We all know someone who claims to have a natural alarm clock that wakes them up exactly when they need to.

“I don’t need an alarm; I am an alarm,” they’d say casually, before you proceed to shut them down with research on how that’s not possible.

If you actually look into it, though, you’d realize that they aren’t kidding.

The natural body alarm clock is quite real and is as good—if not better—than any alarm money can buy.

Provided that you have a regular sleeping schedule you stick to, as most of us who have jobs do, the inbuilt alarm clock of the body is quite effective at waking you up before the stipulated time.

As per research, it works due to stress hormones released by the brain a few hours before your wake-up time.

They allow you to gradually wake up without being abruptly interrupted by the real alarm clock, indicating that the brain subconsciously hates alarms as much as us.

You don’t need to do anything special to activate it other than sticking to a set schedule, either. This is why routine office goers often find themselves waking up minutes before the alarm is set to go off.