Why do I wake up at 3 am every night?

(CNN) — Now, after waking up from a once peaceful sleep, you turn to the clock and find that it is 3 am and the same time you woke up last night. And the night before.

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If this sounds familiar, it’s because many people do nighttime vigils. Waking up multiple times during the night is a natural phenomenon that is often caused by sleep architecture, which is the stages of sleep you go through each day.

This awareness usually lasts only a few seconds to a few minutes; If they happen too frequently at night or disrupt falling back to sleep, it may be a problem. Here’s what the experts say can help.

Why do you wake up early in the morning?

Sleep architecture refers to the four stages of sleep that people go through at intervals of about 90 to 120 minutes each night, says Dr. Brandon Peters-Matthews said.

This cycle begins with light sleep that transitions to deep sleep and then deep sleep that occurs in stage three, often called “slow wave sleep,” Peters-Matthews said. During stage four, which is called rapid eye movement (REM). ) known as sleep, brain activity increases to a level that roughly matches normal waking activity; it’s after this stage that people often wake up naturally, he said, and once they fall asleep, the cycle begins again. is

“Because we go to sleep at about the same time every night, and these cycles are about the same length, we can wake up at about the same time throughout the night,” Peters-Matthews said. Most of these awakenings will be brief and forgettable, but “there may be one or two cycles during the night where we wake up, look at the clock, and become aware of the time.”

Director of the Cleveland Clinic’s Behavioral Sleep Medicine Program, Dr. Waking up several times during the night is generally not harmful to your health, as long as you fall asleep within about five to 10 minutes, said Michel Drerup.

On the other hand, when people wake up multiple times an hour, it can disrupt the sleep cycle and prevent a person from getting deep sleep, Drerup said. This frequent awakening could be a sign of a sleep disorder such as sleep apnea or nocturia, he added.

When people wake up naturally at night, they are more likely to remember what happened during the second half of the night. While people typically have longer REM stages, light sleep, the earlier part of the night has longer stages of deep sleep.

“People will say, ‘Oh, I sleep very deeply for four hours. And then I feel like I’m more awake. And that’s also very normal based on our sleep architecture,'” Drerup said.

A person’s emotional reaction to waking can often cause challenges, Peters-Matthews said, and if a person’s reaction triggers prolonged wakefulness, they can develop secondary insomnia.

Neurologist Dr. Virginia Mason Franciscan Health in Seattle. According to Brandon Peters-Matthews, a person’s emotional reaction to waking up at night can affect the quality of sleep. (Credit: Cavan Images/Getty Images/File)

“If someone wakes up at night and the first thing they do is look at the alarm clock and see what time it is, it’s something that makes them feel frustrated or upset or anxious because they’re anticipating the next day, that’s a reaction. Which is problematic,” said.

Night owl or early riser

A sleep medicine physician at University of Michigan Health, neurologist Dr. A person’s circadian rhythm, or internal 24-hour biological clock, may also be at play, Kathy Goldstein said.

Your circadian rhythm tells the body when it’s time to sleep, and it tends to align with your past sleep-wake cycles and light exposure during the day. If this rhythm is disrupted, or the sleep-wake cycle is altered too much, the body doesn’t have a clear idea of ​​when to get deep, high-quality sleep, said Goldstein, who is also a professor of neurology. Sleep Disorders Center at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

“The circadian rhythm is our internal biological clock, it measures when we’re awake and when we’re asleep; it controls most of our physiological processes, so our bodies do what they need to do at the right time of day,” Goldstein said. . .

Circadian rhythms and sleep architecture change with age, which may explain why someone feels like they slept more deeply when they were younger. As people age, they spend more time in the lighter stages of sleep, he added.

These cycles are instinctive and can turn someone into a night owl or early bird, Goldstein said, and can make it difficult to follow a work schedule that doesn’t align with one’s biological cycle, resulting in lethargy.

Often, even if a person wakes up early to go to work, falling asleep at a time that allows them to get enough sleep can be a challenge. What’s more, many night owls also tend to stay up late on the weekends, which can cause sleepiness known as “social jet lag” and disrupt circadian rhythms, possibly causing less deep sleep and leading to more wakefulness. is, Goldstein said. But there are ways to get around your internal clock.

What to do if you can’t go back to sleep

Going to bed and waking up at the same time every day, in addition to exposing yourself to natural light throughout the day and dimming artificial lights at night, will help stabilize your circadian amplitude, cycle peaks and troughs, Goldstein said, resulting in more restful sleep.

Taking very small doses of melatonin, no more than half a milligram, a few hours before a person naturally falls asleep may also be helpful, which can help advance the biological clock, he added.

The most important thing you can do when you wake up in the middle of the night is to resist looking at the clock, Peters-Matthews said. “If the alarm doesn’t go off, it’s not time to wake up. It doesn’t matter what time it is. You can roll over, get comfortable and go back to sleep.”

If you don’t fall back asleep within 15 minutes, it’s best to get out of bed to avoid associating waking with your bed, Drerup said. She recommends doing a calming activity that helps you fall back to sleep, such as meditation or listening to music.

“Our brains are very associative and can be easily conditioned so that if we stay in bed and stay awake for a long time, our brains start to associate with waking activities, like worrying and doing all kinds of activities. There There’s a lot. Things as well as sleep, so getting out of bed breaks that connection,” Drerup said.

It’s also important to make sure the awakening isn’t caused by something outside, such as a disturbance from your sleep partner, Peters-Matthews said. “Optimizing the sleep environment is important. … Sometimes that means leaving pets out of the bedroom and optimizing the sound, light and temperature of the bedroom environment.”

But if the awakening occurs naturally due to sleep architecture and doesn’t affect functioning the next day, there’s nothing to worry about, Goldstein said.