Don't Snooze Your Life Away

I am addicted to my snooze button. How superficial and ridiculous is that?!

It's not just ridiculous, it's unhealthy. Setting your alarm clock too early deprives you of vital REM sleep.

There are two main types of sleep, REM (rapid eye movement) and NREM (non-REM). During NREM (also referred to as deep, or slow-wave sleep) your body and brain relax. REM, on the other hand is very much an active state. During REM your muscles twitch constantly and your brain exhibits high levels of electrical activity.

At night we constantly move between these two states. Slow wave sleep occurs more frequently at the start of the night whilst REM sleep increases as morning approaches. In order to feel sleep’s full restorative benefits you need to get your full quota of both REM and NREM.

If you set your alarm much earlier than you intend to get up so that you can keep pressing snooze, you could be missing out on vital REM in the morning. Because once your alarm goes off, you’ve already disrupted your sleep cycle, and you’re unlikely to fall back into REM again.

The bottom line is, the snooze button can seriously affect your health. Disturbing your sleep in this way can impair your mental functioning throughout the day, affecting memory, reaction time and even your emotional state.

So, if you regularly wake up feeling groggy, your alarm might be going off at the wrong part of your sleep cycle. Try setting your alarm a few minutes later (or getting up a little earlier) and sticking to a regular sleep schedule to get a nice rhythm going.

My favorite tips that have helped me:

 

1. Set a timer so that a bright light turns on simultaneously with your alarm.

2. If you drink coffee, get a coffee pot with a timer.

3. Put your alarm clock on the other side of the room.

4. Set a second alarm on your cell phone, computer, another alarm clock, or whatever you can hear from wherever you need to put it.

5. Consider super gluing your snooze button in order to make it impossible to use.     

6. Heat up your room
7. Schedule something you love as soon as you wake up - I started scheduling my beach body business as soon as I wake up in the morning and it works! I love doing it I don't mind waking up and I don't want to miss out on getting it done!  
8. Put a picture of a sexy girl (or guy) on your alarm clock!!

Did you know you can download a sleeper app on your iphone that wakes you up at the correct sleep cycle so that you wake up feeling more refreshed?! TRY IT!