Not being able to hear your alarm clock with earplugs is a big fear some of us have. I had friends asking me about how they can improve their sleep. Every time one of the first things I say is to use earplugs. Then, the first thing that they ask is: “But can you hear your alarm clock with earplugs?”. They are afraid of missing the alarm in the morning and oversleeping. Nobody wants to show up at school, university or at work too late.
This is a common question and I see it coming up often, so I decided to write this article for you. Let’s find out everything about how you can still hear your alarm clock with earplugs on!
Can You Hear Your Alarm Clock With Earplugs?
I’ll answer this question quickly for you: Yes, in most cases you can hear your alarm clock with earplugs. But still, that depends on which kind of ringtone your alarm uses and which kind of earplugs you wear. Also, it depends on the amount you sleep at night. If you just slept for 3 hours, there is a bigger chance of not hearing your alarm in the morning than if you slept 8 hours. Therefore, you will need to experiment a bit. Personally, I never missed my alarm clock with earplugs and I never had a problem with hearing it.
Earplugs are awesome to improve your sleep and they are also part of the Natural Sleep Program! With the strategies in this guide, I managed to decrease my fall-asleep time from one hour to just 3 minutes. You will learn exactly what to do to stop waking up tired. I promise that you won’t regret to give the program a try!
How To Choose An Alarm Sound
The first thing you have to make sure is to set a proper alarm sound. Especially if you use your smartphone as an alarm clock, there are many options to choose from. Don’t pick the quiet rushing water noise or the chirping birds ringtone. Make sure you have something that really stands out from other sounds in your environment. Personally, I recommend using a classic beeping alarm ringtone that sounds really annoying.
Also, make sure to set a loud volume. You don’t want to miss the alarm because it’s to quiet.
Now you can put your earplugs in and test the sound. Can you hear it now? If not, turn the volume up or pick another sound. But that’s basically everything you need to know to make sure, you hear your alarm clock with earplugs.
Different Kinds Of Earplugs
There are many kinds of earplugs available and depending on which ones you use, you might be able to hear your alarm clock better or worse. You can choose between different materials from foam, wax, or plastic earplugs. And each of them comes with their own advantages and disadvantages. Also, earplugs have different noise rejection ratios (measured in decibels). The bigger the noise rejection, the less you hear. If you want to make sure to hear your alarm clock with earplugs, I suggest using no more than 35dB (that’s what I use). It’s enough to not hear noisy neighbors but I can still hear my alarm clock perfectly fine.
What To Do If You Don’t Hear Your Alarm Clock With Earplugs?
If you still can’t hear your alarm clock, you should consider looking for alternatives. One thing you can do is to keep your alarm close to your head. I keep my alarm clock always on the other side of the room to make sure I have to stand up to stop the alarm sound. If you also have your alarm clock somewhere else, consider putting it near your head.
And if you still can’t hear your alarm clock with earplugs I have 3 ideas for you.
Wear a watch that has a vibration-based alarm. A watch like this can wake you up by vibration instead of sound. Therefore, you can wake up even if you wear earplugs. Mostly such watches have a lot more features than just the vibration-based alarm. So, you have a nice little tool that you can also use every day for tracking calories and steps and looks cool.
Use a white noise machine or white noise app instead of earplugs. If you don’t know much about them, I wrote a guide for you how they work and if you should choose a white noise machine or a white noise app. You can take a look at it here: White Noise Machine vs. App Both of them produce so-called “white noise sounds” which suppress noise that prevents you from sleeping. Because there’s no need using earplugs then, you won’t need to be afraid of oversleeping anymore. Also, white noise machines are very durable and are even cheaper than earplugs (which you have to replace regularly) in the long run. See it as an investment.
Use a sunrise simulation alarm clock. These alarm clocks slowly turn on the light in the morning hours and simulate a sunrise. You’ll feel much better waking up with light than by being harrassed from annoying ringtones. Light stops your body from producing melatonin. That’s the hormone that makes you fall asleep. So, the lights will wake you up softly and naturally. Even if you have earplugs in, you will wake up better and make sure you don’t oversleep your alarm. Here’s a sunrise simulation alarm clock I found on amazon with over 340 five star customer ratings!
These are some options for you if you can’t hear your alarm clock with earplugs on. I’m sure one of them will suit you. If you don’t want to spend money I recommend to try using a white noise app on your phone combined with good quality speakers you already have somewhere at home.
Can You Hear A Fire Alarm With Earplugs?
In an emergency, you have to wake up and know what’s going on. Your life is important. You better don’t risk it by wearing earplugs. That’s what most people think. That earplugs prevent you from hearing a fire alarm. If you apply all the principles I told you about, you are safe.
Personally, I already experienced a fire alarm with earplugs. It was a night in a hospital after I had a surgery and suddenly the fire alarm went off. Even though I had earplugs on, the noise of the fire alarm was so loud and sharp, I had no problem hearing it.
Use no more than 35dB earplugs and you won’t need to worry about fire alarms at all. I’m sure you won’t even miss a fire alarm with the best earplugs available because it’s such a sharp noise.
Can You Hear A Baby Crying With Earplugs?
Your baby is important to you so you always want to know what’s going on and how he/she feels. If you can hear your baby crying depends on the location of the sleeping place of your baby. Does your baby sleep in another room? Then it gets difficult. You might try wearing earplugs at daytime and see if you can hear it. Otherwise, use an audio baby monitor. You should have one anyways.
If your baby sleeps is in the same room as you are, you will definitely be able to hear it. So there’s again no need to worry. Earplugs are good at suppressing medium noises, but you can always hear sharp noises like a baby crying.
Alternatively, you can get rid of earplugs and try to use a white noise machine or a white noise app. Then, you can fall asleep better and still hear everything you need to hear.
Summary
Earplugs are great when it comes to improving your sleep at night. But a lot of people worry about using them. They think “But can you hear your alarm clock with earplugs?”. I’m sure you can stop thinking about this question now. You can hear everything you need to hear. Even with earplugs on. If you still have problems with earplugs, you can try using either a wristwatch that has a vibration based alarm built in, a white noise machine or a sunrise simulation light alarm clock that wakes you up using light. Also, you don’t need to take care of fire alarms. You will hear them. If you’re are unsure about it, you can test it at daytime so you find out the answer yourself.
I hope you got some useful information from this article and that I could help you. Make sure to take a look at all my other interesting posts about improving sleep, using sleep masks and earplugs and white noise gadgets!
