Everyone has woken up too tired at some point and thought things like:
- I need 10 more minutes of sleep
- 10 more minutes of sleep and I'll be ready to wake up
- It'll make a big difference if I sleep just 5 more minutes
- I'm too tired, I deserve to sleep a few more minutes
And then we press the famous snooze button. But is it worth it? Let's evaluate the impacts of this decision.
What happens when you press the snooze button
If you're one of those people who loves the snooze button, I must confess that science is not on your side. Scientific studies suggest that pressing the snooze button may not only disrupt healthy sleep patterns but also leave you drowsy for the rest of the day.
If you tend to use this button frequently, consider these 3 consequences that occur when you make this decision.
You'll trade quality sleep for light, non-restorative sleep
The tendency is that during mornings, right when your alarm usually goes off, there's a high probability that you're in REM sleep (one of the sleep stages where your body rests the most). When you wake up, your body doesn't have time to return to the more restorative REM sleep, since most alarms have a preset time of 9 minutes between snoozes. This means you're not actually resting during those extra minutes of sleep. In fact, according to a study published in the journal Sleep Medicine1, interrupted sleep can negatively affect your mood and attention span as much as not getting enough sleep.
You'll feel sleepy and groggy
A study from England2 showed that waking up abruptly leads to a period of drowsiness called sleep inertia - leaving you groggy for 15 minutes up to 4 hours. If you doze off every time you press the snooze button, this means you'll increasingly extend this sleep inertia, potentially increasing your tired and unproductive state throughout the entire morning.
The same study found that pressing the snooze button in the morning can affect cognitive functions throughout the day. Instead of feeling more well-rested, you may have trouble concentrating or making decisions.
Using the snooze button can confuse your brain.
Every time you press the snooze button, it becomes more automatic and more out of your control. This may be conditioning your brain to have even more difficulty waking up in the morning on subsequent days (remember our friend Pavlov!).
Some sleep researchers believe that chronic use of the snooze button trains your brain to think "just a few more minutes" instead of "time to wake up" when it hears the alarm. Therefore, while infrequent use of the snooze button may not have this effect, doing so regularly will likely make the habit harder to break.
What can you do to break this habit?
But even knowing all this, it's very difficult to avoid the 'snooze' button, because we know your body may be conditioned, and at this moment you're mentally unfit to make good decisions.
That's why we've put together some tips you can use:
Place the alarm somewhere hard to reach
Sometimes hitting the snooze button can be an involuntary act, so if you have the alarm within reach of your bed, you're making it easier for your body to maintain this bad habit.
Instead, place the alarm somewhere else that will force you to get out of bed to turn it off. Once you're moving, you've already taken the first steps toward not going back to bed.
The farther from your bed you leave the alarm, the less likely you are to go back to bed (just be careful to place it at a distance where you can still hear your alarm).
Use light instead of sound
Most alarms wake you from sleep with a jolt, increasing your blood pressure and heart rate. Your instinct to want to escape this state is natural, justifying the snooze. A more natural way to wake up is through the use of dawn simulators that gradually increase the brightness in your room, making it easier to wake up before the alarm goes off. According to a 2014 study3, the transition from sleep to wakefulness will feel much less abrupt with these light devices, making sleep inertia less harmful.
You can find this type of alarm clock on the market by searching for keywords like: "Sunrise Simulation Light" or "Sunrise Light Alarm Clock".
It's important to note that Vigilantes do Sono has no affiliation with sellers of these devices and we are not responsible for the quality of any product.
If the tips above were inaccessible, you can as a last resort:
- When you wake up, make a minimal effort to open your window (even if you go back to bed afterward), the natural light will help you get up by the next alarm.
- If you have time and you're not in a hurry, an alternative may be to change the time of your next alarm. Cancel the current snooze and set the next alarm for at least 30 minutes later (with this time your body will be more likely to reach sleep stages and have more restorative sleep).