How to stop hitting the snooze button! Don’t you want in on this how-to? Two years ago the snooze button and I were really (like, really really) close friends. Like many people, I fell into the trap — “If I have a few more minutes of sleep I’ll feel rested and awake, I’ll just hit the snooze”. I repeated that bit about five times each morning as I continued to hit the snooze over and over. I usually didn’t even realize how many times I hit the snooze, it became a habit. Not the good kind.
The unfortunate part is, the nine extra minutes of “sleep” the snooze button gave me never really made me more rested and it definitely didn’t make me feel more awake. After hitting snooze several times, I didn’t feel better at all. And most days I felt worse. I was groggy, foggy, and I was annoyed with myself for spending 45 minutes hitting the snooze — neither sleeping well or getting my day started.
Ditching my snooze button habit might have been the hardest part of transforming myself into a morning person. Once I learned how to stop hitting the snooze button I started to make the morning a productive time instead of a dreaded and frustrating time, and I also started to feel better in the morning. Through that experimenting, I found several strategies that help me get up and stay up when my alarm goes off in the morning.
If you’re frustrated with your snooze addiction, you are not alone! Give these tips a try!
How to stop hitting the snooze button
How to stop snoozing, you wonder? I’ve compiled a list of several things that can help you. Test them out and see what works best for you or incorporate all of them for some snooze-fighter superpower.
Define your why
I truly think defining your why is the single most important thing to help you wake up early. Our brains are so incredibly powerful and can help us do amazing things or quickly put us in a rut.
I wrote a post about why defining your why is so important and motivating.
“If you’re struggling to wake up consistently every morning chances are you haven’t truly identified a good enough reason to put in the effort (pain?) to set your alarm and make 5am (or whatever time is early for you) a thing. I totally get it. It took me a while to figure out what kept me from hitting snooze and climbing back into bed.
Read the full post here…
For me it’s a combination of things — I feel better when I wake up early, I get time for myself, I don’t have a chaotic start to the morning, and, most importantly, I can be present with my favorite people after work if I put in the work before work.”
Say your intention out loud
If I want to wake up at 5:00am and skip hitting the snooze button. I say it! Out loud. At night and in the morning. Several times.
Seriously.
It felt silly at first, but saying my intention out loud before I go to bed and truly believing it, then saying the same thing come morning and truly believing it, is key to how I stopped hitting the snooze button.
Truly believing that you will wake up at 5:00am, turn off your alarm, and get your day started is the most important part — and it might also be the hardest part because the best way to believe that you’re going to wake up is to prove it. It’s kind of a chicken or the egg situation so you just have to decide that you’re capable. And trust me, you are. Think about it this way — eventually (snooze or no snooze) you wake up every morning, right? So you already know you can do it, you just need to train yourself to do it after the very first alarm.
Even weirder? Sometimes when I’m saying my intention I even shake my head and smile a big toothy grin to mimic the feeling of pride that I will feel when I actually complete that early morning wake up and honor the commitment I made to myself.
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Get a sunrise alarm clock
Long story short, I once took a work trip to Las Vegas and stayed in a swanky hotel room. The blinds in my hotel room could be programmed to open a little before my alarm went off. It was the most delightful way to wake up and I have been searching for a way to mimic it (even in the dark Michigan winters) ever since. We got a sunrise alarm clock by Hatch and I will never go back. It 100% helps me not hit the snooze.
I wrote an entire review on my Hatch Restore alarm clock that’s worth a read if you want to dig into all of the details and benefits of this alarm.
Keep your alarm clock away from your bed
GAME CHANGER ALERT. Instead of sleeping with my alarm clock right next to my bed, I moved it across the room. My Hatch Restore is on a dresser away from my bed and my phone (which has an alarm just in case that I turn off before it goes off most days) is in a different room entirely so I have to physically get out of bed to turn my alarm off.
The act of getting out of bed usually feels a little painful to me in the moment, but I’ve realized that getting out of the covers is the hardest part for me! So when I move my alarm out of reach, I’m forced to get out of the covers and I’m 75% of the way there to officially be up for the day.
Set your alarm for when you actually want to get up
You might be thinking, “but I’m so tired, that’s why I hit the snooze. Isn’t sleep important?” Yes, sleep is so very important. I’m not sure about you, but when I don’t sleep enough, especially several days in a row, my body starts to shut down — I’m easily annoy, exhausted, and less focused. But snooze button sleep is not the sleep any of us need.
If sleep is what you’re after, get to bed earlier and/or set your alarm later. On most days, I go to bed between 9pm – 9:30pm get up at 5am. But on days when I go to bed late, I wake up later. I set my alarm for 5am because chances are I’ll be too tired to get up or I’ll set myself up for a meh day because I’m so tired. If you really aren’t going to wake up at 5am when the alarm goes off and you’re just going to hit the snooze over and over, set your alarm later so there’s no time to hit the snooze and just get up. You’ll get much better sleep than the 9 minute intervals your snooze button provides.
Now you know how to stop hitting the snooze button
But you still have to do it!
If I reflect on the days that I have a hard time waking up, it’s because I don’t stay disciplined to working through this list. Some of them might feel silly at first, but I promise they are helpful. I’m not saying you have to do all of these to make it work — just try a few of these (and maybe a few of your own) and keep layering and ditching them until you find what works best for you.
Really Great Advice! I randomly stumbled upon this article because this is my New Years resolution. Your advice was different from other things I’ve read. I love the one about say you’re intention out loud. have a happy new year!
Thank you so much for the note, Sheeba! I’m glad it was helpful. Best of luck with your snooze button adventure!