Blog
Stories of Sound
and Sleep:

OneClock Talks / Part One / Why

  • Jamie Kripke

OneClock founder / designer (and second-generation clockmaker) Jamie Kripke discusses the who, what, where, and why of OneClock in this multi-part video series.

Read

Go Dark

  • Vanessa Kauffman Zimmerly

Waking up to sunlight streaming in through the windows is a great pleasure, but is it worth sacrificing your health and wellbeing? When it comes to good sleep, there is beauty in darkness.

Read

Make Something Wonderful

  • Vanessa Kauffman Zimmerly

The newly presented archive of Apple founder Steve Jobs prompts a reflection on why we love the personal computer.

Read

Tis the Gift to Be Simple

  • Vanessa Kauffman Zimmerly

With unlimited access to content of all kinds, we can house a lot of ideas in our brains. How do we practice mental minimalism?

Read

OneClock Reads: The Creative Act

  • Vanessa Kauffman Zimmerly

Legendary music producer Rick Rubin’s book “The Creative Act” inspires a way of being that extends far beyond the studio.

Read

Loving and Leaving

  • Vanessa Kauffman Zimmerly

What if we told you that the best way to have good sex was by keeping your bed to yourself—by sleeping alone?

Read

We’re Listening

  • Vanessa Kauffman Zimmerly

Contemporary listening lounges draw on the jazz kissa, a 100-year-old Japanese tradition involving vinyl records, cocktails, and high-fidelity audio equipment.

Read

Midwinter Days

  • Vanessa Kauffman Zimmerly

On Finding Meaning in Winter: There’s a lot to love about winter, if you’re looking for it.

Read

Waking up to the Power of Naps

  • Vanessa Kauffman Zimmerly

There are precious few things you can do in your life that will have a greater positive impact on your health, mood, and longevity on Earth than sleep—and not all of it has to happen at night. If your energy wanes and you find yourself dreaming of nodding off soon after lunch, rest assured. You’re not the only one with sleep on the brain.

Read

Rewrap the Gift

  • Vanessa Kauffman Zimmerly

Our holiday traditions around giving and receiving are due for a redux. Here are our tips.

Read

How Do You Sleep at Night?

  • Vanessa Kauffman Zimmerly

Your chronotype determines when and how well you sleep, and much about how you feel while awake—but few people know what theirs is, or how to live in harmony with it.

Read

OneClock Reads: Super Normal

  • Vanessa Kauffman Zimmerly

In Super Normal: Sensations of the Ordinary designers Jasper Morrison and Naoto Fakasawa draw our attention to the phenomenon of everyday objects.

Read

Get Up!

  • Vanessa Kauffman Zimmerly

Tune your body and mind with some Valentine’s Day morning sex. Or, why we recommend getting down while waking up.

Read

Fitter, Happier, More Productive?

  • Vanessa Kauffman Zimmerly

The near constant use of technology in contemporary life can be overwhelming, affecting our health and relationships. Use a less-is-more approach to find physical, mental, and emotional balance in a world dominated by devices.

Read

Buy Nothing, Sleep In / Thoughts on Black Friday and Cyber Monday

  • Vanessa Kauffman Zimmerly

As the Black Friday alarm rings at its early hour, we invite you to make a new ritual of sleeping in. And then, once you wake up? Go sit and have coffee with your mom, dad, kids, neighbor, or dog. Watch the sun travel across the kitchen window. Appreciate. Connect. Make it a thing.

Read

In Your Dreams

  • Vanessa Kauffman Zimmerly

Humans spend several years dreaming, yet this phenomenon remains mysterious in both purpose and meaning.

Read

A New Way for the New Year

  • Vanessa Kauffman Zimmerly

It’s that time again! The New Year invites us to set intentions for self-improvement and change. Here’s how you can best prepare for a successful refresh.

Read

The Snooze Button is your Frenemy

  • Jamie Kripke

If you find the idea of quitting the Snooze button intimidating, look at it this way: Snoozing does not equal sleeping. Snoozing is a sad, stressful imitation of real sleep.

Read

Scaring Yourself Awake

  • Jamie Kripke

From the adrenal gland’s point of view, there’s no difference between the shock of that blaring alarm and the sight of an incoming tsunami. And why would you want to start your day like that?

Read

A Brief History of Alarm Clocks

  • Jamie Kripke

It seems clear that the need for alarm clocks will never go away. But if the 1787 version of the U.S. Constitution can be amended 27 times, can’t we evolve our alarm clocks, too?

Read

Product Before Price

  • Jamie Kripke

We set out to make exactly what we wanted, not what the market wanted. The price is what it is because that’s where the price ended up once we'd designed the clock we wanted.

Read
All Posts

The Snooze Button is your Frenemy

It’s a small mercy. Your alarm goes off in the early morning, it’s still dark outside, and you have two options: either get out of your warm bed now or enjoy just a few more minutes of lovely, lovely sleep. The Snooze button seems like it’s your friend, providing you with just a tiny bit more rest before facing eighteen hours of consciousness, right? What a pal. But the truth is, the Snooze button is not your friend.

The Snooze button is your Frenemy.

The fact is, relying on the Snooze function to “squeeze in” a little more sleep is terrible for your sleep health. There are two main reasons for this.

First, although you may indeed fall back asleep for a few minutes, the quality of that post-Snooze sleep is not great. It’s a light stage of sleep, not the deep sleep that scientists believe truly restores us.

Let’s say you need to be awake and out of bed by 7:00 A.M. in order to get to work on time. Maybe you set your alarm for 6:30 with the idea that you can ride that Snooze button for thirty minutes and thereby wake up in a more relaxed way. It’s logical, but it doesn’t work. That’s because you’re getting thirty minutes of not-so-great sleep instead of remaining in that deeper, more restorative sleep between 6:30 and 7:00. 

By hitting Snooze, in other words, you’ve willingly destroyed thirty good minutes of sleep in exchange for six five-minute bursts of crappy semi-wakefulness. Not a great deal.

The second way the Snooze button works against you is by making the waking process more stressful than it needs to be. Although nobody loves jumping out of bed the moment the alarm goes off, at least that process is straightforward and clear. Goal? Waking up. Mission? Accomplished.

By hitting the Snooze button, however, you’ve turned the act of waking into an intellectual problem: should I get up now? Why or why not? If I don’t, should I feel guilty? Using the Snooze button turns a clear-cut signal (time to wake up) into a stressful decision point (when will I wake up?)-- first thing in the morning. Not only is it an aggravating way to start your day, it’s actually tiring!

If you find the idea of quitting the Snooze button intimidating, look at it this way: Snoozing does not equal sleeping. Snoozing is a sad, stressful imitation of real sleep. It’s what carob is to chocolate, what a rec center lap pool is to the Pacific Ocean, what fat-free milk is to whipped cream: not nearly as good as the real thing. Sleep is your friend. Snooze is your Frenemy.