This is why the snooze button is better than its reputation

Every minute counts early in the morning! Especially those that you can stay in bed longer. Fortunately, there's the snooze button for that, but unfortunately it has a bad reputation. High time to change that.

When my mobile phone alarm rings in the morning, the orange "snooze" button on my display shines like a rising sun into the dark bedroom. I blink and gently nudge her. Nine minutes later, the whole thing starts all over again. I press it again – and a little before the day. I get up six sunrises later (in minutes: 54).

Never google snooze

In order to enjoy the snooze mode, you not only have to ignore the alarm clock, but also alarming headlines like these: "Snoozing harms – the snooze button is so dangerous" ("Geo") or "That's why you should never use the snooze button on the alarm clock" Brigitte "). What you can learn from all of these articles: You should never google snooze. Instead: just try it out.

My friend is also a great snoozer. He and I have now developed a rested system: We set our alarm clocks with a five-minute delay. The result: every few minutes in the morning there is a tinkling on one side of the bed, as if a herd of cows with bells around their necks were crossing our bedroom in stop-and-go traffic. With this we automatically bypass what all sleep experts urgently warn against: that when you snooze you fall back into deep sleep and the next time you ring the bell you will be even more tired than before.

I almost always doze off into the day – and neither feel groggy nor exhausted. Why also? I'm in an extremely good position for this morning exercise: in my bed, with a few extra minutes in which I don't have to do anything. While high potentials are already jogging at five o'clock in the morning thinking about how they can take over the world, I'm still slumbering to myself. In my head: yawning emptiness. Should give people who meditate for years in order to eventually reach such a state of mind – I briefly tap on my cell phone and turn around again. And then I feel totally connected again with the infinite softness of my pillow.

Is snooze bashing justified?

This popular way of delaying getting up started with me when I was in elementary school. I didn't have an alarm clock myself, but I did have an alarm function that children often use: my mom. She yelled into my room every five minutes that I "really had to get up". Which I only did when, on the sixth attempt, she also tore off the covers. This form of snoozing didn't hurt me either, I had neither concentration problems nor learning difficulties.

I really don't understand what's wrong with that. Basically, snoozing is like a lot of power naps in a row. With the difference that the little daytime naps have an enviable image: relaxing! Performance enhancing! Absolutely do! The sleep mode, on the other hand, is unhealthy! Harmful! Hands off! Bashing is on my side.

The invention of the snooze button was a bright idea. In the 1950s, a wide-awake head turned to the clockwork and built in a function that allows us to relax and turn around when the alarm goes off – without the risk of "shit, overslept". Even the time span is not chosen at random. Back then, you got the maximum amount of time to doze. Because the snooze button was linked to the minute hand in the alarm clock housing. It was therefore technically only possible to set a new alarm for a number of minutes below ten. So: nine. But over the years and digitalization, most alarm clocks disappeared from the bedside tables – and with them the raised snooze button. At least she was allowed to keep the name and interval, the rest only appears to many as a button on the mobile phone display. It's a shame, isn't it?

I don't want to exert any pressure, but if you are one of the quick jumpers, feel your way slowly towards the snooze mode. It's like running up for the day. Athletes do not jump from a standing position when doing long jump.

MARLENE KOHRING stays there longer in the morning, but is always the first in the editorial office. How does she do it