Why You Should Stop Hitting the Snooze Button

Are you among the 57% of individuals who engage the snooze button each morning?

Although snoozing might offer a brief moment of relief during the early hours, it carries potential adverse consequences. These include disrupting your sleep cycle and causing confusion in your body’s internal clock.

Thankfully, several strategies can assist you in resisting the desire for those additional moments of sleep in the morning. Actions like reducing technology usage before bedtime, adhering to a consistent sleep routine, and employing invigorating techniques can all contribute to overcoming the inclination to hit that snooze button.

Continue perusing to discover more about the detrimental impacts of snooze-button habits on sleep, along with additional recommendations for rousing yourself in the morning without snoozing.

Hitting Snooze Can Mess With Your Sleep Cycle

As shared by Dr. Reena Mehra, an expert in sleep disorders research at Cleveland Clinic, a significant portion of our later sleep stages involve REM sleep, also known as dream sleep, which holds a vital role in restoring our body and mind. When the snooze button becomes a habit, it interrupts this crucial REM sleep phase.

As your alarm sounds in the morning, you’re likely approaching the end of your final REM sleep cycle. Opting to go back to sleep during this time can lead to waking up mid-cycle, resulting in a sense of grogginess that might persist throughout the day. This experience can leave you feeling fatigued and disoriented upon waking, setting the tone for a less-than-ideal start to your day.

Understanding the concept of “sleep inertia” sheds light on this phenomenon. Hitting the snooze button can unintentionally prolong the effects of sleep inertia, making it even harder to shake off that morning drowsiness.

Hitting Snooze Can Extend Sleep Inertia

Snoozing can extend the feeling of sleep inertia, or the transitional state between when you’re asleep and when you’re awake. Studies show that this type of sleep inertia can affect a person for up to two to four hours after waking up. 

Sleep inertia initially occurs during the first few moments of waking up and has a number of negative effects, including:

• Grogginess
• Poor memory
• Poor judgment
• Slowed reaction time 

While sleep inertia can’t be avoided completely, resisting the temptation to hit the snooze button can certainly help mitigate some of the negative side effects.