I got this from another blog but it worked so well I wanted to share it. Sometimes I will get 4 hours sleep and wake up totally refreshed (however by mid afternoon I'll be look for a nap) and sometimes I will get a full 8 hours and wake up feeling like the living dead.

The explanation offered by many sites is that during the night we sleep in many cycles. Each cycle has multiple phases ranging from a very light sleep to a very deep (REM) sleep. If you wake up during the light phase you feel great. If you wake up during a deeper phase you feel like crap. Of course this is what happens when your alarm clock shocks you out of sleep. You have little control over what phase of sleep you are in when it starts blaring.

The solution offered by this blog is to use two alarms. One set quiet enough to only wake you from a light sleep and the other set loud enough to wake you up during any phase. Set them about 45 minutes apart. What should happen is that the first alarm wakes you up during a light phase of sleep.

I've tried this for the last 4 nights and twice it worked great. The other two times the first alarm was too quiet (need to find a better, more consistent radio station).

Here is a link to the blog where Ifound the idea: http://veenix.blogspot.com/2005/10/alarm-clocks-are-bad-how-to-wake-up.html