AP Seminar EOC A Snoozers

From “Snoozers Are, in Fact, Losers” by Maria Konnikova (The New Yorker, December 10, 2013)

On a typical workday morning, if you’re like most people, you don’t wake up naturally. Instead, the ring of an alarm clock probably jerks you out of sleep. Depending on when you went to bed, what day of the week it is, and how deeply you were sleeping, you may not understand where you are, or why there’s an infernal chiming sound. Then you throw out your arm and hit the snooze button, silencing the noise for at least a few moments. Just another couple of minutes, you think. Then maybe a few minutes more.

It may seem like you’re giving yourself a few extra minutes to collect your thoughts. But what you’re actually doing is making the wake-up process more difficult and drawn out. If you manage to drift off again, you are likely plunging your brain back into the beginning of the sleep cycle, which is the worst point to be woken up—and the harder we feel it is for us to wake up, the worse we think we’ve slept.

One of the consequences of waking up suddenly, and too early, is a phenomenon called sleep inertia. First named in 1976, sleep inertia refers to that period between waking and being fully awake when you feel groggy. The more abruptly you are awakened, the more severe the sleep inertia. While we may feel that we wake up quickly enough, transitioning easily between sleep mode and awake mode, the process is in reality far more gradual.

Our brain-stem arousal systems (the parts of the brain responsible for basic physiological functioning) are activated almost instantly. But our cortical regions, especially the prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain involved in decision-making and self-control), take longer to come on board.

In those early waking minutes, our memory, reaction time, ability to perform basic mathematical tasks, and alertness and attention all suffer. Even simple tasks, like finding and turning on the light switch, become far more complicated. As a result, our decisions are neither rational nor optimal. In fact, according to neuroscientist Kenneth Wright, “Cognition is best several hours prior to habitual sleep time, and worst near habitual wake time.”

Other research has found that sleep inertia can last two hours or longer. In one study, participants said they felt awake after about forty minutes, but their cognitive faculties didn’t fully recover for several hours. Eating breakfast, showering, or turning on bright lights didn’t make a difference.

When we do wake up naturally—on a relaxed weekend morning, for example—we do so mainly because of two factors: the amount of external light and the setting of our internal body clock, or circadian rhythm. The mismatch between one’s actual, socially mandated wake-up time and one’s natural, biologically optimal wake-up time is what chronobiologist Till Roenneberg calls social jetlag. His research shows that nearly one-third of people experience extreme social jetlag, with an average difference of more than two hours between their natural waking time and their socially required one.

Roenneberg and psychologist Marc Wittmann have found that chronic mismatch between biological and social sleep times comes at a high cost: use of alcohol, cigarettes, and caffeine increases, and each hour of social jetlag correlates with a roughly thirty-three percent greater chance of obesity. Poor sleep timing also contributes to higher rates of cancer, heart conditions, metabolic syndrome, and diabetes, especially among night-shift workers. Another study found that sleep timing, more than length or quality, predicted student performance in medical school.

Fortunately, the effects of sleep inertia and social jetlag seem to be reversible. When Wright asked a group of young adults to spend a week camping without artificial light or alarm clocks, their melatonin rhythms shifted to align with sunset and sunrise. As a result, they fell asleep more easily and woke more alert.

Wright concluded that much of our early morning grogginess is the result of displaced melatonin—under modern conditions, the hormone lingers two hours after waking, rather than dissipating while we’re still asleep. Synchronizing sleep with natural light patterns, he suggests, could dramatically improve alertness.

As poet Theodore Roethke once wrote, “I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.” Taking our waking slow, without the jar of an alarm and in step with light and biology, may be our best defense against a sluggish, half-awake mind.