Have you dealt with the snooze button that is in the iPhone's alarm clock? Certainly you pressed it more than once to give yourself a simple nap before waking up, did you know that this button has been set to provide you with only nine minutes at a snooze time, and the strange thing is that you cannot change these nine Minutes, so why is the snooze set to exactly 9 minutes?


Alarm start

Before we get to the topic, let's take a quick tour of the origins of the alarm clock and how it appeared. Beginning in the fourth century B.C., the Greek philosopher Plato had a water-based alarm clock that would wake him and his students in order to start lectures at dawn.

We go back in time for a few hundred years, around the year 725 AD, when Buddhist monk Yi Xing invented another water-based instrument equipped with bells that sounded at a specific time.

snooze button

Then mechanical clocks appeared around the fourteenth century as we know them today, clock towers in city squares chime in the morning to wake people up, and with the Industrial Revolution, some factories blew a whistle to wake up workers in the morning.

Jumping to the 4s, Levi Hutchins is said to be the first man to create a personal alarm clock, which can only be set at 1876 a.m., which is the time that Hutchins considers appropriate to wake up. After that, the first American patent was registered for an alarm clock that could be set according to the time you want by Seth Thomas in the year XNUMX.


When was the snooze button invented?

In the mid-XNUMXs, the first bedside alarm clock with a snooze button was launched. This alarm clock was marketed as the most humane in the world and a new type of alarm that wakes you up and lets you snooze in order to wake you up again.

After that, Rival Westclox added the sleep button, which gives the user a snooze period, and since then the snooze button and the nine-minute period that a person allows to fall asleep again has proliferated.


Why was the nap set to nine minutes

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When you hit the snooze button on the alarm, it will give you nine minutes, not five or ten minutes, and there are two reasons, the first: Due to the nature of the mechanical watch installation and due to the fact that the clock gears operate uniformly in revolutions of up to ten minutes and when adding a gear for the snooze button and without any problem with the harmony of the rest of the gears, the companies decided that the snooze button should have a duration of less than 10 minutes or Then it was decided that the nine minutes is the standard used and fixed by all companies.

As for the reason The second: It explains to us that the ten minutes period may be long, and this may make your body return to sleep deeply and waking up at that time will be difficult. The nine minutes is the most appropriate time because it allows for a short rest period.


Why is there still nine minutes

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In a fully programmable digital age, the snooze button is set by default and in many cases it cannot be changed as the nine-minute duration has become a fixed standard reminiscent of nostalgia when the snooze button was discovered at the time.

And on the iPhone operating system from Apple and Alexa from Amazon, you will find the snooze button on those devices that provides you with a fixed default standard of nine minutes, while on Android phones you will find segmented snooze periods of five minutes or ten minutes specified by the user.


Stats for the snooze button

A recent poll of nearly 20 people found that nearly 50% admitted to pressing the snooze button at least once in the morning, and 15% of them turned off their alarms three or more times.

The survey indicated that the age group under 30 years is the most pressing the snooze button several times to sleep, and another similar study found that 58% of people under the age of 35 years used the snooze button at least once when the alarm went off.


Is the snooze button good for you

Professor Matthew Walker, a neuroscientist and director of the Center for Human Sleep Sciences at the University of California, said that when we are artificially brought out of sleep by the stimulus, it causes a rush of activity from the sympathetic nervous system (the fight-or-flight response, which is a reaction that occurs as a result of the presence of a threat or Attack on the person)

Which causes high blood pressure and acceleration of the heartbeat, and repeating the process by pressing the snooze button exposes the cardiovascular system to a shock, and this ultimately weakens the heart and the nervous system. The nap can also negatively affect the hormonal level by increasing the level of cortisol in the body, which is the hormone that It is released when feeling stressed.

Sleep expert Neil Robinson explains, "By sleeping for those extra minutes, we're preparing our bodies for another sleep cycle, which is quickly interrupted - leaving us feeling exhausted for the rest of the day that lies ahead."


Alternatives to better health

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In the end, you need to stop pressing the snooze button in the alarm and if you are asking about alternatives, I can tell you some of them, such as wearable devices such as the Apple smart watch that recognize your sleep habits and wake you up gently in the morning, or rely on the phone alarm but choose a calm and private tone If the volume increases gradually or you can sleep early and you will wake up early and if the alarm is required, it is best to place it in a remote place in the room so that it is not easy for you to press the snooze button.

Do you use the snooze button or wake up instantly, tell us in the comments

Source:

mashable

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