Does snoozing the alarm button in the morning damage your health?

The snooze button is considered one of man's best inventions. People often go back to sleep after waking up by the alarm thinking that those extra minutes will help them. But, in reality, it is a beginning of a never-ending cycle that ends in being late and making you feel dead tired. Our body has its own clock and many chemical mechanisms that not only put us to sleep but wake us up as well. 

One sleep cycle is about 70-95 minutes long. The average is right at about 80 minutes. And, most of us have three to four of those cycles during one night. In the morning, our body begins preparing our brain and body an hour before we naturally wake up. It is like a "getting ready to wake up mode". This is the way biology has made us. In other words, it is getting ready to wake up in an optimal way.

Now, when the alarm finally goes off and you, with your snooze button addiction, not yet knowing how to stop snoozing in the mornings, hit the snooze button and go right back to sleep, you are pushing your brain to do something that it's not meant to do.

After this, your brain goes from waking up mode to starting a new cycle and, as you remember, one cycle is about 75-90 minutes long. And habit interrupts the brain right in the middle of a sleep cycle instead of it being in "wake-up mode".

This is not healthy for the brain because now it gets stuck in something called sleep inertia. It is literally trapped in a state called sleep inertia for several hours. When this occurs, you will have a more difficult time processing information, remembering new stuff, learning new things, and controlling emotions like, fear, worry, anger, anxiety, stress, and irritation.

Walking up with a single alarm or without an alarm could be initially difficult but, it’s all about creating a healthy lifestyle for ourselves. 

The body loves predictability, waking up at the same time every morning, including the weekends, and after a few weeks, you 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.