If you "snooze" you lose - don't hit that button

Hitting snooze on the alarm clock and nodding off again can leave you more tired than getting up, so experts say.

The gap between buzzes is too short for the body to fall back into the deep sleep the body needs to get the full benefit.  It is much better to set the alarm for the time you need to get up and do so, claims behavioural scientist , Dan Ariely.

"When we play with the snooze button, our bodies get a confused message. Sometimes we hear the beeping and get up, sometimes we hear it and stay put for ten minutes. Sometimes we lie there for another 20 minutes, and so on. If you decide to pick this snooze strategy, your body cannot learn the conditioned response between hearing the alarm and getting up. In general, our bodies do better when they can get used to a single clear rule and get out of bed the moment the alarm sounds."

HMHB thinks this is a touchy issue. Some people like taking a while to get out of bed. But there is also the mental health side to the argument. If the first thing you do in the day is decide to Not do something (get up out of bed) and instead defer it to a later time, does that mean you are the kind of person who procrastinates, and puts off making big decisions. Some may say there is no correlation. HMHB likes the idea of waking up feeling that you want to get out of bed and enjoy the day - surely that should be one of life's main aims?