Hitting the snooze button isn't helping you get more sleep

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- If you're like many people, hitting the snooze button once or twice might be part of your morning wake-up routine.

According to a sleep expert at Cleveland Clinic, all that snoozing isn't helping your body get the restorative sleep it needs.

Dr. Reena Mehra says we have different arousal thresholds during different stages of sleep.

"The latter part of our sleep cycle is comprised of rem sleep, or dream sleep. And so, if you're hitting the snooze button, then you're disrupting that rem sleep or dream sleep," Dr. Mehra said.

If we're disrupting late stage rem sleep, it can cause a "fight or flight" response, which increases our blood pressure and heartbeat.

Dr. Mehra says the short period of sleep we get in between hitting snooze, five or ten minutes at a time, is not restorative sleep.

She adds if a person feels the need to hit snooze again and again, it's an indicator that they're either not getting enough quality sleep or that they might have an underlying sleep disorder.