How To Stop Hitting Snooze? Helpful Tips To Remember Update 12/2024

When your alarm goes off, how quickly do you hit the snooze button?

You have the knowledge that this is a bad idea, but you nonetheless find yourself engaging in the behavior. Simply a few more minutes, you tell yourself as you tuck yourself back beneath the covers, only to be jarred awake once more nine minutes later. You realize that you didn’t sleep for the full nine minutes, so you hit the snooze button again.

It could be twenty, thirty, or even forty minutes before you make it out of bed.

How to end your napping habits for good is covered here.

Why Is the Snooze Button Bad for You?

Rather than being shocked awake by a shrieking buzz, users of General Electric’s first alarm clock with a snooze button could ease themselves into the day at their own leisure. It’s fine to spend a few more minutes in bed with your significant other or pet before heading out the door, and the snooze button is a great safety net in case you accidentally fall back to sleep and miss your morning meetings, but this has clearly become an issue.
Even a single snooze button press has almost no positive effect and may have negative consequences for your health. Human sleep cycles typically last between 90 and 110 minutes. There are five distinct stages of sleep that humans go through every 24 hours, from light sleep to deep sleep to rapid eye movement (REM) sleep (rapid eye movement). Spending enough time in REM, which occurs at the end of a sleep cycle, is necessary for people to feel rested the next day.
Why You Should Stop Hitting the Snooze Button - Casper Blog
The REM phase of sleep typically extends itself as the night progresses. However, using the snooze button prevents the body from getting this REM sleep. These short naps aren’t really restorative, and they can make you feel even more drowsy the next day.

Breaking the Snooze Addiction

First and foremost, you need to make sure you’re getting enough sleep before you can tackle your snooze habit. It’s a worldwide epidemic that most Americans are sleep deprived, which explains why so many of them use the snooze button first thing in the morning. It’s been shown that those who receive the recommended amount of sleep each night are more likely to feel ready to face the day upon awakening. Some people just need 6.5 hours of sleep to function at their best, while others may want or need a few extra hours.
If you want to get adequate shut-eye, you need to think forward to when you’ll need to be up. If you need seven hours of sleep but must be awake by six in the morning, then you should be in bed and asleep by eleven o’clock. When trying to kick a habit, it’s not just about how many hours you put in. Timing your bedtime to coincide with natural sleep cycles is another way to improve your chances of waking up feeling refreshed. For instance, if you wake up in the middle of a 100-minute sleep cycle, you may feel more exhausted than if you woke up towards the conclusion of the cycle.Awakening near the close of a sleep cycle may be more significant than total sleep time. If your typical sleep cycle lasts 90 minutes, you may find it helpful to set your alarm for the last minute of that period. This would translate to between 6.5 and 8 hours of sleep.

In a twist of irony, you may feel less rested after 7 hours of sleep than after 6.5 hours, which explains why you may still feel tired even if you got enough shut-eye.

Tips to Avoid Hitting It

Put Your Alarm Clock out of Reach

This advice is probably not new to you, but it is worth restating. If your alarm clock or smartphone is within easy reach of your pillow, you’re less likely to get out of bed to push the snooze button. The challenge is to stay awake once you’ve hit the snooze button!

Use Rewards

If you can anticipate a positive outcome from rising early, you may be more likely to ignore the allure of the snooze button. If you’re an early riser, you might reward yourself with a snack, a longer beauty regimen, or a conversation with a friend or family member in a different time zone. Having something enjoyable to look forward to each day will help push you to get out of bed.

Smell a Cup of Coffee

Approximately 80% of Americans need coffee to get them going in the morning. The aroma of freshly brewed coffee is often enough to get people out of bed and moving. Before going to bed, program the coffee maker to start brewing ten minutes before your alarm goes off. One’s “wake-up” genes may be triggered by the aroma of coffee. In addition, there is a freshly brewed cup of coffee waiting for you in the kitchen as soon as you emerge from your bedroom. If you want coffee, you don’t have to fuss with the machine and then wait for it to brew.

Heat Your Room

When the temperature in the room drops, it can be difficult to get yourself out of bed. Extreme self-discipline is required to emerge from your safe haven. To avoid this, heat your bedroom in the hour before you plan to get up. This will make it much more bearable to pull yourself out of bed. Timed thermostats or heaters should do the trick. If it isn’t possible, throw a blanket or robe across the room and wrap up before you leave your warm bed.

Go to Bed Earlier

This approach seems intuitive, but it’s often disregarded. Inadequate sleep, the result of staying up later than you should, will make you groggy in the morning. To ensure you get enough shut-eye, arrange your evenings as needed.

Train Your Brain

If you’ve been a chronic snoozer, it might be time to create a new routine. There is a straightforward technique for conditioning yourself to rise from bed at the sound of the alarm. The key to making it work is to “practice” getting up when the alarm goes off. Here is some recommended practice:

  • Go to sleep at a set hour every day. Even though you shouldn’t sleep during this, it’s fine if you do.
  • Make sure to wake up after a few minutes. Three, five, or 10 minutes is possible.
  • You should get up and start your day when the alarm goes off.
  • You can’t be an expert until you practice a lot.

This method is effective because it trains your brain and body to wake up even if you don’t feel fatigued.

2 Ways You Harm Yourself Every Time You Hit the Snooze Button

Glue Your Snooze Button

If you absolutely have to prevent yourself from using the snooze button, superglue it.

Appreciate Waking Up

Older folks lack the youthful exuberance and hope for the future that younger people have. You probably remember what it was like to be a youngster and eagerly await Christmas morning so that you could open your presents from Santa. Now that you’re an adult, you can make every day feel like Christmas. And no, it’s not all Christmas and candy canes all year long. Once you reach legal adulthood, you are free to choose your own course. It’s better to look forward to the chances you can make for yourself than to dwell on the things you know you’ll have to deal with (traffic, tedious meetings, arguments with coworkers).

Set an Alarm You’re Happy to Wake up To

No one enjoys being awakened by the annoying sound of an alarm. It doesn’t help to change the alarm tone on your phone. You can select to start your day with a music you enjoy. Choose a song that will inspire you and put you in a good mood. Keep things fresh by switching it up every few weeks, or you can start to associate a tune you used to love with bad memories.

Have a Reason

For example, if you have a trip to catch or a big test to study for, you know that getting up at 4 a.m. isn’t too hard. If the alarm went off now, it would be as if some part of the body had been lying awake and ready to act all along. You shouldn’t have to resort to hitting the snooze button as much if you have a good reason to get up and about. You should invent a cause to leave for the airport at the crack of dawn if you don’t have to. Maybe it’s getting up early to study a new language or pick up an instrument.

Set a Goal

If you frequently use the snooze function, the thought of losing that option may cause you significant anxiety. You shouldn’t necessarily try to quit all at once. In its place, focus on the near future. Schedule no sleep for a week, a month, or a quarter. Then, as you get toward your objective, keep pushing back the deadline.

Turn on the Lights

It takes a lot of determination to get oneself out of bed and into the darkness of morning. Try turning on some bright lights to help ease yourself out of sleep and into the day.

Drink Some Water

Replace the fluids you lost while sleeping by drinking a glass of water as soon as you wake up. It can also be used as a means of arousal. Once you pour the water in the kitchen, you should begin to feel more human and less like a zombie. You can get a boost of energy by drinking cold water, especially if you add a lemon wedge to it.

Commit

Being responsible for one’s actions is another way to stay on course. Consider teaming up with another chronic snoozer and agreeing to text or contact each other first thing in the morning until you’re both awake and alert. Anyone who fails to check in on time may be charged a fee. If you don’t already have someone to hold you accountable, your Facebook pals could be a good alternative. If you fail to meet a goal, such not hitting snooze or going to the gym, BetterMe, available for iOS and Android, will publicly shame you on the social network.

Snooze-Busting Gadgets

Clocky

Clocky is a cute little robot that looks like R2D2 and even sounds like it. He starts talking incoherently and rolling over the floor when it’s time to get up. You’ll have to track him down in order to disable him.

Loud Alarm Clock

The Sonic Boom is the name given to one particularly ear-piercing alarm clock. It will most certainly wake you up, and it should do the same for everyone else in the vicinity. That in itself might serve as an extremely powerful incentive to get you out of bed each morning.

Smart Alarms

One of the functions of a high-quality smart alarm clock is to rouse you at the precise moment when you are physically and mentally prepared to do so. They are able to determine what stage of sleep you are in and gently awaken you at that time. It’s possible to use a dedicated sleep tracking gadget, or an app like Sleep Cycle, on your smartphone to help you out with this.

How You Can Wake Up Early?

Using the aforementioned strategies, I was able to overcome my aversion to waking up at 6 a.m. every day. Because of this, I’ve had more fruitful days and have been able to get more done.

I realize that not everyone will feel the same level of urgency that I do to implement all of these suggestions, but at least you have the option to pick and select the ones that will help you. Everyone is different, therefore it’s up to you to figure out what drives you and what strategies will help you succeed. Wishing you success and a wonderful day.

My Get Up Early Routine

For those who are interested in the finer points of my daily life, here is how I spend my mornings at the moment:

  1. The song “A Brand New Day” plays as the alarm goes off. If I listen to the same song every morning for too long, I start to dislike it and it stops being effective (Note: I try to switch up the tune I wake up to every two weeks).
  2. My alarm goes off, and I get out of bed and stroll across the room to it, where I am often coerced into singing along.
  3. My morning routine consists of turning off the alarm, turning on the lights, and getting a drink of water.
  4. When I get back to my room, I sip the water while worrying about the time and then I turn on my computer to do anything that requires me to use my brain (reading email or a sudoku puzzle).
  5. If I’m feeling particularly motivated, I’ll stretch and get ready for a workout.

FAQs

What are the alarm clock apps for heavy sleepers?

Several people have trouble waking up in the morning, and fortunately there are many apps available, many of them free, that can assist. Millions of people have downloaded the Alarm Clock Xtreme & Timer app for Android. Both music and pre-recorded soundscapes can be played at ear-splitting volumes. If that isn’t enough to get your attention, you might have to do some math before it turns off. The Alarm Clock for Me (also available for Android) provides a wide range of personalization choices for setting alarms, including adjustable volume, illumination, and music. You may set it up such that you have to answer a math question or shake it really hard to turn it off.
7 Interesting Tricks That Will Make You Stop Snoozing

What happens when people hit the snooze button so much?

Overusing the snooze button may have the opposite effect. You may be feeling more fatigued throughout the day because you are not getting enough good quality sleep. If you don’t get enough sleep, you risk harming your body. People who repeatedly press the snooze button generally don’t feel great about how they started the day, and this could have repercussions for their drive and sense of self-worth. They may come to realize that they need more time to get ready for the day because they rushed through their morning routine when they should have gotten up at their normal time.

Can the snooze button ruin your sleep?

In a word, yes! Pressing the snooze button disrupts sleep, preventing the deep, restorative sleep your body needs to heal and recover. If you have trouble getting out of bed in the morning, instead of hitting the snooze button, try setting your alarm for the time you need to get up. This way, you can use the time you would have spent clicking the snooze button to get into a more restful sleep pattern.

Conclusion

Reading this article will not eliminate the need to click the snooze button in the morning. It’s as if your sensible thinking disappears in the wee hours of the morning and is replaced with a master negotiator who will give anything for just a few more minutes of shut-eye.

Setting yourself up for success is an effective way to fight the negative aspects of your mind. If you’ve tried everything and still can’t shake the snooze habit, just remember that tomorrow is a new day and you can give it another shot.

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