Stop the Snooze Button Addiction

Are you amongst the legions of sleepers that set their alarm clock for an hour before they have to wake up and then hit the snooze button until the absolute last minute? What most people don’t know is that this behavior is actually detrimental to their sleep health. Plus, most people only snooze out of habit and would prefer to wake up when their alarm goes off. Having an extra hour of waking time every morning can make a world of difference in your life and give you time to exercise, have a cup of coffee, meditate or get to work earlier.

Hitting the snooze button every seven minutes for an entire hour each morning interrupts the most beneficial, replenishing sleep cycle, REM. The most restorative phase of sleep occurs more often in the early morning hours. By interrupting this part of the sleep cycle, snoozers inadvertently ruin their sleep by waking up and falling back to sleep repeatedly. A healthier way to approach this would be to set your alarm clock for the exact time you need to be up and then get out of bed at that moment. This gives you all the benefits of that hour of sleep and you will feel better rested than if you snoozed.
Ready to break your snooze addiction? Here’s some tips put together by the crack research team at SleepBook.

1. Place your alarm clock across the room
By placing your alarm at the other side of your room you’ll be forced to get up and turn it off, especially if you share your room with a sleep partner. No one wants to hear their own alarm clock, let alone someone else’s. Once you get up to turn off your alarm, you’re up and ready to start the day.

2. Set your coffee maker timer
The smell of hot, fresh coffee in the morning will give you an extra reason to spring out of bed. Plus, you’ll know that once you grab your cup of coffee, it will break the spell of sleepiness and help to kick-start your day.

3. Give yourself some static
Another way to ensure you get up on time is to make your alarm clock sound as terrible as possible. If you have a clock radio, set it to noisy static and turn it up all the way so you’ll be forced to turn it off ASAP.

4. Establish a good sleep schedule
Going to bed and waking up at the same time every day (even weekends!) will put you on a consistent schedule, making it easier for you to naturally wake up at the right time each day.

5. Enjoy more sleep
Why snooze through the morning when you can sleep though it? If you don’t snooze you get to sleep in every day – and that’s what you wanted in the first place, right?