10 Minutes Good; 3 Minutes Bad

As my alarm went off this morning, I realized that I had another 10 minutes until it would inform me that it was “really” time to awaken. It’s amazing what can happen in ten minutes. Ten minutes is enough time for my body to feel like it’s had additional rest. It’s enough time for my brain to start processing what I’m going to do that day. Ten minutes is enough.

In comparison, three minutes is NOT enough. For some reason, my wife has her snooze set for 3 minutes, and then continues to sleep through several three minute snooze segments. In three minutes, the body doesn't have a chance to really get back to sleep. Just as the body gets comfortable again – there it is: “WAKE UP, WAKE UP, WAKE UP!” When I asked her, in an era where we can set the length of our snooze intervals, why did she choose three minutes? Her response: “because that’s the way it was set when I got it.” Three minutes is definitely not enough.