How many alarms do you set in the morning? While some people manage to wake up naturally on their own every day, most of us rely on an alarm to help us rise and shine. But one in three Americans admit they don’t get enough sleep and that leaves them exhausted, groggy and afraid they won’t wake up to that single alarm.
To make sure they don’t oversleep, some people set multiple alarms. While that may seem like a safe solution, sleep experts warn that it’s not a good idea. It turns out, having more than one alarm can be bad for overall sleep quality. "My general advice is that you set one alarm,” says Dr. Alicia Roth, behavioral sleep medicine specialist with Cleveland Clinic. “The more alarms you have, the harder it's going to be for you to wake up in the morning.”
She explains that multiple alarms can trigger fight or flight hormones that affect your day. And if you’re hitting snooze several times every morning, you may want to stop that, too. According to Roth, the more times you hit snooze, the more you disrupt your body’s natural rhythm. That extra five to eight minutes of sleep starts a new sleep cycle and when the alarm goes off again, you’re left feeling groggy, disoriented and stressed out.
So, what’s the solution? The sleep expert advises:
- Setting your single alarm for the time you actually have to wake up and not hitting snooze.
- Keeping your alarm clock across the room so you have to get up to turn it off.
- Trying to go to sleep and wake up at the same time seven days a week.
- And if you’re using multiple alarms, slowly work yourself down to just one.
Source: ABC 7