All of us sleep. It’s a biological imperative. But do we all need to hit the snooze button five times when the morning alarm goes off?

Snoozing involves setting consecutive alarms, usually at about 10-minute intervals, to allow for just a few more minutes of shuteye.

Few scientific studies have measured whether using a snooze alarm is a positive or negative habit for sleepers, and there is little consensus. One thing is clear: Plenty of us do it.

In a recent Harvard University study that used smartphones to track the sleep habits of more than 21,000 adults around the world, researchers found that participants hit the snooze button an average 2.4 times before getting up.

The researchers used the Sleep Cycle app to track more than 3 million sleep sessions from participants in the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Australia and Germany. When participants logged a sleep session, they hit the snooze bar or button more than 55% of the time.

Notably, there was more snooze alarm use during the work week than on weekends.

The little research out there suggests that the answer to whether hitting ‘snooze’ is good or bad depends on why someone does it. Is it because they didn’t go to bed early enough to get seven to nine hours of rest? Or are they naturally more night owl than early bird, and 10 minutes helps them ease into the day?

Snooze alarms get a knock from some sleep specialists because if you set an alarm early so you can hit snooze multiple times, you could interfere with the most restful part of the sleep cycle.

The bottom line for snoozers: If lack of sleep is making you drag yourself out of bed, don’t just hit snooze — talk to your doctor.