Do you have to stop snoozing?
Not for your health, as far as the studies show. In a 2024 laboratory study, 30 minutes of snoozing did not lower performance in habitual snoozers. See is snoozing bad for you.
Stop if snoozing makes you late, or if you do not like how your morning starts. A 2025 study of more than 3 million nights found that 55.6% of sleep sessions ended with a snooze. It is a very common habit.
How do you stop snoozing?
- Turn off Snooze on your iPhone. Open the Clock app, tap Alarms, tap the alarm, and turn off Snooze.
- Set one alarm for the latest time that you can get up. In the 2024 study, 30 minutes of snoozing cost about 6 minutes of sleep. One later alarm gives you that sleep without a break.
- Sleep 7 to 8 hours. This is the range that the US National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute gives for adults. Short sleep makes sleep inertia worse.
- Keep the same wake time each day. The institute advises a difference of no more than about one hour between weeknights and weekends.
- Put the phone out of reach. You must then stand up to stop the alarm.
- Decide the evening before what you do after you get up. A clear next step gives you a reason to stay up.
- Move for a few minutes after you get up. One small 2026 trial found faster reaction times after a 5-minute routine of breathing, limb movement and squats.
What is the evidence for each step?
| Step | Evidence | Strength |
|---|---|---|
| One later alarm | Snoozing cost about 6 minutes of sleep in 30 minutes (Sundelin 2024) | One laboratory study, 31 people |
| Enough sleep | Prior sleep loss makes sleep inertia worse (Hilditch and McHill 2019) | Review of many studies |
| Same wake time | Advice of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute | Health body guidance |
| Movement after waking | Faster reactions at 5 and 15 minutes (Beauchamps 2026) | One small, exploratory trial |
| Phone out of reach, evening plan | No study found | Common advice |
Why is it hard to stop?
You decide about the snooze button in the worst minutes of your day. Directly after waking, alertness and judgement are low. This state is sleep inertia. Many studies show that it fades in 15 to 30 minutes.
Thus the steps above move the decision to the evening, when you think clearly.
Which alarms have no snooze button?
The iPhone Clock app has none when you turn off the Snooze switch. Some alarm apps have no snooze option at all. See an alarm without a snooze button on iPhone.
Waker is an iPhone alarm app that has no snooze button. When your alarm rings, you tap “Talk to Waker” and have a voice conversation about your day. In the evening, a feature named Tonight asks what tomorrow holds, and your morning call starts with that. No study has tested if a conversation stops the snooze habit. Waker is not a very loud alarm. If you sleep through alarms because you do not hear them, a louder alarm, vibration or light is the correct tool.
Common questions
How do I turn off snooze on my iPhone?
Open the Clock app and tap Alarms. Tap the alarm that you want to change, turn off Snooze, and save the change. Apple describes the Snooze option in its support article about alarms.
Is it better to set one alarm or many?
One alarm at the latest possible time gives you unbroken sleep until that time. Many alarms have the same effect as a snooze button. See is it bad to set many alarms.
What if I turn off the alarm and go back to sleep?
Then the problem is the stop action, not the snooze button. See why you turn off your alarm in your sleep.
How long does it take to stop snoozing?
We found no study that measures this. Expect the first mornings to be the hardest, because the old habit is still strong.
Sources
- How to set and change alarms on your iPhone. Apple Support.
- Is snoozing losing? Why intermittent morning alarms are used and how they affect sleep, cognition, cortisol, and mood. Sundelin, Landry and Axelsson, Journal of Sleep Research, 2024.
- Snooze alarm use in a global population of smartphone users. Robbins and colleagues, Scientific Reports, 2025.
- Sleep inertia: current insights. Hilditch and McHill, Nature and Science of Sleep, 2019.
- Healthy Sleep Habits and How Much Sleep Is Enough. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
- Evaluate the effectiveness of cognitive stimulation and physiological dynamization on sleep inertia. Beauchamps and colleagues, Frontiers in Physiology, 2026.