Music has the power to transport us to a place and time in our lives that we have long forgotten. As many caregivers have seen, the same can be true of someone 31 Alzheimer’s or dementia. A research team from the Boston University Alzheimer’s Disease Center, 32 by Andrew Budson, associate director for research at the center, believes there are two theories to explain the effects of music 33 people with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. First, he believes that because music has emotional content it can trigger emotional memories, which he says are “some of the more powerful memories that we have.” Another 34 music can be so transformative to people with Alzheimer’s, is that when we learn music, we store the knowledge as procedural memory. Procedural memory is associated with routines and repetitive activities. As dementia progresses, episodic memory is destroyed but procedural memory is largely left intact. 35 more research needs to be done to determine the exact relationship between music and memory, lead author of the study, Nicholas Simmons-Stern said he does know that: Every patient could benefit from having more music in their lives.

   When you wake up in the morning to the sound of your alarm after a less than satisfactory night’s sleep, it can be all too enticing to press the snooze button and stay in bed for a few extra minutes. However, by hitting the snooze button, you are interfering with your body’s natural waking mechanisms which set you up for exhaustion during the day.

   Experts from Sleep Clinic Services have explained why you should refrain from pushing the snooze button. As most snooze buttons are set to last around 9 minutes, that amount of time isn’t enough for you to complete a full sleep cycle. Therefore, your alarm ends up jolting you back to wakefulness while you’re still transitioning between sleep stages. As a result, when you finally get out of bed, you experience what scientists call “sleep inertia.”

    usually only lasts for around 15 to 30 minutes as your mind and body gradually become more alert. However, according to research, it can take up to an hour and a half to shake off sleep-inertia grogginess. Besides grogginess, your memory, judgment, and reaction time are all affected. That spells trouble for all those sleepy commuters who get on the road shortly after waking up.

   Despite its popularity, snoozing creates a vicious cycle. The more you make a habit out of hitting snooze, the likelier you are to confuse your brain and your internal body clock. You want your brain to learn a conditioned response to your alarm – when the alarm goes off, it’s time for your brain to wake you up. However, if you keep snoozing, you prevent this response from ever developing, thus defeating the purpose of the alarm.

   To stop snoozing once and for all, Mel Robbins, creator of the 5-Second Rule, shares her formula for meeting a goal, such as getting out of bed. She recommends that you must physically move within five seconds or your brain will kill the idea. For example, your alarm goes off, and you tell yourself to get up. Instead of hitting snooze, you count backward from five and then get up. It sounds simple, but it works.