Why snoozing your alarm is bad for your health and how to finally train yourself to stop

If your alarm clock feels more like a suggestion than a wake-up call, you’re not alone.A recent study found that more than half of adults are habitual snoozers, hitting the button an average of 2.5 times to sneak in an extra 11 minutes of sleep.But that extra shut-eye does more than just cut into your morning routine or make you late for work.The Post spoke to Dr.

Dennis Auckley, director of the Center for Sleep Medicine at MetroHealth, about how snoozing your alarm impacts your health — and the best strategies to finally break the habit for good.“The sleep community doesn’t advocate for ‘snoozing’ repeatedly through alarms for several reasons,” Auckley said.First up: Waking up several times will interrupt and fragment your sleep.“This means you’ll be cycling back and forth between generally light nonrestorative sleep and being awake,” Auckley said. “This is not restful, and potentially means you could be missing out on consolidated better, deeper stages of sleep,” he added.Second: It can start your day off on the wrong foot.“The recurrent awakenings from the alarm can lead to feeling unrested and grogginess when you eventually get out of bed,” Auckley said.Third: It can reinforce bad sleep habits.“The more times you do it, the worse it can be,” Auckley said.Fourth: You may not be fixing the problem by snoozing your alarm.“While the most common reason for this is a simple lack of adequate sleep time, it could also be a sign of other sleep disorders that may need evaluation and treatment,” Auckley said.It’s estimated that between 50 and 70 million Americans have sleep disorders, and 1 in 3 US adults don’t regularly get the recommended amount of uninterrupted sleep they need to protect their health, according to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. The adverse effects of snoozing your alarm aren’t well studied, Auckley noted.However, he said research shows that inadequate sleep on a regular basis is associated wi...