We Asked, Sleep Docs Answered: Is Pressing Snooze Really That Bad?

When the snooze button was first invented in the 1950s, legend goes that it lasted nine minutes because anything beyond that would have been too difficult to program into a mechanical clock. Fast-forward to today and those very arbitrary nine minutes are a saving grace to sleepers everywhere—factored into morning routines like, well, clockwork.

According to very unofficial polling of the mindbodygreen editorial team, 67% of us press the snooze button on a typical morning. Of those who do, 33% of us press it more than three times (raising my hand sheepishly).

"Sleep isn't a switch. Some of us need to ease ourselves into wakefulness," says Meredith Broderick, M.D. She equates snoozing to using a wind-down routine to get ready for sleep—just in reverse.

"Snoozing can allow for a gradual transition from sleep to wakefulness rather than an abrupt wake-up," echoes Nishi Bhopal, M.D.

The nine minutes that the snooze button allows for isn't enough time to fall back into the deep sleep stage, where most cellular repair occurs. In other words, the sleep you get while snoozing isn't as restorative as the sleep you get during the rest of the night.

By the logic, if you intentionally set your first alarm before you need to get up with the intention of snoozing, you'd likely get more high-quality sleep overall if you just set it for later. This is why Michael J. Breus, Ph.D., actually considers the snooze button the "worst invention ever for sleep."

"Many believe hitting the snooze button makes it easier for them to wake up and get the feeling of getting more sleep. However, many don't realize that they are actually robbing themselves of more deep sleep in the morning, which can lead to them feeling less rested overall," says Angela Holliday-Bell, M.D.

Holliday-Bell agrees: "Snoozing is not a good idea because it causes fragmented sleep, leading to poor sleep quality, and making you feel less rested. It also makes you more likely to experience that groggy, disoriented feeling upon awakening called sleep inertia."

However, Broderick points to recent research showing it may not be all that bad. The study, published last month in the Journal of Sleep Research, looked at how pressing the snooze button affected 31 adults' functioning in the morning. After sleeping in a lab setting, participants either snoozed for 30 minutes or woke right up at the first alarm before completing a series of cognitive tests. People actually performed slightly better on the tests after pressing snooze, and snoozing did not seem to impact their overall sleep quality or sleepiness, mood, or cortisol levels come wake-up.

"A brief snooze period may thus help alleviate sleep inertia, without substantially disturbing sleep, for late chronotypes and those with morning drowsiness," the researchers conclude.

However, there hasn't been much large-scale research on this topic, so it's hard to draw firm conclusions. The snooze button might also impact people differently, with night owls finding it more helpful than early birds.

While the snooze button may make it easier for some of us to wake up in the morning, it doesn't increase the amount of time we spend in deep, restorative sleep.