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Is it better to wake up immediately or snooze a few times?

Last updated: October 15, 2026

Mostly a matter of time and habit. A 2024 lab study found 30 minutes of snoozing cost about 6 minutes of sleep without hurting test performance. Getting up at once gives you that time back.

The lab evidence

Sundelin et al. (2024) compared 30 minutes of snoozing with waking at once in 31 habitual snoozers in a sleep lab. Snoozing cost about 6 minutes of sleep and prevented awakenings from deep (N3) sleep. Cognitive test scores right after rising were the same or slightly better after snoozing, and there were no clear effects on the cortisol awakening response, sleepiness or mood.

Where waking at once still wins

Snoozing still costs you. In a survey of 1,732 people in the same paper, snoozers more often reported morning drowsiness and shorter sleep. In 2025 data from more than 21,000 Sleep Cycle users, people snoozed for about 11 minutes on mornings that ended with a snooze, pressing it 2.4 times on average (Robbins et al., 2025). Those minutes come out of your morning, and getting up at the first alarm keeps your wake time consistent.

Build a reason to get up

If you decide to get up at once, a wake-up mission helps you follow through: ByeBed has no snooze button, and its missions get you sitting up, moving and concentrating as soon as the alarm rings.

Sources

1. Sundelin et al., Journal of Sleep Research, 2024. Is snoozing losing? Why intermittent morning alarms are used and how they affect sleep, cognition, cortisol, and mood
2. Robbins et al., Scientific Reports, 2025. Snooze alarm use in a global population of smartphone users