How does snoozing affect your productivity?
Snoozing extends sleep inertia, which impairs reaction time, decision-making, and short-term memory for 30 minutes to an hour after waking. That eats into your most cognitively expensive morning hours.
Sleep inertia and cognition
Trotti (2017) summarizes lab studies showing reaction time, math accuracy, and working memory are all significantly worse during sleep inertia. The effect is comparable to mild alcohol intoxication immediately after waking.
The peak-hours cost
Most people do their best cognitive work in the first 2–4 hours after waking. Spending the first hour fighting inertia from snoozing wipes out a third of that peak window.
A faster wake-up
ByeBed's mission-based wake (math, push-ups, photo) demands full attention from the moment the alarm fires, which has been shown to shorten the inertia phase by activating both cognitive and motor systems.
Sources
- Trotti, Nature and Science of Sleep, 2017. Sleep inertia: current insights
Tired of hitting snooze?
ByeBed replaces the snooze button with a mission. Math, push-ups, photo. The alarm only stops when you complete it. Free to try.
Download ByeBed on the App Store