healthy sleeping patterns Archives - Amazing Health Advances

New Research: Snooze Alarms Steal Hours of Sleep Each Month

The AHA! Team — Wed, 23 Jul 2025 05:08:24 +0000

Dr. Sanchari Sinha Dutta, Ph.D. via News-Medical – Why do so many people hit snooze? This global smartphone study uncovers surprising patterns and raises questions about how repeated alarms may be impacting our sleep health. Harvard Medical School researchers conducted a study on users of a sleep monitoring smartphone application to explore the prevalence and characteristics of snooze alarm use, a typical but poorly understood human behavior. The findings are published in the journal Scientific Reports. Background Sleep is a complex and dynamic physiological process for maintaining health and well-being. Internal circadian rhythms, together with time spent awake, influence the timing and duration of sleep. However, humans often subdue these biological regulatory processes for personal or professional reasons. The recommended duration of night sleep for adults ranges from 7 to 9 hours. However, over the past several decades, a trend of not meeting this recommendation has been observed in global populations, which may increase the risk of both physical and mental health complications. Although humans naturally wake after sufficient sleep, they often require assistance, such as the use of an alarm clock, to meet a desired wake time under conditions of insufficient sleep duration. The “snooze” function commonly available in alarm clocks is designed to repeatedly alert the sleeper in fixed intervals following the initial alarm. However, according to sleep experts, a sleeper should set an alarm for the last realistic wake time instead of setting a snooze alarm to get as much consolidated, uninterrupted, high-quality sleep as possible. Using a snooze alarm is a typical but poorly understood human behavior. Only a few studies have investigated the health impact of snooze alarms and reported that this practice is associated with short and poor-quality sleep and feelings of drowsiness upon waking. In the current study, researchers analyzed a large dataset to explore the prevalence and characteristics of snooze alarm use across countries, cultures, and climates. Study design The study analyzed a large pool of data from the users of a sleep monitoring smartphone application called “SleepCycle.” The database included six months of data from 21,222 app users and more than 3 million sleep sessions from users across four continents. The dataset included users who elected to use the traditional snooze feature, logged sleep sessions 50% or more of the nights in each month of the monitoring interval, used the app on an iPhone as opposed to an Android device, and consented for their data to be used in research. Study findings The analysis of sleep sessions opted by users at night revealed that more than half (specifically, 55.6%) of sessions end up with a snooze alarm. Of all users, about 45% were heavy snooze alarm users, 28% were moderate users, and 27% were light users. Compared to light and moderate users who used snooze alarm less frequently and demonstrated more consistent sleep times, heavy snooze alarm users, who used the alarm almost every day and multiple times within each day, demonstrated erratic sleep/wake times. Overall, users pressed the snooze alarm approximately 2.4 times daily and spent on average 10.8 minutes snoozing. This is equivalent to a monthly loss of nearly one 6-hour night of sleep. Heavy users chose the snooze alarm approximately 4 times daily, resulting in about 20 minutes of snoozing duration. On the other hand, light users chose the snooze alarm on average 1.2 times a day, resulting in 3 minutes of snoozing duration. The use of a snooze alarm was more frequent during weekdays (Monday to Friday) and less frequent on weekends (Saturday and Sunday). Fewer commitments on weekends among employees and students might be the reason for this less frequent use. The duration of snooze alarm use was significantly longer among women than men. The researchers suggest that this could stem from factors such as additional childcare and household duties over professional duties or an increased risk for insomnia among women, which might be the reason for women’s higher reliance on the snooze alarm. Month-to-month variations in snooze alarm use were minimal in the study population. Users in the Northern hemisphere exhibited slightly higher usage in December and less usage in September, while users in the Southern hemisphere exhibited the opposite trend. These variations might be associated with changes in seasonal sleep patterns due to factors like less access to natural light during winter months, potentially causing a delay in circadian rhythms. The frequency of snooze alarm use was also higher among long sleepers (more than 9 hours of sleep) compared to that among short sleepers (less than 7 hours of sleep) or those meeting the recommended sleep duration (7 to 9 hours of sleep). As researchers mentioned, higher snooze alarm usage observed after long sleep sessions could be indicative of hypersomnia or compensatory sleep to recover from sleep deficiency. The snooze alarm usage frequency was also higher among sleepers who went to bed later than usual compared to those who went to bed earlier. An unusual sleeping time is more common among shift workers who may have inadequate time in bed, and hence, more reliance on the snooze alarm. Furthermore, users with misaligned sleep may experience more fragmented sleep, and thus, greater reliance upon the snooze alarm. While the study provides valuable insights from a large, international dataset using objective snooze alarm data, the researchers acknowledge certain limitations. These include the sleep data being app-derived, which may overestimate actual sleep duration as it doesn’t account for time taken to fall asleep or awakenings during the night. Additionally, it was not certain if users were actually sleeping between alarms, and the sample of app users may not be fully representative of the general global population. The study also did not have information on the age of participants or self-reported feelings of grogginess upon waking. Overall study findings Overall, the study findings highlight that a higher frequency of snooze alarm use might be indicative of a poor sleep pattern and potentially part of the phenotype of poor sleep health. Given that snooze alarm use is discouraged by experts to avoid sleep fragmentation, researchers highlight the need for future investigations to understand the impact of snooze alarm use on daytime performance and overall health. They also suggest that public health messages encouraging individuals to set their alarm for the latest possible wake time, rather than relying on the snooze button, could be a viable strategy to promote better sleep habits. Journal reference: Robbins R. et al. 2025. Snooze alarm use in a global population of smartphone users. Scientific Reports. DOI:10.1038/s41598-025-99563-y, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-99563-y To read the original article click here.

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Pupil Size in Sleep Reveals How Memories are Sorted, Preserved

The AHA! Team — Fri, 28 Feb 2025 06:29:41 +0000

Cornell University via EurekAlert! – Cornell University researchers have found the pupil is key to understanding how, and when, the brain forms strong, long-lasting memories. By studying mice equipped with brain electrodes and tiny eye-tracking cameras, the researchers determined that new memories are being replayed and consolidated when the pupil is contracted during a substage of non-REM sleep. When the pupil is dilated, the process repeats for older memories. The brain’s ability to separate these two substages of sleep with a previously unknown micro-structure is what prevents “catastrophic forgetting” in which the consolidation of one memory wipes out another one. The findings could lead to better memory enhancement techniques for humans and may help computer scientists train artificial neural networks to be more efficient. The study, under embargo until 11am ET on Jan. 1 in Nature, was led by assistant professors Azahara Oliva and Antonio Fernandez-Ruiz. Over the course of a month, a group of mice was taught a variety of tasks, such as collecting water or cookie rewards in a maze. Then the mice were outfitted with brain electrodes and tiny spy cameras that hung in front of their eyes to track their pupil dynamics. One day, the mice learned a new task and when they fell asleep, the electrodes captured their neural activity, and the cameras recorded the changes to their pupils. “Non-REM sleep is when the actual memory consolidation happens, and these moments are very, very short periods of time undetectable by humans, like 100 milliseconds,” Oliva said. Non-REM sleep is when the actual memory consolidation happens “How does the brain distribute these screenings of memory that are very fast and very short throughout the overall night? And how does that separate the new knowledge coming in, in a way that it doesn’t interfere with old knowledge that we already have in our minds?” The recordings showed that the temporal structure of sleeping mice is more varied, and more akin to the sleep stages in humans, than previously thought. By interrupting the mice’s sleep at different moments and later testing how well they recalled their learned tasks, the researchers were able to parse the processes. When a mouse enters a substage of non-REM sleep, its pupil shrinks, and it’s here the recently learned tasks – i.e., the new memories – are being reactivated and consolidated while previous knowledge is not. Conversely, older memories are replayed and integrated when the pupil is dilated. “It’s like new learning, old knowledge, new learning, old knowledge, and that is fluctuating slowly throughout the sleep,” Oliva said. “We are proposing that the brain has this intermediate timescale that separates the new learning from the old knowledge.” The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Sloan Foundation, the Whitehall Foundation, the Klingenstein-Simons Fellowship Program, and the Klarman Fellowships Program. Journal Nature Article Title Sleep micro-structure organizes memory replay To read the original article click here.

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This Dietary Habit Has Monumental Impact on Your Sleep Quality

AHA Publisher — Wed, 10 Feb 2021 08:00:09 +0000

Sara Middleton via NaturalHealth365 – Should you be eating before bed? If you’ve never stopped to consider when you should close up the kitchen for the night, now might be a good time to re-evaluate your evening dietary habits. The reason? It turns out that eating food too close to bedtime has a tremendously negative impact on your sleep quality and may even increase your risk of sleep-disrupting issues like acid reflux. Eating Too Close to Bedtime Destroys Your Sleep Quality in Multiple Ways A small 2005 study published in The American Journal of Gastroenterology found that eating within 3 hours of bedtime significantly increased the risk of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). This association remained even after the researchers controlled for factors like body mass index and drinking and smoking habits. From a purely anatomical viewpoint, it makes sense that eating too close to bedtime can lead to acid reflux. Laying down horizontally allows the stomach contents to leak upwards toward the esophageal sphincter. Close-to-bedtime eating may also lead to acid reflux because the human digestive system normally slows down at night – by as much as 50%, according to the AARP – which therefore may disrupt the way food gets broken down in the stomach. In addition to increasing the risk of acid reflux, here a few other reasons why eating too close to bedtime can be detrimental to sleep quality: Consuming calories close to bedtime can stimulate wakefulness in the brain. When you eat food, insulin is released by the pancreas. This hormone – which normally helps control blood sugar levels – can also influence the sleep/wake cycle. One 2015 paper from Nutrients notes that consuming a large meal close to bed may even contribute to insulin resistance, a major driver of weight gain and diabetes. Eating and drinking too close to bed can cause fragmented sleep because it can force you to get up in the night to urinate. So, When SHOULD You Eat Before Bed? Here Are Some Helpful Guidelines to Keep in Mind As we know, poor sleep quality has been linked to a wide number of health issues including obesity, type 2 diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular disease. So, it’s worth cleaning up your evening dietary habits. But when’s a good timeframe for your last meal? Generally speaking, most experts recommend not eating within 2 to 3 hours of bedtime. In other words, if you go to bed at 10 p.m., your last meal shouldn’t be any later than 7 or 8 p.m. Are real hunger pangs keeping you awake? A small, easily digestible snack like a piece of fruit should be okay to eat – just be sure to avoid overdoing it. Of course, it’s not just when you eat but what you eat that can impact your sleep quality. According to resources like the AARP, certain foods that might disrupt sleep include: Dark chocolate and anything else containing caffeine Sugary sweetened beverages Alcohol Sweets and refined carbs On the other hand, the National Sleep Foundation notes that kiwi fruit, fatty fish, turkey, eggs, nuts, rice, tart cherry juice, and tart cherries have all been shown in studies to promote better sleep. Researchers are still learning why, but overall it’s thought that these nutrient-rich and antioxidant-rich foods support hormonal and neurochemical processes in the brain that positively influence the sleep/wake cycle. So, eat these delicious foods up! (Just not within 2 to 3 hours of bedtime.) By the way: It probably makes sense by now that the food we eat can affect sleep quality. But don’t forget – the reverse appears true, too. According to the Sleep Foundation, studies reveal that people who are sleep deprived tend to reach for less healthy food options, including simple carbs and fatty foods. It’s thought that sleep deprivation and insomnia negatively alter a person’s metabolism and hunger signaling. The bottom line: The relationship between sleep and your diet is an important one to optimize for your health – and it’s a relationship that goes both ways. If you’re feeling run down or are dealing with any sort of chronic health condition, be sure to take a hard look at both lifestyle factors to determine if and where you can make some simple improvements. Sources for this article include: NIH.gov NIH.gov NIH.gov SleepAdvisor.org SleepFoundation.org Verywellhealth.com AARP.org Diabetes.co.uk To read the original article click here. For more articles from NaturalHealth365 click here.

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