Many factors can cause a person to wake up often at night. Needing to urinate is a common reason, but sleep apnea, overheating, and dietary habits are just a few of the others. However, regularly waking up in the middle of the night can become problematic, as it interrupts sleep.
From the common cold to lung disease, many health conditions can interrupt sleep. Anything from bad heartburn to an itchy rash could jolt you awake from even the deepest sleep. However, in some cases, waking up at night could be a symptom of a serious sleep disorder: Sleep apnea.
A room that is too cold, too hot, or too humid may cause frequent awakenings. Most doctors recommend keeping the thermostat set between 60-67 °F to get good sleep. The bedroom should be completely dark. Using room-darkening shades or curtains may help.
The circadian rhythm is our body's internal clock that regulates sleep-wake cycles. Factors such as decreased melatonin production and increased sensitivity to external stimuli can contribute to waking up around 3 am.
Reasons this might happen include drinking caffeine or alcohol late in the day, a poor sleep environment, a sleep disorder, or another health condition. When you can't get back to sleep quickly, you won't get enough quality sleep to keep you refreshed and healthy.
Stress, anxiety or depression
A particularly stressful day can lead to intrusive thoughts in the middle of the night — maybe they come in the form of a nightmare that jolts you up at 3 a.m. In more serious cases, some people even experience sleep paralysis. Anxiety can also make it difficult to sleep through the night.
One study demonstrated a stronger correlation between interrupted sleep and a decreased positive mood compared to reduced total hours of continuous sleep. View Source . In addition, These issues were compounded with consecutive days of interrupted sleep, suggesting that the effect can accumulate over time.
Middle insomnia describes a difficulty maintaining sleep after initial sleep onset. For these individuals, sleep is fragmented with frequent awakenings at night. Middle insomnia is commonly associated with neurological syndromes (e.g., RLS), pain syndromes, or depression.
A National Institutes of Health study that found no statistical differences among gender in average frequency of awakenings. However, they did find that older individuals commonly awoke more frequently. In fact, the average number of awakenings hovers around six times per night.
Nighttime (nocturnal) panic attacks can occur with no obvious trigger and awaken you from sleep. As with a daytime panic attack, you may experience sweating, rapid heart rate, trembling, shortness of breath, heavy breathing (hyperventilation), flushing or chills, and a sense of impending doom.
Paradoxically, experts say to get out of bed. Yes, even at 3 a.m. “Abandon the idea of getting back to sleep,” Troxel said. “When you do that, when you let the pressure go that sleep isn't so effortful, sleep is more likely to come back.”
One study. View Source of older adults with insomnia found that magnesium supplementation at a dose of 500 milligrams daily for eight weeks helped them fall asleep fast, stay asleep longer, reduced nighttime awakenings, and increased their levels of naturally circulating melatonin.
Sleep-onset insomnia: This means you have trouble getting to sleep. Sleep-maintenance insomnia: This happens when you have trouble staying asleep through the night or wake up too early. Mixed insomnia: With this type of insomnia, you have trouble both falling asleep and staying asleep through the night.
Now, he makes an effort to sleep at least six hours per night, he said in an interview with CNBC's David Faber on Tuesday. “I've tried [to sleep] less, but ... even though I'm awake more hours, I get less done,” Musk said. “And the brain pain level is bad if I get less than six hours [of sleep per night].”
If you have depression , daily stresses—such as financial worries, an argument with your spouse, or a jam-packed evening commute—could also lead to more nighttime wake-ups and more trouble getting back to sleep than someone without depression would experience.
Stress can make it hard to get to sleep in the first place (that's called sleep-onset insomnia). But anxiety can also cause you to wake up in the middle of the night and have trouble getting back to sleep (called middle insomnia, or sleep-maintenance insomnia).
Waking Between 3:00AM And 5:00AM
Waking up between 3am and 5am is associated with the energy meridian that runs through the lungs and is connected to the emotion of sadness. Sometimes in the middle age range of our lives, we can feel a quiet and seemingly unexplained sadness.
Disturbed sleep is common and results from various causes like stress, health conditions, and medications. The hormones melatonin and cortisol regulate our sleep cycle. The rising cortisol levels around 3 AM or 4 AM with emotional sorting by the brain are probable causes why you wake up around the same time every day.