Hitting the snooze button can disrupt restorative sleep, causing health problems

CINCINNATI (WKRC) - Specialists are warning you against hitting that snooze button in the morning. Sleep specialists at the Cleveland Clinic say it may be hazardous to your health if you do this on a regular basis, mainly because it disrupts your body's restorative sleep. The later part of your sleep is when you enter REM, or dream sleep. If you wake up and hit the snooze button, you disrupt that. Sleep specialists say when you do this, depending on your arousal threshold, you can cause a flight or fight response, which increases blood pressure and heartbeat. Those kinds of changes have also been shown, over time, to contribute to weight gain, cardiovascular risks and even early death. The sleep specialists say repeatedly hitting the snooze button shows you likely are not getting enough of the kind of sleep that restores you, and you don't get that kind of sleep in 10-minute increments with your snooze button. You need at least seven straight hours most of the time to restore the body and feel better. If you can't get that regularly, the snooze button won't help.