How to stop hitting snooze

Snoozing is easy to explain. Half-asleep, “five more minutes” feels like a great idea, and the button is right there. Most fixes work by making that choice slightly harder, or making the first step of the morning something you do rather than something you decide.

Here are the approaches people find most useful. None of them need an app. Where Orbit Alarm helps, we say how.

Put some distance between you and the off switch

The classic trick is to put your alarm across the room. It works because you have to stand up to reach it, and standing up is most of the battle.

The catch is that people learn to walk over, switch it off and go back to bed. What works better is having to go somewhere you’d need to be anyway, like the bathroom or the kitchen, and staying there.

In Orbit Alarm: a barcode alarm only stops when you scan a code you chose, so you can put it in the bathroom rather than just across the room.

Give yourself fewer snoozes, not none

Banning snooze outright tends not to last. Allowing one or two, then no more, is easier to stick to.

In Orbit Alarm: set MAX SNOOZES per alarm, and use SHRINK SNOOZE EACH PRESS so each snooze is shorter than the last. See How snooze limits work.

Make stopping the alarm take a bit of thought

If you can switch off an alarm without really waking up, you will. A small task, like a couple of sums, means you have to be awake enough to do it.

In Orbit Alarm: choose a wake-up challenge such as maths.

Keep your wake-up time consistent

Waking at the same time on weekdays and weekends makes mornings more predictable. A reminder to go to bed can help with the other end, and our free sleep calculator suggests bedtimes that fit your wake-up time.

In Orbit Alarm: the bedtime reminder can go off a set time before your first alarm, and moves if your alarms change.

Give yourself a reason to get up

Something to look forward to or check, like the weather, the kettle or a plan for the day, makes getting up feel less like losing.

In Orbit Alarm: after you dismiss an alarm, you’ll see today’s forecast and a short daily insight.

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If you’re regularly exhausted however much you sleep, or you can’t wake up despite all this, it’s worth talking to your GP. Some sleep problems need more than a better alarm.