A method comprises receiving a non-privileged disable interrupts instruction from a user application executing in user space, the non-privileged disable interrupts instruction having an operand with a non-zero value; determining a value in a special purpose register associated with disabling interrupts; and in response to determining that the value in the special purpose register associated with disabling interrupts is zero, disabling interrupts and placing the non-zero value of the operand in the special purpose register associated with disabling interrupts.