So — good news everyone, turns out that the snooze button on your alarm clock is actually doing you some good, contrary to what we thought before. The trick? Only hit it once!
Years worth of research has told us that snoozing can have negative effects, both on the brain’s ability to wake up and on our sleep quality. But apparently, scientists are saying that there isn’t actually any direct evidence of this.
According to reports by the Independent, a new study published in the Journal of Sleep Research, assessed the commonality of snoozing and how this impacts sleep, sleepiness, mood and the brain’s cognitive abilities.
While the study found that frequent snoozers sleep slightly shorter and feel more drowsy in the morning compared to those who never snooze. Interestingly, there were no negative effects associated with the release of the stress hormone cortisol, mood, or sleep quality throughout the night.
The study of 1732 individuals answered questions about their morning habits, with questions including how often they hit snooze on their alarm clocks. It might not be that surprising that young adults were hitting snooze the most — reporting that they use the alarm feature ‘regularly’.
But why are they doing it? Well, according to the participants, they’re just too sleepy and tired to get out of bed when the alarm bell rings. Hard relate, tbh.
In a follow-up experiment, which was smaller in size, 31 snoozers spent a couple of nights in a lab in order to measure their sleep in more detail.
One morning, snoozers were allowed to indulge in a 30-minute snooze, and on the other, they had to get up and at ’em when the alarm sounded.
They found that the snoozing participants’ sleep was disturbed during the half hour of snoozing. But, most of them still got more than 20 minutes of sleep, which meant their total night’s sleep wasn’t affected enough to impact them.
Those extra 20 minutes really counted for something too. Not having to wake up abruptly was linked to performing better on cognitive tests upon waking up.
There were no impacts on mood, sleepiness or the amount of cortisol in the saliva — so all ’round looks like snoozing ain’t that bad for us after all. In fact, the study hints that half an hour of snoozing might have some positive effects, like a decreased likelihood of rousing from deep sleep.
That being said, the researchers have cautioned that the second experiment was with a small sample group and only included regular snoozers who find it easy to drift off after they’ve been woken by the alarm.
Snoozing isn’t for everyone. Jennifer Kanaan from the University of Connecticut in the US, (who is unrelated to the study), told The Independent that we should look at these results with caution, as it could give out the wrong message.
In her statement, she says, “If you’re coming in and out of sleep for 30 minutes, after the alarm goes off the first time, you’re costing yourself 30 minutes of uninterrupted, quality, restorative sleep.”