Are You Snoozing And Not Realizing?

I used to be a snoozer. And then I really discovered how much it ruined my day.

I would go to sleep around midnight and would set my alarm for 7 knowing I didn’t have to actually get up until 730 or maybe even 8. The last 30+ minutes of sleep were somewhere between resting under the covers and completely passed out, in 10 minute intervals.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned my own sleep is best when I’m asleep around 1030 and wake up around 630. No more snoozing. When I used to snooze, it felt really good in the moment but I never felt better overall.

Studies show that it does not contribute to feeling more rested throughout the day. In fact, going back to sleep after snoozing can be detrimental to energy levels throughout the day. David Dinges, chief of Division of Sleep and Chronobiology at UPenn in an article in the WSJ claims that otherwise, the only benefit of snoozing is in allowing your mind and body to slowly awaken, instead of jolting it out of sleep.

The last hour of sleep is typically REM sleep– short for rapid eye movement– where we usually dream and when our body fully recovers from a day’s work. The science of sleep shows us that the more REM we get, the more rested we feel. Ideally, we allow our body to finish REM sleep uninterrupted before waking up.

When our alarm goes off our body gets a jolt of cortisol, the stress hormone that keeps us awake. Oscillating from sleep to jolting awake is hardly good for a feeling of restfulness and can increase stress, heart rate, and blood pressure, says Reena Mehra, MD, MS, Director of Sleep Disorders Research at the Cleveland Clinic. In short, snoozing and then sleeping is not good for us. (And yet we continue to do it.)

We do the same thing when it comes to focus. We are constantly distracted by notifications, interruptions, pings, alerts, and reminders. Additionally, we distract ourselves every time our work gets hard or we have even one moment of downtime or itch of boredom– social media, internetting, email checks, online dating.

That quick check of Instagram is the same as a snooze button.

Your brain feels good when it is in deep focus mode; when it is in flow (the parallel to REM sleep). And while it might immediately feel good to snooze, or check to see if anyone DM’ed, ultimately, that little mental lapse is not restorative, not contributing to our long-term well-being.

Learning to minimize multitasking, building up our focus endurance, and finding space for deep work develops our brain for deep thinking and problem-solving. Snoozing with Instagram or Facebook, Tinder or Reddit is not good for us. (And yet we continue to do it.)

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Caveday is a company aimed at improving your relationship to work. We write regular posts on Medium and send out monthly newsletters with productivity tips, life hacks, and recommendations. Sign up for the mailing list here.

Jake Kahana is a cofounder of Caveday. Sign up for his personal emails, called “The Email Refrigerator” here.