Snoozing
Last updated: December 2020
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If hitting the snooze button several times is part of your morning wake up routine, now’s the time to stop. The consequence can be feeling even more tired or groggy than if you’d just woken from the first alarm.
Why snoozing your alarm is bad for your health
If you press the snooze button, your brain knows it’ll go off again – it’s already in the waking up process – and you won’t get any of the deep, resting slumber in between snoozes. In fact, every time the alarm goes off you get an increase in cortisol which causes you to wake abruptly and send your body into ‘fight or flight’ response.
The short period of sleep you get in between hitting the snooze button is not restorative and is disrupting your sleep pattern. It’s much better to have the extra 10-30 minutes of sleep than repeatedly pressing snooze.
Deep sleep (or slow wave sleep) is the most restorative sleep state and it is necessary for your body to repair itself and recharge for the next day. Deep sleep happens in the third stage of sleep and it is where heart rate and breathing slows and your muscles relax. You often feel disorientated if you’re woken from this stage of sleep.
What to do instead
Set your alarm for when you definitely have to get up and try to coincide it going off when you’re coming out of your sleep cycle. If you have a hard time not pressing the snooze button, try putting it across the room so you have to walk over there, waking you up along the way.