RECOMMENDATION:
No snoozing.
WHAT:
This healthy habit is about avoiding hitting the snooze button upon waking in the morning.
WHY:
Snoozing is a habit that often has the opposite effect to what you might want. Very often, the more we snooze, the more tired we end up feeling.
While you might think that hitting snooze will give you a chance to finish your natural sleep cycle and wake up feeling rested, that’s not what happens.
Your body actually prepares for waking up about 2 hrs before you usually wake.
When you snooze, you are throwing out a false alarm. After you hit snooze and drift off, your brain starts its sleep cycle all over again.
When the alarm goes off a second time, you’re likely at an even deeper, earlier part of your sleep cycle, which results in you feeling even worse than you did the first time.
Although this task may sound simple, it’s one of THE BEST quick-and-easy tasks you can do to improve your overall sleep hygiene and improve the consistency of your sleep at night.
HOW:
It’s up to you to decide what “no snoozing” looks like.
For some, it might mean immediately jumping up and out of bed as soon as their alarm goes off. For others, it might mean simply not going back to sleep again while still allowing themselves to wake up at a leisurely pace.
The main idea is that once your alarm goes off, you turn your alarm off rather than hitting snooze.
If need be, set multiple alarms that are 1 minute apart so that you don’t have the chance to hit snooze by accident. Or put your alarm further away from your bed so that you actually have to get up and out of bed in order to turn it off.
If you don’t use an alarm to wake up and tend to wake up naturally then this habit may not be as relevant for you.
TIPS:
✅ Make It Obvious: Place your alarm across the room so you have to physically get out of bed to turn it off. This interrupts the instinct to snooze.
✅ Environment Design: When the alarm rings, get up and out of bed. Change your “environment” by getting out of the “sleep environment”. Move around, open the curtains to let some sunlight in or turn on the lights, drink some water, get your body feeling awake and alert.
✅ Incremental Progress: If you’re used to hitting snooze three times, aim for only two tomorrow. Gradually reduce until you stop snoozing entirely.
✅ Make It Attractive: Treat yourself to a pleasant morning routine, be it a favorite morning drink or a few minutes of a beloved book. It gives you something to look forward to instead of dreading the alarm.
✅ Visualization: Before sleeping, visualize yourself waking up energetically the next morning. This mental rehearsal primes you for action.
