DRRRINNGGGG! zzzzzzzz DRRRINNGGGG! zzzzzzzz DRRRINNGGGG! Okay, Okay.

October 21, 2008 6:24 AM

Do those 5-minute snoozes your alarm clock gives you make you more tired once you're actually up?

When I force myself to get out of bed at the first ring of the clock, I find I'm usually more alert for the first few hours of the day. If I give myself a quarter-hour of snooze-button-jamming (and of, how those extra minutes in bed feel so good yet so bad) then things are a bit more dazed.

Should I cut out the snoozing entirely? This isn't a late-for-work question, I'm just interested to know if those snatched minutes confuse the human brain. Are alarm clock companies caving to snooze-button demanders like an Edinburgh chippie frying my Snickers?

Interested in both anecdotal wakeup chat and scientific knowledge.

posted by Cantdosleepy to health & fitness (18 comments total)

This seems like a great thing for a trial run as it will likely vary from person to person. Go one week without snoozing, record your results. Go the next week with snoozing, record your results. Compare the two, and decide what's right for you.
posted by nitsuj at 6:44 AM on October 21, 2008 [1 favorite]

On the science side, the snooze alarm period is usually never longer than 10 minutes or so, which is not long enough to get "good" sleep. You can't really get enough of a full sleep cycle in for it to do anything for you. From an article about snooze alarms:

"Although scientists have not specifically tackled the question, sleep researchers agree that short bouts of sleep are far from ideal. The restorative value of rest is diminished, especially when the increments are short"

On the anecdotal side, I personally don't feel that any amount of sleep under a half hour really works for me, so I never use the snooze. I purposely put my alarm across the room from me so that I have to get up and turn it off. I've also used a Sleeptracker watch, which monitors your sleeping patterns for a window of time before you want to get up and tries to wake you up when you are closest to already being awake.

When I force myself to get out of bed at the first ring of the clock, I find I'm usually more alert for the first few hours of the day. If I give myself a quarter-hour of snooze-button-jamming (and of, how those extra minutes in bed feel so good yet so bad) then things are a bit more dazed.

Are you sure that the snooze versus no snooze days are completely random? It might be that you use the snooze on days when you didn't get enough sleep to begin with, or days when your sleep cycle doesn't match up with the time you are supposed to wake up. Basically the snoozing might be a symptom of you not getting good sleep, rather than the cause.
posted by burnmp3s at 6:46 AM on October 21, 2008 [1 favorite]

As burnmp3s says above, snooze button sleep is not quality sleep. There's no REM involved.

If you need to be up by seven you will be better rested if you set the alarm for seven and wake up on time, than if you set it for 6.30 and take three snoozes.

There are benefits to snooze-buttoning, (I'm a compulsive snooze-buttoner myself,) but they're all psychological and have nothing to do with getting extra sleep.
posted by the latin mouse at 7:25 AM on October 21, 2008

I think you have cause and effect backwards here, like burnmp3s says: You're feeling fresh and alert when waking up on the first ring because you already were at an appropriate time in your sleep cycle on those days. Snooze-jamming is a sign you're trying to force your body to wake up at the wrong time.
posted by ghost of a past number at 7:44 AM on October 21, 2008

"It might be that you use the snooze on days when you didn't get enough sleep to begin with, or days when your sleep cycle doesn't match up with the time you are supposed to wake up"

I'm more-or-less certain that's true.

That Sleeptracker looks impressive, but for $150 it's a bit steep...
posted by Cantdosleepy at 7:55 AM on October 21, 2008

Anecdotally, I do a half-hour snooze (setting it to go off half and hour early) because it lessens the shock of needing to get up. I hate getting up immediately, but I can handle it fine after a sort of transition.

5 minute snoozes are the worst though. Not enough time.
posted by Solon and Thanks at 8:05 AM on October 21, 2008 [1 favorite]

I haven't used a snooze button in many, many years. I finally figured out that when I "snoozed" I felt like I was waking up four times instead of one. It made me cranky. Plus I finally figured (as mentioned above) that the snoozed "sleep" wasn't restful at all so I was really robbing myself of an extra 30 minutes of real sleep.
posted by KAS at 8:08 AM on October 21, 2008

That Sleeptracker looks impressive, but for $150 it's a bit steep

Yeah, that's why I don't really recommend it to people. It's really a good product for what it does, and I've used mine for years without any issues other than the battery eventually needing to be replaced. But it's not perfect (sometimes it can't find a good time to wake up) and it's not always useful for everyone (I don't use mine very much because I tend to wake myself up at the right time without any alarm), so in my opinion it's probably not worth the price for most people.
posted by burnmp3s at 8:12 AM on October 21, 2008

My girlfriend asked me recently why I would set my alarm earlier and miss 30 minutes of good sleep through snoozing, rather than just setting it those 30 minutes later. Makes sense now I think about it.

I often feel better if I get out of bed as soon as I hear the alarm rather than snoozing. I've come to the conclusion I should just go to bed earlier.
posted by 999 at 8:16 AM on October 21, 2008

I don't know, I think there might be some REM involved even in snooze sleep. In my experience, it seems possible to wake up from a dream due to the snooze, and then fall back into it.

But in any case, for me, just always getting up at the exact time of the alarm seems to be a lot better. It removes the psychological drag of having to decide all the time, should I or shouldn't I use the snooze, and then afterward, maybe I shouldn't have snoozed that much, etc. Getting up at the same time every day becomes easy because it's such an automatic routine, and even on days where I'm tired because I didn't get enough sleep it's not that difficult.
posted by dixie flatline at 8:35 AM on October 21, 2008

I'm another 30-60 minute snooze button person. I rather like getting up and realizing I have another half hour or hour to sleep.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:40 AM on October 21, 2008

i mostly use the 9-minute snooze for those days when i feel like i need a bit more time between opening my eyes and taking on the day, but i don't want to risk falling asleep again for a long period of time.

i don't actually expect to get sleep with it. but i want additional alarms to be sure i haven't passed out.
posted by rmd1023 at 8:45 AM on October 21, 2008

Interestingly, theres a story behind the 9 minute snooze time span from straightdope.com.

The most palatable answer would be:

'In the days of dial clocks, the snooze interval was originally intended to be ten minutes max, but precision was unimportant and engineers were content if they could make the interval nine minutes and change. When the industry switched to digital, clock designers figured the standard snooze interval was nine minutes; "and change" went out the window. '

related: various alarm clocks
posted by edman at 10:07 AM on October 21, 2008

It all has to do with your sleep cycle. That's what the sleep tracker watch does for you - monitors your sleep cycle and sets the alarm off when you're 'nearly' awake. It looks @ a 20 min window, and if you're not awake at the end of that window, it goes off anyway.

If you're waking up because your alarm goes off...and not 'awake', you're likely not at the point of your sleep cycle where you're nearly awake.

Add 30 min to your sleep and see if you still struggle. Possibly add 30 more. See how easy/difficult it is for you to become awake.
posted by filmgeek at 10:22 AM on October 21, 2008

I don't know about anyone else, but for me all the snooze button has done is teach me to successsfully sleep through the alarm.
posted by Space Kitty at 11:55 AM on October 21, 2008 [5 favorites]

The only thing that trained me out of hitting my snooze button, was living with a partner who (at a time I didn't have to get up), would hit the snooze button every 5 minutes for over an hour.

That, and the couple of times I was.... trying to defuse the bomb that would blow us all up! And god! I can't remember the password!
And woke up properly to realise I was sitting in front of their computer, trying to remember their computer password as they were using a computer program alarm, and had locked the computer before they went to bed (I pulled the plug on the speakers, obviously).

And yes, I wake up better if I just wake up at first button.
The above events pretty consistently had me getting up EVERY time, whereas I'd usually push it a couple of times before that. Definite improvement.

Unfortunately, the above also meant that hearing the alarm also made me a bit adrenaline-y/grumpy. So I've got a lamp set up to a power switch timer, to flick on about 10 minutes before I wake, and my first alarm is music (tho' I have to pick a song I don't mind disliking after awhile, as it's what disturbs me from my sweet, sweet slumber).
posted by Elysum at 1:38 PM on October 21, 2008

I'm a snooze freak. My morning routine is almost exactly the same every day. It only varies by about 1-2 minutes.

Alarm goes off at 6:40. I bounce off the end of the bed (I'm huge but the bed is nice and springy), go across the room, hit the snooze button. Alarm goes off 8 minutes later. So I repeat the process at 6:48, 6:56, 7:04, 7:12, 7:20 (and start to get sad that I have only one interval left), and 7:28. I get up, throw some clothes on, brush my hair, put my necklace on, and take my 5 pills. I check the clock. It should say 7:32. If it does, good, if it's 7:33, there is great sadness in my heart. I grab the kitchen timer and head back to bed for another 16 minutes, grabbing my flashlight as I go. I lay in bed, periodically checking the timer so I know whether to feel a sense of luxury or panic as the time runs down. Things like "oh that last interval felt good, and I only used up 4 minutes! Sweet, 10 minutes still left" go through my head. Timer goes off at 7:48, and there is sense of terrible loss as I wrest myself from the bed for good. I grab my badge and bags, and am out the door. I land at my desk at 8:00, or sometimes a minute or two later.

Yes, I am nuts. Yes, my boyfriend has to suffer through it (but he either gets up at the first alarm or stays in bed for hours after I leave, and doesn't complain much).

No, I don't get enough sleep.

I don't fool myself that I actually get real sleep during those 8 minutes. The point is that I get a reprieve. A feeling that I don't have to pry myself away from the sweet soft comfort *just* yet. It allows me to feel like I win 7 times before I lose and finally have to stay out of bed. I know it's twisted and sick and wrong and probably a sign of deep immaturity but damn, I'm at work at 8:00 every damn day. My crazy routine works somehow.

But I really do need to get more sleep. And I will still probably be a snooze maniac regardless.
posted by marble at 7:25 PM on October 21, 2008 [3 favorites]

More anecdotal stuff, but psychologically, it's just a lot less abrupt and aggravating to gradually get out of bed after a couple of snooze alarms, and only being half-asleep when it's time to get up, rather than to be awoken by the first alarm while you're in a deep sleep and in the middle of a dream, and immediately having to force yourself out of bed.

As for the REM cycles during snoozing, I don't think it's whether you actually get REM sleep during that time, but whether you're not in it when it's time to wake up. And apparently, that's how the sleep watch works. I believe there was a study that said if you take afternoon naps, don't go past twenty minutes, otherwise you'd have to go a couple hours in order to wake up feeling rested.

So maybe snooze alarms should last twenty minutes (I'm sure most cell phones have adjustable snooze times). Or, on the other hand, perhaps snoozes should be short enough so that you don't go back to REM sleep, and thus aren't as cranky when you get out of bed.
posted by TheSecretDecoderRing at 12:31 AM on October 22, 2008