Want to fall asleep for a few minutes in the morning? Not so bad, according to Swedish researchers, whose study shows some benefits of morning sleepiness. While for many, the alarm clock’s “snooze button” creates complicated morning times, these researchers from Stockholm University found that few studies had looked at waking up in the morning, so they conducted two studies published this Wednesday.
The first focused on the profile of snooze users and surveyed 1,732 people. “We found that in general young people use sleep and that they are night owls,” said Tina Sundelin, a sleep researcher at Stockholm University, finding this conclusion not surprising. While tiredness is the most commonly cited reason, some responded that staying in bed for a few more minutes felt like “a luxury.”
“Better performance in certain tests”
The second study focused on the effects of going back to sleep in the morning and examined 31 people in different situations: uninterrupted sleep and waking up immediately or first waking up half an hour before actually getting up.
“What’s interesting is that those who slept only slept six minutes less on average than others,” Sundelin said, concluding that they therefore mostly fell back asleep in the half hour before getting up.
They were then given cognitive tests such as math or a memory test. Despite interrupting sleep at the end of the night, no real difference was found in feelings of tiredness or in the tests. “On certain tests, they actually performed better,” the researcher adds, concluding that “the most noticeable effect (of going back to sleep early) is that it is not negative.”