Stop pressing the snooze button now…dozing off for just 5 MINUTES can ruin your day

Whatever time your alarm goes off, it’s almost impossible to avoid hitting the snooze button straight away.

But staying in bed just that extra bit longer might actually be doing you more harm than good.

Deciding to snooze tells your brain to signal for hormones to be released which would usually send you into a deep sleep...when all you’re actually getting is a five-minute kip, according to experts at Sleep Clinic Services.

The result?

"Sleep inertia" - that groggy feeling you often get when you’ve slept in for hours.

"The start of the sleep cycle is not a good time for being jolted awake by your alarm again," experts at the Sleep Clinic Services said.

"In fact, you’ll end up feeling like you’ve had a really bad night’s sleep.

"Even though you slept like a baby.

"Not only that but when you hit the snooze button your body and brain get confused.

"After being jolted awake you’re now telling them that it’s time to go back to sleep.

"And, if this goes on for two or more snooze button hits that confusion increases."

They recommend that you set your alarm for ten minutes later than you normally would, rather than wake up to go back to sleep again.

If you interrupt your sleep towards the end of your sleep cycle (with a snooze button), that sleep inertia tends to last for up to 30 minutes as your brain tries to go through the waking up process.

But research has shown that waking up during the early or deep sleep stage can make that grogginess last for up to four hours.

In other words, hitting your snooze button repeatedly can make you feel really tired.

In order to wake up feeling refreshed and raring to go, you’ve got to get up as soon as your alarm goes off.

Snoozing - like blue-light technology, night shifts and needy kids - stops us from listening to our logical body clocks.

In an ideal world, you’d just go to sleep when you felt tired and you’d get up when you naturally woke up.

For most of us, that’s not a reality.

But setting yourself strict timings for sleeping and waking could help to set a natural rhythm.

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