Top sleep expert warns about dangerous impact of pressing 'enemy' snooze button on alarms

If your morning routine is anything like mine, dear reader, you will hit the snooze button at least once after your alarm drags you from the comforting clutch of the land of nod.

Though you're consigning yourself to another round of blaring noise to jolt you awake, it's worth those blissful few minutes where you doze back to sleep or just bask in the glorious environment of cosy blankets for a while before you have to get up.

There are other ways people get themselves up in the morning, with some of the denizens of LADbible Towers saying they have a complex system of six alarms so they don't have to hit the snooze button themselves.

While I might think that somewhere between the fourth and fifth alarm, it'd just be worth waking up via normal means they still prefer those few minutes more.

However, this approach is apparently a really bad idea according to a top sleep expert, who says the snooze button is the 'enemy'.

No! Don't touch that snooze button! It's the enemy! (Getty Stock Photo)

Dr Lindsay Browning was speaking on the Who We Are Now podcast with Richard Hammond and his daughter Izzy when she explained what you ought to be doing.

She said: "Snooze is the enemy. We should never snooze. Never press snooze.

"Because you're just wrecking your sleep quality, what's the point?

"If you need to be up at 7.30 don't set your alarm for 7 and then press snooze three or four times.

"Because of course, that sleep between 7 and 7.30 is rubbish.

"You can get apps, things to monitor you when your asleep and track were you are to see whether your in a deeper sleep or light sleep.

That sleep you're getting between all of the snoozes is just not good at all. (Getty Stock Photo)

"It can try and guess if you're gong to be in deep sleep when your alarm goes off and think well I'm not going to wake you in a deep sleep because you might feel groggy so I'm going to wake you up a bit earlier.

"I'm not generally a fan of those kind of things, because you're just missing out on sleep. I'd rather get an additional half an hours sleep and yes, I wake up from groggy deep sleep but at least I've had some more sleep."

As much as you might like being nestled in that sweet spot between dreamland and the real world, the time you spend flitting back and forth between those states of being is terrible quality sleep.

So there you have it, next time you're going to set an alarm try the revolutionary concept of getting up when it goes off.

I know it's difficult but perhaps you could give it a try. I probably won't, I'll still be hitting my snooze button tomorrow morning.