Should You Use The Snooze Button?

The snooze button, one of man's best inventions...until nine minutes later when the dreaded alarm strikes again. Except now you feel even more tired, so do you hit it again? Are those extra minutes really helping at all? Or is it the beginning of a never-ending cycle that ends in you being late and still dead tired. In an unimaginable world without alarm clocks our bodies would simply wake up naturally, seems crazy right? But our bodies have many chemical mechanisms in place to not only put us to sleep, but wake us up as well. The body begins preparing in the hour before you naturally wake-up, body temperature rises sleep becomes lighter and hormones such as dopamine and cortisol are released which give you energy to start your day. But the problem with alarms is that they often interrupt your sleep cycle and cut these processes short. Particularly if you don't have a regular sleep rhythm or schedule, the alarm goes off, but your body isn't quite ready. This groggy and tired state is known as "sleep intertia" and its strength is related to which sleep stage you are waking up out of. The deeper the sleep the more potent the sleep inertia and so the snoozing begins. But the snooze button can do more damage than good, as you fall back asleep the body be restart its sleep cycle and enter into deeper sleep stages. So instead of your body prepping to wake up, it's going in the opposite direction and as a result the second alarm may cause you to feel even more tired and so continues the viscious cycle. Ultimately. you would be better off setting your original alarm later and not interrupting your sleep. Many studies have found that fragmented sleep is much less restorative and leads to sleepiness related daytime impairment. So by breaking up those last thirty minutes or so of sleep, you are more likely to feel tired and perform poorly during the day. What else can you do? Try adopting a more regular sleep schedule, being tired is not only a product of sleep deprivation or waking up out of a deep sleep, but also lacking a consistent schedule. The body loves predictability, wake up at the same time every morning, including the weekends, and after a few weeks your body should adapt to the timing and be less inclined to require an alarm in the first place. And if you do wake up feeling a little tired, try to resist the snooze temptation and just get up, because as the saying goes "you snooze you lose". Got a burning question you want answered? Ask it in the comments, or on facebook and twitter. And subscribe for more weekly science videos.