How many times do you hit snooze?

The science is split. In a sleep lab study of 31 habitual snoozers, 30 minutes of snoozing cost about 6 minutes of sleep and did not hurt thinking right after getting up. A smaller study of 10 university students found the opposite: snoozing stretched out the groggy, half-asleep phase. Neither study proves snoozing is harmful or harmless. What it does cost for sure is time, and that is what this calculator adds up.

Sources: Sundelin, Landry & Axelsson, Journal of Sleep Research (2024); Ogawa, Kaizuma-Ueyama & Hayashi, Journal of Physiological Anthropology (2022)

The earliest record does not support the popular gear story. The first snooze button arrived in 1956 on GE-Telechron's Snooz-Alarm, and a trade notice from that year says it gave about 15 minutes of quiet, not 9. When the 9-minute snooze took over is not documented. The iPhone's snooze defaults to 9 minutes.

Sources: GE-Telechron Snooz-Alarm 7H241, 1956 Hardware Age notice

You are in good company. Snoozing is most common in younger people and night owls. In a survey of 293 Japanese university students, 70.5% said they often used their phone's snooze, and the main reason was anxiety about oversleeping: snooze feels like a safety net.

Sources: Sundelin, Landry & Axelsson, Journal of Sleep Research (2024); Mattingly et al., Sleep (2022); Ogawa, Kaizuma-Ueyama & Hayashi, Journal of Physiological Anthropology (2022)

In a study of 450 people that combined a survey with wearable data, 57% were snoozers. Younger people, night owls and people with more disturbed sleep were the most likely to snooze.

Sources: Mattingly et al., Sleep (2022)

The studies disagree. In the 450-person wearable study, snoozers did not sleep less than non-snoozers and did not feel sleepier. In a survey of 1,732 people, those who snoozed more often reported shorter sleep and groggier mornings, but a survey cannot tell whether snoozing causes short sleep or short sleepers snooze more.

Sources: Mattingly et al., Sleep (2022); Sundelin, Landry & Axelsson, Journal of Sleep Research (2024)

Take the snooze option away and give yourself a reason to get up. Alarm Mate has no snooze button: the alarm only stops when you finish a short mission, like walking away from your bed or solving a math problem, and a wake-up buddy is waiting for you on the other side.