The habit of pressing the snooze alarm button in the morning can cause a number of bad effects, including feeling tired throughout the day, poor sleeping habits, and increasing the risk of chronic diseases.
Table of Content
1. The bad effects of snooze alarm on health
2. How to prevent the bad effects of snooze alarm
The snooze alarm button is a familiar feature if we often set an alarm to wake up in the morning. The snooze feature can make us snooze the alarm to go back to sleep.
Literally, snooze means a short sleep. This feature gives you time to go back to sleep until the snooze alarm goes off again 5-10 minutes later. This feature can be repeated many times until you are ready to get up and start your activities.
The bad effects of snooze alarm on health
The snooze alarm is usually used if the user needs a transition period from deep sleep to being able to wake up. However, in many cases, this feature is used solely because of a sense of laziness to leave bed.
Did you know that hitting the snooze alarm too often when you wake up can have a long-term bad effect? No kidding, the effects can include feeling tired throughout the day, poor sleep habits, to increase the risk of chronic disease.
1. Snooze alarm disrupts the sleep cycle
A good sleep cycle consists of several stages of sleep that the brain goes through. One of them is rapid eye movement (REM). When the alarm goes off in the morning, usually the stage of sleep is at the end of the last REM cycle. This cycle will end when you wake up.
However, choosing to snooze means that you go back to sleep and return to the REM cycle. When the alarm goes off again, you may even wake up in the middle of REM, not in its final stages. This condition causes you to wake up confused and feel lethargic throughout the day.
2. Long-term effect of the snooze alarm
The habit of using a snooze alarm can also have a negative effect in the long run. The reason is, after you get enough sleep the night before, your body’s internal clock is ready to wake up when the alarm goes off. However, if you hit the snooze alarm and go back to sleep, this leaves the body confused.
Over time, the body becomes unsure when it is time to wake up and when it is time to sleep. This condition can cause you to have trouble sleeping at night, experience a decrease in sleep quality, to lack of sleep.
If this condition continues, lack of sleep can increase the risk of various health problems, such as increased stress, decreased immunity, and increased inflammation that can lead to various chronic diseases.
How to prevent the bad effects of the snooze alarm
From going to bed early to changing the sound of your alarm, here are some things you can do to avoid the bad effects of hitting the snooze button in the morning.
1. Get up right away
Snooze means to delay. Therefore, you should get out of bed as soon as the alarm goes off to prevent the bad effects.
Even if it doesn’t feel pleasant at first, your body will gradually feel refreshed after a few minutes of waking up.
So that you are not tempted to press the snooze alarm again, place the gadget out of reach so that you inevitably have to get up and get out of bed to turn it off.
2. Go to bed early
Most people use the snooze alarm because they haven’t gotten enough sleep. Therefore, you should get used to going to bed earlier so that you can get enough sleep (about 8 hours). This is the key to being able to wake up immediately from the first alarm sound.
3. Changing body position
If you find it difficult to wake up at the first sound of the alarm, try changing your body position by simply getting up and sitting in bed. This method is considered to make it easier for you to wake up and refresh your body.
4. Change the alarm sound
Another effort you can do to avoid using the snooze alarm is to replace the alarm sound with music.
Reporting from CNBC, a study shows that the sound of an alarm in the form of music can help listeners wake up faster. The sound of music can also reduce the feeling of dizziness when you wake up when compared to the usual alarm ringing sound.
Those are a number of reasons why you shouldn’t hit the snooze alarm button too often in the morning.