Sleep expert explains why hitting the snooze button could be good for you

Snoozing an alarm in the morning can sometimes feel like the greatest pleasure in the world, but it can also be the biggest curse.

If you do it without realizing and miss an appointment or are late to work, there's nothing more embarrassing - but it might not be all bad news.

A medical TikToker by the name of Dr Dustin Portela recently shone a light on some research that suggests snoozing isn't the bad idea you might instinctively assume.

Instead of making your sleep quality worse or making you feel more tired when you finally do get up, it turns out it might not have much of an impact at all on those factors - and it might even help combat drowsiness first thing.

And Dr Portola isn't just bluffing, either - there was indeed a major sleep study published in late 2023 that backs him up.

It was in the Journal of Sleep Research, and centered all around whether these 'intermittent morning alarms' were bad for people.

The study’s lead author, Tina Sundelin is an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at Stockholm University in Sweden, and she told NBC News that "snoozing for 30 minutes in the morning does not make you more tired or more likely to wake up from deep sleep".

That's the headline news here - there's no problem with snoozing. Sundelin even went a little further, though. She was willing to venture that for "those who usually snooze, it might even be helpful with waking".

So, not only could your alarm snoozing be no problem, it could even be a useful part of your routine - that's a result and a half.

Pertola's video has loads of comments from people relieved to hear this, as you'd expect, including one viewer who said: "I deliberately set my alarm earlier than I need so I have snooze time".

This underlines the fact that a lot of people really like snoozing, rather than just doing it because they're forced to by sleepiness.

Getting to bed nice and early and keeping to a predictable routine is a recipe for great sleep, as is a comfortable bed and a cool environment - so if you can start to push to regulate those elements, you probably don't even really need to worry about how many alarms you set for the next day.