Nurse reveals why hitting snooze is bad for your health… and looks

For millions of us, letting your arm flail widely as you desperately try to silence the shrill beeping of your alarm is just as much part of your morning routine as making a cup of coffee. 

But a nurse has warned that repeatedly hitting snooze is actually detrimental to your health, and is setting you up for a day of feeling fuzzy headed and fatigued. 

Posting on TikTok, US-based registered nurse Jordan Bruss told her 5,700 followers that it’s a common habit that needs to be stopped. 

She said: ‘If you’re somebody who sets multiple alarms, I have bad news for you.

‘Waking to multiple alarms every morning really disrupts your REM cycle frequently. 

‘This actually causes sleep inertia, increased drowsiness, fatigue, mood swings, and it also raises your cortisol levels every time your alarm goes off.’ 

This, she added, means that you’re starting your day putting your body under a lot of stress as the cortisol spike triggers your fight or flight response. 

‘Waking up like that multiple times in the morning is very stressful, so when that alarm goes off in the morning, get up. Don’t keep traumatising yourself,’ she said.

‘Don’t cause yourself extra physical and mental stress.’ 

One way to make it easier to get up in the morning is to make sure your bedroom is set up for better starts to the day.  

Advice shared by Bed Sava, recommends not fully closing the curtains or blinds at night so that your body received a natural cue to get up as the sun rises, and to try and go to bed and get up at the same time every day.

In her video, Ms Bruss also referenced the link between stress and obesity. 

‘Excess cortisol levels make you gain and hang on to weight,’ she said. ‘So when the alarm goes off, it’s time, get up. You’ll look and feel better.’

Cortisol is the primary stress hormone produced in your body; it keeps you alert and increases sugars in your bloodstream.

However, elevated cortisol levels lead to an increase in insulin, the fat-storing hormone. 

Cortisol is sometimes known as the stress hormone, but it plays a much more complex role in the body. 

There are receptors for the hormone on almost every part of your body, according to the Cleveland Clinic. 

When it gets released into your blood stream, it can latch onto and affect everything from your immune system to your muscles to your hair, skin and nails.

Cortisol helps control how your body uses its energy, regulates blood pressure and tells you when to be alert and when to be asleep.

It also can play a role in inflammation, which has been linked to the rise in heart attacks and strokes in ‘healthy’ younger people.

Millions of Britons are living with conditions linked to inflammation.

While obesity is the main cause of this and other chronic health problems—typically type 2 diabetes and heart disease, which also damage the body’s maintenance systems, including immunity.

Other conditions where inflammation is implicated include non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, where stored fat clogs up the liver (this affects an estimated one adult in three) and dementia, which is often a complication of heart disease and diabetes.

A major research review, published in 2016 by the American Society for Nutrition, concluded that obesity and the health problems associated with it—such as high blood pressure, raised blood sugar levels and tummy fat—have a ‘substantial impact’ on the health of the immune system and defence against disease.