Influencers will tell you hitting the snooze button is a sign of weakness. Is this enough to stop you pressing it tomorrow morning. Heck no, I’m okay with being weak if it gives me 5 more minutes in bed. Now what if I told you the science behind why hitting the snooze button is the reason your having a bad day, then keep reading.
Ever get out of bed to find that you aren’t well rested or feel like you’ve had a terrible sleep? By any chance on that same day, did you snooze your alarm? Well here is some science that might make you think twice the next time you go for pressing snooze. Have you ever heard the term sleep inertia? It basically means you are transitioning between being awake and being asleep. When you hit that snooze button at 6.30am your awake and when you press the snooze button, your brain drifts back to sleep.
The problem is, when you drift back to sleep for however long your snooze lasts for after you’ve woken up, your brain enters a sleep cycle. A sleep cycle takes 75-90 minutes to complete, so when that alarm does go off 5 minutes later and you nearly jump out of your skin, you were in a deep sleep state. You were 5 minutes in to a 75 minute sleep cycle. You now have no choice but to get up or you will be late for work and guess what? You are going to feel like you barely slept. You will be exhausted and blame a bad nights sleep but the only thing you have to blame and Ill refer back to the influencer, is yourself for being weak.
Now if this doesn’t motivate you enough, this should seal the deal! It takes 3-5 hours to get over that groggy feeling. Your brain is annoyed you interupted a sleep cycle. So the next time your alarm goes off, GET OUT OF BED and thank me later.
David Fitzgerald, Evolution Tralee, www.evolutiontralee.com
