Is Using the Snooze Button Bad for You?

Many sleep consultants take a dim view of utilizing the snooze button within the morning. Setting serial alarms starting sooner than you want to rise up, reasonably than sleeping straight via till a single alarm, could prematurely pull you out of deep, restorative sleep, the considering goes. And when you’re snoozing past the time you truly meant to get off the bed, that could be a sign that you just’re not getting sufficient relaxation at night time, says Philip Cheng, a sleep professional at Henry Ford Well being.

However when Stephen Mattingly—a serial snoozer who accomplished his Ph.D. in cognition on the College of Notre Dame after which grew to become a postdoctoral researcher on the college—turned to the scientific literature to see if the info backed up these warnings, he couldn’t discover a lot.

Earlier research had discovered that fragmented sleep at night time is worse than quick however uninterrupted sleep, and, extra positively, that napping could reverse among the injury related to sleep deprivation (and doubtlessly additionally enhance coronary heart well being). However neither nighttime slumber nor daytime napping is strictly the identical as snoozing very first thing within the morning.

Among the solely snoozing-specific analysis Mattingly might discover linked snooze-button use to elevated probabilities of lucid dreaming, however he was extra within the day-to-day well being results of the behavior. So he designed a examine utilizing each survey and wearable-device information to evaluate the science of snoozing.

The outcomes, printed within the journal Sleep in 2022, advised that snoozers didn’t sleep much less total or report feeling extra fatigued all through the day than individuals who obtained up after one alarm. Snoozers did, nevertheless, are likely to expertise lighter sleep, particularly within the hour earlier than waking, and had elevated resting coronary heart charges relative to non-snoozers—outcomes that recommend their stress responses kicked into gear earlier than waking.

That will sound like a nasty factor, however the physique has a stress system for a purpose, Mattingly says. On this context, he says, it could assist shake off “sleep inertia,” or the grogginess many individuals really feel after waking, and promote alertness and cognitive perform.

The examine’s outcomes recommend that snoozing has been “unfairly villainized,” says co-author Aaron Striegel, a professor of laptop science at Notre Dame. “That was our huge takeaway: it’s in all probability not as dangerous as what they’re telling you.”

A 2023 examine printed within the Journal of Sleep Analysis bears that out. The researchers discovered that, shortly after waking, individuals who had snoozed for half-hour carried out higher on arithmetic equations and reminiscence workout routines than individuals who obtained up after just one alarm—maybe as a result of they skilled much less sleep inertia. There additionally weren’t dramatic variations within the cognition, temper, or sleepiness of snoozers and non-snoozers because the day went on.

Nonetheless, the examine was small. Solely 30 individuals participated within the cognitive assessments, and all of them—even those that have been assigned to the group that woke after a single alarm—have been snoozers of their day-to-day lives. Their cognition could have been worse since they altered their regular routines for the examine, the authors write, so the outcomes needs to be interpreted with warning.

And not using a ton of knowledge, Cheng says it’s laborious to say for certain whether or not snoozing is useful for relieving sleep inertia. However his intestine feeling is that “it’s extra purposeful so that you can be off the bed and up and transferring round” than it’s to remain in mattress, dozing. “You’re simply delaying the time that you just’re awake, versus making an precise transition.” One 2022 examine backs him up: it discovered that, though snoozers and non-snoozers do not expertise drastically completely different total sleep high quality, those that lean on the snooze button could have extended sleep inertia.

Kathryn Roecklein, a professor of psychology who researches sleep on the College of Pittsburgh, agrees that snoozing doubtless isn’t the easiest way to scale back morning grogginess. As a substitute, she suggests turning on the lights as quickly as your alarm goes off, which might make you are feeling extra alert.

You can even purchase alarm clocks with mild options, a few of which steadily brighten your room to imitate the solar’s rise. Whereas there’s not a ton of analysis on particular merchandise, the considering behind them is smart, since morning mild publicity helps regulate circadian rhythms concerned in sleep-wake cycles.

Snoozing could also be notably problematic for individuals who wrestle to go to sleep at night time, Roecklein says. For individuals in that camp, going to mattress and rising on the identical time day by day might help sync circadian rhythms, she explains. Extended snoozing could throw off that course of and make it more durable to float off at night time.

However what about individuals who sleep high-quality at night time, don’t really feel overly drained throughout the day, and nonetheless wish to snooze? Cheng says there’s in all probability not an excessive amount of purpose to fret. “It might simply be behavioral,” he says. “There undoubtedly is a risk that it’s simply a part of regular every day life” for some individuals, maybe as a result of their schedules pressure them to rise up sooner than is good for his or her organic clocks and hitting the snooze button helps them compensate.

Regardless of the favored notion that snoozers are lazy or harming their well being, Mattingly says he is not satisfied that is the case. Personally, he says, he kicked his snoozing behavior for a purpose that has nothing to do with relaxation: he had children.