Steven Novella

Just set the alarm for when you absolutely have to get up.

Sleep till then and then get up.

Building in snoozes is bad for you.

It's just wasting time.

Here's an alternate suggestion.

Yeah, I agree, keeping it short.

But rather than hitting snooze and trying to get back to sleep, if you feel like you need to psych yourself up to get out of bed or whatever, just turn the alarm off, maybe prop yourself up a little bit, and then sit there.

You don't have to jump out of bed.

You could spend 5 to 10 minutes waking up, and maybe you do then pull out your phone.

Reading a book.

Yeah, do something to gear up, but don't try to sleep.

That's wasted time.

You're not getting quality sleep.

Maximize your actual sleep time.

Don't take away 20 or 30 minutes from your sleep time for that snooze time.

It's not good.

But that may be a symptom that you're not getting enough sleep and you're just making it worse by wasting your snooze time.

The idea is that if you make this part of good overall sleep hygiene, you won't be as stew-nod in the morning.

I mean, I haven't seen a study about that specifically, but it seems to me that you should always try to optimize whatever sleep you get.

You know, I know sometimes, yeah, like we had to get up at four or five, whatever, for a plane.