After your alarm has gone off and started to wake you up in the morning, you should never, under any circumstances, press the snooze button on your alarm clock. There is a very strong scientific explanation for this. In the video that follows, you will get an explanation of the thinking that went into this decision.
The alarm goes off, startling you awake first thing in the morning before you head to work, and you'd do anything to be able to stay in bed for a couple of additional hours longer than you had to get up for work. We are all guilty of this.
However, rather of having a couple of hours at your disposal, you will only have around ten or fifteen minutes to do the task.
We therefore roll over, press the snooze button, and proceed to forget that the event ever took place.
The issue is that when you actually then have to get up at the last minute, you feel like total shite. This is the problem.
At the time, hitting the snooze button may seem like a fantastic idea; but, it is quite unlikely that you would wake up feeling any more rested or prepared for the day after doing so.
There is some scientific research that supports it, to be sure.
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In the morning, we are all familiar with the strong desire to reach for the snooze button. Credit: This image was provided by DGLimages / Alamy Stock Photo
Mel Robbins, who refers to herself as "one of the most acknowledged experts on change and motivation," recently shared an explanation of the scientific rationale behind why squeezing in a few extra minutes at the end of a task is only going to end up hurting you in the long run on her podcast.
You're better off just getting up.
Robbins told the audience, "You want to know the scientific reason why you should never use the snooze button?
"Allow me to smack you over the head with some neurology right now.
"Two words sleep inertia.
"Your brain will begin to fall back into sleep as soon as the alarm is turned off, despite the fact that you are awake when you push the snooze button,"
She went on to say, "Here's the thing that researchers have found out - when you drift back to sleep after you've woken up, your brain starts a sleep cycle." [Continued from previous paragraph]
It takes between 75 and 90 minutes for a sleep cycle to finish.
"So, when that alarm goes off again in nine minutes and you're like 'Oh my God' - have you ever noticed that when you fall back to sleep, you're in a deep sleep state?
"That's because you're nine minutes into a 75-minute sleep cycle, and that sleepy fatigued sensation that you get is not a reflection of how well you slept," she said. "That's because you're in the REM phase of your sleep."
"That's because both you and I are idiots for pushing the snooze button, which puts our brains into a condition of sleep inertia," the speaker said.
It usually takes your brain around four hours to shake off that sluggish sensation after you've been awake for a while.
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She came to the following conclusion: "When the alarm rings, get your a** out of bed."
You're better off just forcing yourself to get out of bed and getting in the shower than you are trying to chase an unrealistic ideal and believing that an extra ten minutes will make all the difference.
When you finally start to come to, you'll notice an improvement in how you feel.
On Robbins' podcast, which can be accessed through this link, she goes into great length about topics such as this one and others like it.