If you’re someone who hits the snooze button on the alarm clock or your phone repeatedly, stop it.
Any sleep you might get after the alarm goes off is bad sleep. You never have any time to go through the stages of the sleep cycle. What that means is your brain isn’t getting any maintenance done via its glymphatic system.
Instead of planning on using the snooze button, get as much uninterrupted sleep as you can. Set the alarm for the last wake-up time possible.
The price for indiscriminate snooze button use? Poor mental health. Increased risk of a heart attack. Worsened brain function. Spending more money on healthcare.
Surveys and studies show that snooze button use is common. Somewhere between 30 and 60 percent of people do, depending on the group being studied. People who habitually stay up late in the evening tend to be heavier snooze button users.
The people who used the snooze button the most used it most days, used it multiple times each day, went to bed and woke up at all kinds of different times. People who hit the snooze button had more regular sleep times.
The study showed that the snooze button was most commonly used during the work week, only about a third to half as common on the weekend.
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James Cobb, RN, MSN, is an emergency department nurse and the founder of the Dream Recovery System. His goal is to provide his readers with simple, actionable ways to improve their health and maximize their quality of life.
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