Many people often wake up at 3 AM, and if they are feeling anxious, they may find it difficult to fall back asleep. This phenomenon is largely attributed to the sleep cycle.
Throughout the night, individuals experience several sleep cycles. Each cycle begins with light sleep, transitioning into deeper sleep as we enter slow-wave sleep. This is followed by a more active phase known as Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep, after which one may wake up before falling back asleep.
Many people often wake up at 3 AM and have difficulty falling back asleep. (Photo: Marcos Mesa Sam Wordley/Shutterstock).
This entire process takes about four hours, meaning if you typically go to bed around 11 PM, you might find yourself wide awake around 3 AM. To avoid disrupting your sleep and staying fully alert, the best approach is to steer clear of negative thought spirals.
Research indicates that people tend to be less rational in their nighttime thoughts compared to during the day, which is why problems often seem much more daunting at 3 AM.
Professor Greg Murray, Director of the Center for Mental Health at Swinburne University of Technology in Australia, noted in a 2021 article for The Conversation that waking up at 3 AM is not a healthy habit to maintain.
According to sleep experts, the wandering thoughts that occur in the early morning are associated with stress, although not directly. Mr. Murray explains that stress does not necessarily cause us to wake up more often at night, but it does make us more aware of it.
Colin Espie, a professor of sleep medicine at the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences at the University of Oxford, states that when people wake up at night, what often comes to mind is something that happened the day before or something that will happen the next day. Therefore, “making a to-do list can help the brain actively process everything without waking you up,” he says.
According to Nature Neuroscience, short and shallow sleep leads to a buildup of a type of memory-impairing protein (beta-amyloid protein) in the brain. Over time, high levels of beta-amyloid protein can disrupt sleep. Thus, insomnia not only affects your memory the following day but also increases the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.
Previous studies have also shown that deep sleep helps to clear beta-amyloid from the brain. Lack of sleep hampers this cleansing process, worsening memory. Therefore, researchers recommend planning work, diet, exercise, and other factors to ensure uninterrupted sleep.
