We all know the old saying, ‘If you snooze, you lose’. The message behind it is pretty simple: if you don’t pay attention or act quickly, you’ll end up at a disadvantage.
As a serial ‘sleeper-inner’, I’ve often associated the adage with a button that I’ve become way too familiar with over many decades. The alarm clock ‘snooze’ button. Hitting that snooze button once too often has often landed me in trouble over the years, either through late arrival to an appointment or not getting a task done on time.
Of course clock radios on the bedside table aren’t as common as they once were, but the snooze button lives on through our smart phones.
I’ve always felt guilty about my reliance on that button. And those short sleep/wake/sleep/wake cycles each morning are surely not doing my mind and body much good, are they?
Well hold the front page, folks. If you’re a chronic ‘snoozer’ like me, good news appears to be at hand. New research has added to a growing body of evidence which suggests that we ‘snoozers’ sleep just as well as non-snoozers, with no overall detrimental health effects.
Even better, tests showed that regular pressers of the snooze button actually have improved cognition.
I am now claiming those of us who are snoozers not as losers, but rather as life’s cruisers. In my humble opinion, the old adage needs to be recast: ‘If you choose to snooze, you won’t necessarily lose.’
Are you a regular snooze button user? Do you find it to be a help or a hindrance?
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