Is the Snooze Button Ruining Your Sleep?

2.  Improve your sleep hygiene

If you keep hitting snooze because you don’t feel rested enough — rather than as the occasional bridge between sleeping and waking — start by evaluating your sleep hygiene, or the habits that promote good sleep, says Jocelyn Y. Cheng, M.D., a neurologist who specializes in sleep medicine and epilepsy.

For instance, a checklist from Harvard’s Stress and Development Lab recommends that you try to avoid screens for at least 30 minutes before bed, reserve the bedroom for the three S’s (sleep, sex and sickness), maintain the same bed and wake-up times, sleep in cool and dark conditions, and eliminate caffeine and alcohol at least four hours before bed.

Cheng also suggests trying to get some sunshine right away. “Exposing yourself to bright light in the morning is … a natural signal for your brain to wake up.” As your sleep hygiene improves, the allure of the snooze button should diminish.

3.  Consider the cause

If you’re occasionally snoozing because you enjoy a little extra window to wake up, it’s not necessarily something you have to change. “If you’re not in a rush and need a little extra time to wake up slowly, hitting snooze might help you mentally prepare for the day,” Harris says. “But it’s more of a temporary mental boost and shouldn’t be something you rely on all the time.”

But if you’re snoozing on repeat because you’re utterly exhausted when the rooster crows, there’s more to investigate. Maybe you’re not sleeping long enough and should prioritize getting to bed earlier (or setting the alarm for later, if possible). Maybe your sleep quality is lackluster, which could mean you should brush up on your sleep hygiene. Or maybe you have an undiagnosed sleep disorder like sleep apnea, which can interrupt your sleep without you even knowing.

“Sleep inertia in general, if you feel like it’s starting to interfere with your life, then that’s the time to talk to a doctor,” Roth says. “If you’re consistently missing work, missing school, getting there late — that’s a time to speak with a doctor or a sleep specialist.”

Pinpointing an underlying cause isn’t only important for your day-to-day-functioning; it can also affect your longer-term health and Alzheimer’s risk, says Cheng, vice chair of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine’s Public Safety Committee.

4.  Don’t force early morning productivity 

Do get up, but don’t get up and pressure yourself into a laborious task immediately. “I think a lot of people who snooze assume that everyone else just jumps out of bed all bright and shiny, like a Disney princess,” Roth says. “But the reality is, everyone kind of takes time to wake up. Very few people are saying, ‘The alarm goes off and I’m happy and thrilled, and I’m out of bed with gusto and I’m productive right away.’ ” On weekends, for instance, Roth — a night person — likes to take her dog out, enjoy coffee on the sofa and maybe watch a show she couldn’t catch during the week. It’s good enough, she says, “to get out of bed and signal to your body you’re done with sleep.”

5.  Enlist tricks and tools 

Harris suggests putting your alarm clock across the room so you’re forced to get up and turn it off. “You can also consider using a sunrise alarm that wakes you up gradually with light instead of a jarring sound,” she says.

Some apps and wearables also claim to track your sleep and rouse you when you’re in a lighter sleep phase, but sleep experts are skeptical. Use them, as well as those that say they pick up on sleep disorders, with caution, Cheng says.

“These are not diagnostic; you cannot rely on them. The data is not necessarily accurate,” she says. “But what it can do is stratify your risk, so that if there is something that looks concerning on it, you know that you should go in and get a fuller evaluation.”

6.  Taper the habit

You don’t need to break your snooze habit overnight. If you usually hit the button five times, try four, then three. If you usually hit it daily, aim for just a couple of snooze-free days a week. Ultimately, Roth says, “give yourself some grace. There are times that you have to be up — and there are times where you don’t have to be up.”