Table of ContentsView AllTable of ContentsCauses of Oversleeping or Relying on SnoozeShould You Use an Alarm Clock?How to Use an Alarm ClockWhy You Wake Up Feeling Overly SleepyWays to Enhance Sleep Quality
Table of ContentsView All
View All
Table of Contents
Causes of Oversleeping or Relying on Snooze
Should You Use an Alarm Clock?
How to Use an Alarm Clock
Why You Wake Up Feeling Overly Sleepy
Ways to Enhance Sleep Quality
Learn how to stop hitting snooze and how to optimize your alarm clock setting to help you meet your sleep needs and avoid oversleeping.
paul mansfield photography / Moment / Getty Images
Medical Conditions
When we are sick with a short-term condition that causes fatigue, such as a cold or the flu, or we’ve had a busy, exhausting day, our bodies need more sleep. But there are also a number of long-term or chronic conditions that can disrupt our sleep patterns and lead to oversleeping, including:
Inconsistent Sleep Schedule
Having an irregular sleep schedule puts you at risk for multiple health conditions. Just as the body relies on regular meals to stay healthy, it also needs regular, predictable sleep.
Does Sleeping Too Much Affect You?
Do you set an alarm to tell you it is time to stop eating? Of course not. You pay attention to your body’s signals to inform you when you are feeling full and have eaten enough. It would be best if we could also listen to our body’s ability to regulate sleep that same way. In an ideal world, we’d wake up naturally without the need for an alarm. You can take steps to do just that!
Determine Your Sleep Needs
Everyone’s sleep needs are different, though. To figure out how much you need, consider in the recent past how much sleep, on average, you have needed to feel rested.As much as possible, this need should be met each and every night. If too little sleep is obtained one night, it may be necessary to catch up with a nap or more sleep the next night. Commit to spending the amount of time in bed you need to feel rested, and be consistent.
Keep a Regular Sleep Schedule
Our bodies respond best to regular patterns. This applies to the timing of meals (we get hungry and eat meals at about the same time every day) as well as to the habits of sleep and wakefulness.
If you go to bed at about the same time every night, you will get sleepy about that time.After determining your sleep needs and what time you want to get up, make sure you get to bed at the right time.
Go to Bed When You Feel Sleepy
Chances are that you sit down to eat when you are feeling hungry. In a similar fashion, you should go to bed when you are feeling sleepy. Don’t just crawl into bed at 10 p.m. because you want to fall asleep. If you can’t doze right away, lying awake may contribute to anxiety and insomnia.
Wake Up at the Same Time Daily
It is especially important to keep the wake time consistent, even through the weekends.This helps to stabilize our patterns of sleep.
Get Sunlight
By getting 15 to 30 minutes ofsunlightupon awakening, it is possible to regulate yourcircadian rhythm, reinforcing your ability to sleep during darkness. By keeping this wake time on schedule, it also becomes easy to go to bed and fall asleep more regularly. If needed, especially if you must wake earlier than you naturally would on your own, it may be necessary to use an alarm.
There are many situations when an alarm clock can be necessary to maintain a schedule. Without it, oversleeping may lead to serious consequences, including tardiness to school or work. If you regularly oversleep, this may threaten job security and lead to other professional and financial problems. So even if you have to use an alarm clock, there are ways to improve how you use it. Some tips include:
Be consistent.Select a wake time that you can adhere to every day, even on the weekends. In setting your alarm, try to set it to the latest possible time that you can get up and still do what you need to do.
Consider a device orappthat monitors movement in sleep.These alarms may sound when they detect that you have already started to shift around. This may help you fully complete your sleep cycles. You also may wake easier than if the alarm were to sound and wake you from much deeper sleep. However, the downside to these is that being awoken during the night may worsen sleep quality.
Don’t hit the snooze button.Place the alarm clock across the room so you have to get out of bed to turn it off, and don’t return to bed once you are up.
Once you’re awake and out of bed, head straight to the shower (where you won’t fall back to sleep). If you have trouble waking in the morning, even requiring multiple alarms, this may suggest that something else is causing you to betoo sleepy.
Snooze Smarter
Sometimes, even if you sleep, you can wake up groggy. Why is this?
A Word From Verywell
The alarm clock can be a necessary part of waking in the morning but if you use it smartly, you won’t need the snooze button. If you find yourself waking up tired or unrested even after enough sleep, it’s important to discuss your concerns with your healthcare provider or to seek help from a board-certified sleep medicine physician.
6 Sources
Verywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read oureditorial processto learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.
Hirshkowitz M, Whiton K, Albert SM, et al.National Sleep Foundation’s sleep time duration recommendations: methodology and results summary.Sleep Health. 2015;1(1):40-43. doi:10.1016/j.sleh.2014.12.010
Chaput JP, Dutil C, Sampasa-Kanyinga H.Sleeping hours: What is the ideal number and how does age impact this?Nat Sci Sleep. 2018;10:421-430. doi:10.2147/NSS.S163071
Penn Medicine.How to conquer insomnia: Tips to get you sleeping again. Posted January 8, 2020.
Della Monica C, Johnsen S, Atzori G, Groeger JA, Dijk DJ.Rapid eye movement sleep, sleep continuity and slow wave sleep as predictors of cognition, mood, and subjective sleep quality in healthy men and women, aged 20-84 years.Front Psychiatry. 2018;9:255. doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2018.00255
Nesbitt AD.Delayed sleep-wake phase disorder.J Thorac Dis. 2018;10(Suppl 1):S103-S111. doi:10.21037/jtd.2018.01.11
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