30, I sleep right past that point and wake several hours later.....

Answer 4

(Before alarm clocks, there was definitely no air conditioning in the summer, and probably no heat in the winter).
Like someone said, the roosters woke some people (proabably farmers, mostly).
People most likely woke up when the sun rose, because they probably went to sleep not much after the sun set at night.
If they stayed up, and needed to get up in the AM, they probably had a family member or neighbor wake them up if they needed to be somewhere.

Answer 5

I can certainly believe it, and people with alarm clocks, at least I do anyways, condition myself to where I always seem to wake up about half an hour before it wakes me. People can easily condition themselves to wake up at a certain time if they do it often enough, and are in the right circumstances.

E.G. when babies are born they sleep on human's natural biological cycle of intermittently napping and waking every few hours. Parents have to train their children to sleep for 8 hours straight, etc, before they will do it.

Answer 6

People are born with an internal clock...so that before alarm clocks, their bodies would sense (along with the sunrise) that it was morning and thus time to start their day. Just like your body starts to get tired when it gets later on in the day...your body knows and senses when it is time for it to sleep and when it is time to wake up:).

Answer 7

There is a biological rhythm which impels a person to do things in a given interval as the body is tuned. Even the consciousness which never sleeps guides one in his sub-conscious state to do certain things as reflex action. Physicians explain this in different ways which is incomplete and inadequate because they do not study the subtle forms like energy and consciousness which are much more real than the flesh and blood.

Answer 8

Actually, they did pretty much get up at dawn. People didn't have such sound-proof homes, and the noises from birds, farm animals, and other critters woke them up. Their homes also weren't so dark as ours. If you've ever camped outside in a tent, you know what I mean.

In addition, they went to bed at a decent hour. If you went to bed shortly after sunset, you'd be up at dawn and feeling fully rested. They didn't have TV, internet, phones, video games, and other things making them stay up until midnight.

Answer 9

Yes, they did (get up at the butt crack of dawn). Think Little House on the Prairie.

Answer 10

it never used to matter...

Nowadays in our GO! GO! GO! lifestyles, there isn't a second to be wasted...

I'm all for going back to the days when people got up when they got up and nothing was worse for it...

Although our biological clocks are slightly skewed so some people (like me) would be waking up at 3 in the afternoon...lol