I was the one that sprang away from bed as quickly as her alarm went off, however this spring I’ve been fighting excessive morning fatigue. It was so robust that I stored hitting the snooze button, not simply as soon as, however a number of instances a morning.
As a sleep tech author for Tom’s Information I do know that hitting the snooze button is unhealthy information for my sleep (it makes it tougher to go to sleep at evening for one, and it could possibly make morning grogginess ten instances worse). However truthfully, I’ve been so drained, that further 9 minutes’ sleep every time I hit ‘snooze’ have been irresistible.
To get me out of this cycle of exhaustion, I requested sleep professional and licensed well being and wellness coach Erin Clifford to assist me curb my snooze button behavior. Right here’s the easy 3-step reset she taught me, and the way it’s serving to me really feel energised once more…
At a look: The three-Step Morning Reset
- Step 1: The ‘distance’ trick – Transfer your alarm clock out of arm’s attain. Forcing bodily motion is the quickest technique to break the ‘snooze’ loop.
- Step 2: Sync your circadian rhythm – Follow a strict ‘wake-up window’—even on weekends—to coach your mind to cease anticipating that further 9 minutes.
- Step 3: Use dawn cues – Use a dawn alarm clock or sleep together with your curtains open. Pure gentle indicators your mind to cease producing melatonin and begin producing cortisol (a ‘rise up and go’ hormone).
Verdict: Snoozing your alarm will make your morning grogginess (sleep inertia) worse. Every time you hit that snooze button, you begin a brand new sleep cycle you may’t end, leaving you extra exhausted than when you’d simply stayed awake.
From ‘early hen’ to ‘snooze button queen’
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I anticipated it to be simpler to get up within the mornings now that spring is right here. However, Clifford explains, there are just a few potential the explanation why I am groggier than regular, regardless of often being an early hen who will get eight hours of sleep an evening.
“Regardless that it is springtime and we’re trying ahead to brighter and hotter days, seasonal adjustments can nonetheless work towards you,” says the Cognitive Behavioral Remedy for Insomnia (CBT-I) therapist.
“In early spring, mornings are darker than our our bodies are used to. Not having the ability to absorb gentle or as a lot gentle instantly disrupts our circadian rhythm and prevents the physique from recognizing that it’s time to cease producing melatonin.”
“It will also be as a result of longer days (extra daylight later) could trigger a few of your regular bedtime habits or behaviors to alter,” Clifford elaborates.
“You can be staying out or staying up later, or delaying beginning your bedtime routine. Even a small shift in routine, 20 to half-hour, could make waking up tougher.”
3 the explanation why you could be hitting the snooze button extra too
Out of your sleep environments to what you do within the lead as much as bedtime, right here we’ll have a look at all of the issues that may very well be pushing me and also you to hit the snooze button…
1. A scarcity of wake-up cues
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Out of your bed room being too darkish to your alarm clock being too far-off out of your mattress, your sleep atmosphere could make it simpler so that you can get up with numerous vitality within the morning, or it could possibly make it tougher.
Invested in some blackout curtains so the lighter night do not get in the best way of your bedtime? Whereas that is nice for falling asleep quick at evening, it is a totally different story on the subject of waking up with vitality within the morning.
“Folks additionally gravitate in the direction of the snooze button once they’re missing get up cues,” explains Clifford. “In case your room remains to be very darkish or your alarm is correct subsequent to your head, your physique does not have a direct and clear sign to get up.”
I swear by sleeping with my blinds open, so gentle hasn’t been an excessive amount of of a problem for me. Even with my attic bed room flooded with pure gentle by 6:30am, I’ve nonetheless been snoozing.
Nonetheless I’m responsible of retaining my alarm too near my mattress, making it straightforward to knock it off for an additional jiffy sleep. Effective, I am going to transfer it to the opposite aspect of my room.
2. Your physique clock remains to be realigning
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It hasn’t been lengthy for the reason that clocks sprung ahead. When you could count on your sleep to be ‘again on monitor’ now after the preliminary disruption — how a lot injury can one hour of misplaced sleep trigger, in spite of everything? — it isn’t that straightforward.
Clifford says, “It might take our our bodies just a few weeks to regulate to the time change and realign our circadian rhythms.”
Which means that even if you’re nonetheless getting “sufficient” sleep, your physique should still really feel like it’s too early to get up when your alarm sounds as a result of it gravitates to the earlier time.
You could notably really feel the consequences of your physique clock realigning when you’ve spent the winter doing all of your greatest to stay to a constant sleep and wake time, as really useful by consultants and backed up by big new research.
That is as a result of your physique may have received used to waking up at a sure time and the hour distinction throws off that well-established rhythm.
That stated, with a bit extra time, it should readjust to summer time timings.
3. Your wholesome sleep habits have slipped
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With extra daylight to play with within the night, you might discover your routine has shifted.
Now the evenings are lighter, it is exhausting to inform there distinction between 5pm and 7pm and, personally, I’ve discovered I am consuming later and pushing again my nighttime routine (each of that are unhealthy information for sleep high quality).
Naturally, as you are uncovered to brighter gentle for longer, melatonin launch shall be delayed. This will affect how briskly you go to sleep and the standard of sleep you get by way of the evening.
Unsurprisingly, when you spend extra time tossing and turning, and if the standard of your sleep has taken a again seat, you are prone to really feel groggy come morning.
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Clifford, who can also be a licensed skilled counselor, says one of many essential causes individuals hit snooze is as a result of they’re waking up throughout a deeper sleep stage, which means “you get up feeling groggy and disoriented, and hitting the snooze button looks like an answer.”
In a wholesome sleep cycle, deep sleep comes throughout the first a part of the evening (a chilled night routine and wholesome sleep habits assist your physique fall into that restorative deep stage early on).
But when your sleep cycles are fragmented within the first half of the evening as a consequence of late evening meals or an excessive amount of gentle publicity, deep sleep could come nearer to your get up time.
Why you should not snooze your alarm
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Analysis revealed in 2025 by Rebecca Robbins, famend sleep scientist at Havard Medical Faculty — which analysed greater than 3 million nights of sleep knowledge from 21,000 individuals — discovered that greater than 55% of sleep classes ended with individuals snoozing their alarm.
But this widespread behavior can confuse your mind and physique, primarily as a result of any sleep you get after hitting snooze is poor high quality.
Basically, hitting snooze fragments your sleep. Clifford says: “Your mind tries to make your physique fall again to sleep throughout these 10 minutes, and by reentering a lightweight sleep stage after which being woken up once more minutes later, you’re interrupting your physique’s pure sleep rhythm.”
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This will additionally delay that groggy feeling that made you hit snooze within the first place. “Every time you fall again to sleep after hitting snooze, the get up course of restarts when the alarm goes off once more.
“This makes you are feeling much more drained than you most likely would have been when you received up the primary time,” explains the sleep professional.
“Lastly, the snooze button steals time out of your morning. Each ten minutes you snooze is ten minutes you may have been doing one thing good for you, like meditation, taking within the gentle, some gentle motion, consuming breakfast.”
I’ve definitely felt extra mentally cloudy on the times my snoozing has received in the best way of my regular morning routine, main me to overlook a pre-work stroll or run.
All this thought-about, consultants warning snoozing must be prevented in favor of setting an alarm for the final practical wake time to permit for as a lot consolidated, uninterrupted sleep as doable.
Learn how to not snooze your alarm
I requested Clifford for her prime ideas for avoiding that tempting snooze button and waking up with vitality. This is what she stated…
1. Put your alarm out of attain
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Clifford’s primary tip for avoiding the snooze button is to place your alarm on the opposite aspect of the room.
“If the alarm is correct subsequent to you, it’s straightforward to show it off or hit snooze and fall again to sleep,” she explains. However, “if the alarm is on the opposite aspect of the room, you’re compelled to get away from bed to show it off.
“This can make you extra alert and may sign to your physique that it’s time to get up and cease producing melatonin.”
2. Follow a constant sleep routine
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Sustaining a constant sleep routine appears to be the primary sleep ideas this 12 months, promoted by consultants and large-scale research.
For instance, a brand new examine by Vitality and The London Faculty of Economics and Political Science (LSE) discovered that constant sleep timings paired with getting 7+ hours of sleep an evening will help enhance your life span by as much as 4 years.
Clifford concurs, and says it could possibly enable you keep away from urgent snooze. “One other factor I like to recommend is to select a constant wake time and persist with it day by day,” she advises. “
A constant wake time strengthens your circadian rhythm and will help stop that groggy feeling.”
As soon as your inner clock learns your common get up time, your physique will know to suppress melatonin and produce cortisol at the moment, so that you get up energised moderately than groggy.
3. Put money into a trusty dawn alarm clock
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As somebody who tends to fall sufferer to doom scrolling to procrastinate bedtime, I’ve began leaving my telephone out of my bed room — a behavior I like to recommend everybody tries.
Meaning I depend on a top-rated dawn alarm clock to wake me up moderately than my telephone alarm. For reference, the $59 Dreamegg dawn alarm clock (a dupe of the trending Hatch Restore 3) presently sits at my bedside.
Sure I have been hitting its snooze button extra currently, however I am nonetheless an enormous advocate of a dawn alarm clock.
Till I used to be hit with no matter snooze-button-enticing phenomenon I appeared to have caught just lately, my dawn-simulating alarm clock was serving to me get up with vitality.
As we speak’s greatest costs on top-rated dawn alarm clocks
