All articles

How long should the snooze interval be?

Last updated: October 15, 2026

Many alarm clocks default to 9 minutes. The snooze button is usually traced to GE-Telechron's 1956 Snooz-Alarm, but why 9 minutes became common is not well documented. No study has identified an ideal snooze interval, and a 2024 lab study of snoozing found 30 minutes of it cost about 6 minutes of sleep.

The 9-minute story

General Electric's Telechron Snooz-Alarm, launched in 1956, is usually credited as the first clock with a snooze button. It was advertised as giving "about ten minutes", and a Telechron collector who tested several of these clocks measured a snooze of 16 to 17 minutes (SlashGear, 2025). The popular explanation for 9 minutes is mechanical: the gearing supposedly allowed just over 9 or just over 10 minutes, and 9 was chosen. That story is widely repeated but not documented, so treat it as lore. Why 9 minutes became common in later clocks is unclear.

What the research says

Sundelin et al. (2024) tested a single schedule: 30 minutes of snoozing. Compared with getting up at once, it cost about 6 minutes of sleep and kept people from being woken out of deep sleep; their test scores on rising were the same or slightly better. We are not aware of any study comparing different snooze lengths, so there is no evidence-based ideal interval.

Better strategy

Skip the snooze entirely. If you need more sleep, set a later wake time and commit to it. If you need a forced wake-up, use an app like ByeBed with a mission requirement.

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. Emma Street, SlashGear, 2025. Why Is Snooze 9 Minutes? Everyone's Been Getting It Wrong, And Here's Why