Sleep deprivation is officially a thing. In September, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called sleep insufficiency a public health problem, citing concerns that our shut-eye shortage can cause car crashes, industrial disasters, and chronic diseases like diabetes, depression, and obesity.

Sleep schedules are being squeezed on both ends. That extra amount of tired will sometimes drive people into hitting that snooze button more and more: People are trying to catch up on those sweet nine-minute intervals between alarms.

Unfortunately, thanks to the start-and-stop patterns created by the snooze button, interval sleeping may actually be doing more harm than good.

Reddit user TribalDancer brought up the question, asking for experts to weigh in on Reddit’s Explain Like I’m Five community.

“I conduct research on sleep,” redditor Wingzero responded. “Hitting that snooze button and trying to get a bit more sleep does not add high quality sleep time.”

Wingzero explains that because it’s hard to know what phase of sleep you were in when you woke up, or how deep you can go in a short period of time, you’re not likely to get a lot out of your snooze:

“If you have the time to sleep later, just set your alarm later to start with. That way you don’t disrupt the quality of the sleep by waking and hitting the snooze button. Then you will be less tired the next morning when the alarm goes off. Don’t get caught in a cycle of disrupting your sleep with the snooze button, making you more tired, so that the next morning you are more likely to use the snooze button”

Robert S. Rosenberg, the medical director of Sleep Disorders Centers of Prescott Valley and Flagstaff, Arizona, agrees. In an article on CNN last year, he emphasized the importance of getting up with your alarm.

“When you hit the snooze button repeatedly, you’re doing two negative things to yourself,” he told CNN. “First, you’re fragmenting what little extra sleep you’re getting so it is of poor quality. Second, you’re starting to put yourself through a new sleep cycle that you aren’t giving yourself enough time to finish. This can result in persistent grogginess throughout the day.”

The problems go beyond just heavy eyelids. Snoozing can cause sleep inertia, which disturbs circadian rhythms, has been associated with higher body mass index, and increases the risk for diseases like diabetes.

Plus, relying on many alarms could also cause relationship hazards: