Article

Why Waking Up Three Times Makes Me Feel More Rested

Why does waking up multiple times before my actual alarm sometimes make mornings easier? I explored sleep inertia, snoozing research, and the psychology behind it.

3 November 202611 min read

Every school morning, I have to wake up at 5:30 AM. I'm a 15-year-old IT student attending SOŠSE Velešín in the Czech Republic, and my bus leaves at 6:00 AM. That gives me approximately 20 minutes to get dressed, prepare myself, and leave the house. It's a pretty tight schedule, but I've gotten used to it.

My biggest problem isn't necessarily waking up. When my alarm rings, I'm usually conscious enough to know what's happening. The difficult part is convincing myself to actually leave my bed, especially when it's warm and comfortable and I know I don't have to get up any earlier than 5:30.

I've tried setting earlier alarms at 5:00 and 5:15 AM, hoping that having more time in the morning would make things easier. Unsurprisingly, I usually just turned them off and went back to sleep. Eventually, though, I discovered something interesting. Instead of trying to force myself to wake up earlier, I started setting three alarms at 4:30, 5:00, and 5:30 AM. When the first two alarms rang, I would wake up completely, check the time, and consciously decide to go back to sleep. At 5:30, I'd finally get out of bed.

Strangely enough, this sometimes made waking up feel easier. I didn't necessarily feel like I had slept longer, but the experience of getting out of bed seemed less unpleasant. That made me curious about what was actually happening. Was I somehow tricking my brain into feeling more rested, or was there a scientific explanation?

Understanding Sleep Inertia

One of the first concepts I came across while researching this was sleep inertia, which describes the temporary reduction in alertness and cognitive performance immediately after waking up. It's the reason you might feel confused, sluggish, or unusually unmotivated when your alarm interrupts your sleep. Even though you're technically awake, your brain doesn't instantly transition into its fully alert state.

According to research by Tassi and Muzet published in Sleep Medicine Reviews, the intensity of sleep inertia depends on several factors, including the stage of sleep you're waking from, your previous sleep duration, and your circadian rhythm. Waking up from deep, slow-wave sleep can produce stronger sleep inertia than waking from lighter stages of sleep. This could help explain why waking up sometimes feels effortless and other times feels almost impossible, even when you've spent approximately the same amount of time in bed.

This made me wonder whether my earlier alarms were changing the way I experienced my final awakening. If I briefly woke up at 4:30 and 5:00, perhaps I was affecting the sleep stages I passed through before 5:30. It's an interesting possibility, but there's no way to confirm it without actually monitoring my sleep. Sleep cycles also aren't perfectly predictable 90-minute intervals, so setting alarms at specific times doesn't guarantee that I'll wake up during lighter sleep.

What Research Says About Snoozing

Snoozing has a pretty bad reputation. Most advice about improving sleep tells you to avoid hitting the snooze button because it supposedly disrupts your sleep and makes you more tired. However, the research I found suggests that the situation is more complicated.

A study titled Is Snoozing Losing?, published online in 2023 in the Journal of Sleep Research, investigated why people use intermittent morning alarms and how snoozing affects sleep, cognition, cortisol, and mood. The researchers first surveyed 1,732 participants about their sleeping and waking habits. They then conducted a laboratory experiment involving 31 habitual snoozers, comparing 30 minutes of snoozing with waking up immediately.

Interestingly, the researchers found that snoozing improved or did not affect performance on several cognitive tests immediately after waking. Participants lost approximately six minutes of sleep during the snoozing condition, and the researchers also observed that snoozing prevented awakenings from deep sleep in their experiment. However, they didn't find significant improvements in subjective sleepiness or mood.

These results suggest that snoozing isn't necessarily harmful in every situation. For some people who already snooze regularly, a short period of intermittent waking might make certain aspects of the transition into wakefulness easier. That doesn't mean everyone should start setting multiple alarms, though. The laboratory experiment involved only 31 participants, and the researchers were examining a relatively short snoozing period rather than deliberately interrupting an entire hour of sleep.

Other research has produced different results. A smaller laboratory study involving 10 university students found that using a snooze alarm prolonged sleep inertia compared with waking up using a single alarm. The difference between these findings is a reminder that sleep is complicated, and something that works for one person might not work for another.

Neither study directly investigated my exact routine of waking up at 4:30, 5:00, and 5:30 AM. Still, they provide some useful context for understanding why repeated awakenings might affect how alert someone feels in the morning.

The Psychological Side of Waking Up

While sleep inertia provides one possible explanation, I think the psychological side of my routine might be even more relevant.

Imagine waking up at 5:30 AM and immediately realizing that you have to leave your warm bed, get dressed, and prepare for school. There's nothing particularly enjoyable about that moment, especially when it's still completely dark outside. Now imagine waking up at 4:30 AM, checking the time, and realizing that you still have an entire hour before you actually need to get up.

That second situation feels completely different. When my first alarm rings, I know I can return to sleep without worrying about missing my bus. At 5:00, I get to experience the same feeling again, although this time I only have another 30 minutes. By the time my final alarm rings at 5:30, I've already been reminded twice that morning is approaching.

My personal theory is that these earlier awakenings make the final one feel less sudden. Instead of going directly from sleeping to having responsibilities, I get two moments where I can acknowledge the time and enjoy knowing that I don't have to get up yet. There's something surprisingly satisfying about waking up early and realizing you can go back to sleep.

Of course, this is just my interpretation of what I'm experiencing. I haven't found scientific research demonstrating that deliberately waking up early creates this particular psychological benefit. It's possible that the earlier alarms affect my sleep stages, that I'm experiencing a psychological effect, or that several factors are contributing at once. Without collecting more information, I can't really distinguish between those explanations.

Why Feeling Better Doesn't Necessarily Mean Sleeping Better

There's an important problem with my method that I initially overlooked. Even though waking up at 5:30 sometimes feels easier, that doesn't necessarily mean I'm getting better-quality sleep.

Every time an alarm wakes me up, my sleep is interrupted. Since I don't simply turn off the alarm without noticing it, but actually wake up, check the time, and consciously decide to fall asleep again, those interruptions are real. Research on sleep fragmentation suggests that repeated awakenings can affect sleep quality and daytime functioning, although the effects depend on their frequency, duration, and other factors.

This is particularly relevant because I'm 15 years old. According to recommendations from the CDC and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, teenagers between the ages of 13 and 18 should generally get between eight and ten hours of sleep per 24 hours. Sleep is important for learning, memory, concentration, emotional regulation, and overall health, which makes it especially relevant when you're spending most of your day at school.

I usually fall asleep somewhere between 9:00 and 10:00 PM. If I fall asleep at 9:30 and wake up at 5:30, that's eight hours between falling asleep and my final alarm. However, if my first alarm rings at 4:30, I've only had seven hours of uninterrupted sleep before that first awakening. I might fall asleep again afterward, but the remaining hour is broken into shorter periods.

This creates an interesting distinction between feeling rested and actually being well-rested. I might enjoy getting out of bed more after using multiple alarms, but that doesn't automatically mean I'll concentrate better during lessons or have more energy later in the day. In fact, it's entirely possible that the routine makes the first few minutes of my morning more pleasant while negatively affecting other aspects of my sleep.

Finding a Better Way to Wake Up

After looking into the research, I started thinking about whether I could achieve the same feeling without deliberately interrupting my sleep multiple times.

One possibility is using a gradual wake-up light. Instead of relying on loud alarms to repeatedly interrupt my sleep, I could use a lamp that slowly increases in brightness before my normal 5:30 alarm. Since it's usually still dark outside when I wake up, particularly during winter in the Czech Republic, this might make the transition into the morning feel less abrupt. However, the effectiveness of these devices varies, and there's no guarantee that a sunrise alarm would reproduce the effect I'm experiencing with multiple alarms.

Another possibility is simply improving my morning routine. Currently, I wake up at 5:30, get dressed, prepare my schoolbag, and then spend approximately eight minutes in the bathroom before leaving the house at 5:50. If I prepared my clothes and packed my bag the previous evening, I could make my mornings less rushed without sacrificing any additional sleep.

I've also considered whether my problem is really about waking up at all. Since I usually wake up when my alarm rings, the difficult part is leaving a comfortable bed. Perhaps placing my alarm across the room, keeping warm clothes nearby, and immediately turning on the lights would help more than changing my sleep schedule.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that waking up earlier isn't necessarily the goal. What I actually want is to make waking up at my existing time easier.

Turning My Experience Into a Small Experiment

As someone interested in IT, I like the idea of collecting data instead of relying entirely on assumptions. My experience with multiple alarms is subjective, and it's difficult to know whether the routine genuinely improves my mornings or simply makes me remember them more positively.

A simple way to investigate this would be to track my sleep and morning alertness over several weeks. I could record when I fall asleep, when I wake up, how difficult it feels to get out of bed, and how alert I feel during the first few hours of school. I'd also want to record whether I woke up naturally during the night and how many times my sleep was interrupted.

Ideally, I'd compare mornings with a single alarm against mornings when I had previously used multiple alarms. However, because deliberately interrupting sleep for an hour might reduce sleep quality, I wouldn't want to make that a regular habit just for the sake of an experiment. A safer approach would be to use my existing observations as a starting point and compare different methods of waking up that don't unnecessarily reduce my sleep.

It would also be important to keep my bedtime as consistent as possible. Otherwise, differences in how I feel might simply come from sleeping longer or shorter rather than from the alarm method itself.

Even with careful tracking, this wouldn't be a proper scientific study. There would be too many uncontrolled variables, including school stress, physical activity, bedtime differences, and my expectations about each routine. Still, it could help me understand my own habits and make more informed decisions.

Conclusion

When I first noticed that waking up three times sometimes made me feel better, I assumed there had to be a simple explanation. After researching the topic, I've realized that the answer is more complicated than I expected.

Sleep inertia could play a role, particularly if my earlier alarms affect the sleep stages I'm in before waking up for the final time. Research also suggests that short periods of snoozing aren't necessarily harmful for everyone and may even improve certain aspects of cognitive performance in habitual snoozers. At the same time, other studies have found disadvantages, and there's no convincing evidence that deliberately interrupting an entire hour of sleep is beneficial.

Personally, I still think the psychological explanation is especially interesting. There's something satisfying about waking up, checking the time, and realizing that you can return to sleep. Perhaps those moments make the final alarm feel less unpleasant because I've already mentally prepared myself for the morning. But until I have better evidence, that's just a hypothesis.

For now, I think the most sensible approach is to focus on getting enough sleep, maintaining a consistent wake-up time, and making my morning routine more comfortable. Rather than trying to trick myself into feeling rested, I'd prefer to find a routine that actually helps me feel rested throughout the day.

What started as a small observation about my alarm clock ended up introducing me to sleep inertia, sleep research, and the difference between subjective experience and measurable results. It's a good reminder that even ordinary habits can raise surprisingly interesting scientific questions.

And sometimes, understanding why something feels effective is just as interesting as discovering whether it actually works.

References

This article combines personal observations with published research. My experience is anecdotal and shouldn't be interpreted as scientific evidence or medical advice.