Often criticised for its detrimental effects on sleep, new research suggests snoozing may actually support the waking process and boost cognitive abilities upon rising.
Go ahead and get those extra 5 minutes… apparently it’s not as bad for health as we’ve been led to think.
They conducted two studies, the first based on the responses of 1,732 people about their morning habits, in particular the frequency with which they hit “snooze” to grab a few extra minutes’ sleep. Snoozers were found to primarily comprise young adults or evening people, most of whom said they use this function because they feel too tired to wake up when the alarm sounds.
Above all, the results suggest that although the participants’ sleep was slightly disrupted by the repeating alarm, the majority “slept well”. Indeed, the function had little or no effect on the total length of their night’s sleep, with no “clear effects” on mood, sleepiness or the amount of cortisol – the stress hormone – in saliva.