How many alarms should you set to wake up?

A school night usually means earlier bedtimes and setting multiple alarms.

WCCO asked several people walking through the skyway system in downtown Minneapolis how many alarms they need to wake up in the morning.

"I usually just set one," said Katie Steinmetz of Maple Grove, Minnesota.

"Usually two," said Mary Dilla of Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota.

"I set one alarm," said Phaedra Cofield of Woodbury, Minnesota, before adding that she hits snooze once or twice.

How many alarms should you set to wake up? You might not like the first answer from Dr. Andrew Stiehm, a sleep medicine physician at Allina Health.

 "Zero (alarms)," said Stiehm. "Anyone that is waking up to an alarm is sleep-deprived. They're waking up at some time that's unnatural for them."

The best-case scenario is to wake up spontaneously when your body lets you know it's well rested. People tend to do that when off from work or school.

"Generally, I do not set an alarm on the weekend," said Dilla.

"No alarm on the weekends. We're just waking up naturally," said Steinmetz.

Dr. Stiehm recognizes how difficult a no-alarm lifestyle would be for people who go to work or school in the morning. In that case, he said one alarm might be best since creating a cycle of waking up only to fall back asleep could make some people groggier. According to the Cleveland Clinic, the final hours of our sleep pattern are in rapid eye movement, or REM, sleep. Chronic snoozing would interrupt REM, an important time for brain health.

"If I wake up a little, and then go back asleep, and then wake up a little and go back to sleep, I never actually progress through that transition to alertness," said Stiehm. "You actually end up depriving yourself of deep sleep without actually getting the momentum of being awake. And you need to get some momentum of being awake."

Despite that information, people still strongly believe multiple alarms or hitting snooze helps them feel rested, and they could be right. 

"I need to feel like I'm awake, and then reset and then the next alarm is like, okay, now it's time to go," said Cofield.

Even Stiehm lives by that approach. He hits snooze twice before finally getting out of bed. 

"There are some people, though, that definitely do feel an improvement with kind of a stuttering snooze. And so, I wouldn't say it's one size fits all," said Stiehm.

When a person awakens from a deep sleep, they might deal with sleep inertia, which means they feel groggy or disoriented. It can last about 30-60 minutes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Those struggling with sleep inertia could benefit from multiple alarms or hitting snooze. 

"Having that one alarm that goes off to wake you up from deep sleep, then when you return to sleep, it's only light. And now the second time you wake up, you're waking up from light sleep," said Stiehm.

"For me, personally, I think it helps," said Dilla of having multiple alarms.

If you want to be the person who gets up after one alarm, Stiehm has a few tips.

First, put the alarm across the room. That forces you to get out of bed and engage your core, which helps you wake up. The next step might be the harder part, showing discipline to get up each day from just one alarm.

"It's like going to the gym. You just have to do it. And the first week you go to the gym, your muscles hurt, your body hurts, you're uncomfortable. But within two, three, four weeks, it's its own routine," said Stiehm.