An expert advised that it is better to do instead of snoozing the alarm several times every morning.
It will be even harder to wake up due to snoozing the alarm clock / photo ua.depositphotos.com
Few things in life can be worse than the sound of an alarm clock that goes off in the morning and makes you wake up always at the “most inopportune moment”.
When the alarm goes off, it’s usually easier to snooze the alarm for 10 minutes; after all, a little more lying in bed would not hurt. But then it turns back on and you’re still not ready to get up, so the sleep cycle continues until it actually breaks.
While this may seem like a good way to gradually wake up, sleep medicine specialist and neurologist Dr. Scott Kutcher said Newsweekthat repeatedly snoozing the alarm clock is the same as “artificially depriving oneself of sleep even more.”
The ease of pressing the snooze button on the alarm clock is too tempting. A June 2023 YouGov poll found that 64% of Americans have taken this option at some point, with 11% admitting to always doing so and 14% doing so often. In contrast, the results showed that 21 percent of the 12,907 participants never “snooze” the alarm because they can get up right away.
Snoozing the alarm can prolong sleep inertia
Snoozing your alarm can not only make you late for work, but Kutcher says it can make it even harder to wake up.
“The snooze button is a solution to a problem that never needed to be solved in the first place because it’s a normal occurrence during sleep. I don’t know of any doctor who would recommend using the snooze feature,” he added.
“The problem is, nobody likes waking up in the morning. We can all dream of jumping out of bed like Disney princesses, but the moment of waking up is unpleasant for almost everyone. The term for this is sleep inertia. It’s the feeling of being thrown back sucks you into sleep, like a tidal current pulling you under the ocean,” Kutcher said.
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Sleep inertia is called drowsiness and fatigue, which are felt first of all in the morning. It is characterized by a decrease in activity and a violation of behavioral indicators immediately after waking up.
While sleep inertia is generally thought to last about 30 minutes, a 2022 study published in the Journal of Physiological Anthropology found that snoozing your alarm will actually prolong sleep inertia, not reduce it.
The study concluded that snoozing the alarm led to repeated forced awakenings, rather than feeling drowsy once and then getting up.
Kutcher added that “sleep inertia tends to increase upon awakening from deeper stages of sleep.” So if you set your alarm earlier than you need to, you’ll likely find it even harder to get out of bed.
“The idea is that after one or more repetitions, you’ll go into a lighter stage of sleep, so you’ll have less sleep inertia, and it’ll be easier to wake up. Not bad, right? The thing is, most people have sleep inertia resolves itself within 30 to 60 minutes of waking, regardless of what stage of sleep you wake up in,” Kutcher said.
Delaying sleep will replace deep sleep with lighter sleep
Deciding to hit the snooze button in the morning may seem like the best option because you tell yourself that you’ll feel more rested after those extra 10 minutes. However, those precious extra minutes of rest aren’t as valuable as actual sleep, Kutcher says.
“All that happens when snoozing the alarm is replacing deep sleep with lighter sleep. But this deeper sleep, which is typically the early morning phase of REM sleep, is critical for memory consolidation and executive functioning.” , – he said.
Rapid eye movement sleep, commonly referred to as REM sleep, is critical for dreaming, emotional processing, and healthy brain development. The Sleep Foundation adds that “flash sleep” also helps the body prepare for awakening by activating the central nervous system.
If the idea of snoozing your alarm is to help you gradually wake up and reduce early morning sleepiness, then you’re trying to “solve a problem that goes away on its own.”
Set the alarm as late as possible
Instead of snoozing multiple times each morning, Kutcher recommends setting one alarm for the latest time and getting up right away.
“I recommend that everyone set just one alarm for as late as you can afford and still be able to get ready for the day,” he said.
If you’re definitely not a lark and no amount of coffee seems to reduce the effects of sleep inertia, there are other ways to reduce it naturally. Kutcher suggests using daytime cues, which can be as simple as the first opening of the curtains to let in daylight, or movement to increase wakefulness.
“My little trick in the morning is to not put on shoes and socks until after I go to work. The cold is another big wake-up call, and the cold floor on bare feet helps me wake up,” Kutcher said.
As reported by UNIAN, scientists previously identified at least 5 beneficial changes for the body that can be affected by short-term sleep during the day. According to research, such a habit can improve mental work and memory, as well as positively affect alertness, attentiveness and reaction speed.
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Fuente: espreso.tv
