7 reasons why you're waking at 2 am every night

Are you included in the set of tons of people who keep tossing and turning throughout the night, plagued by sleep disorders that make it difficult for you to get a restful sleep. Questions like 'How many hours should one sleep?' or 'Why might a person wake up at 2 am?' become common. It's perplexing when you wake up at the same time every night recalling what happened the past night and the patterns seem to be the same. For you to have restorative sleep, these issues must be addressed.

In this blog, we'll understand the different stages of sleep, potential causes for disturbed sleep and what you can do to make your sleep hygiene better.

Understanding sleep cycles

The human body operates on a 24-hour cycle, regulating states of alertness and sleepiness, known as the circadian rhythm. This internal clock influences everything from our body temperature to our hunger levels. This is the reason why you may find yourself waking up at the same time every day, even if you didn't set an alarm for the same.

While we are sleeping at night, we progress through various stages of sleep. Each stage can be recognized with unique characteristics, each having its own set of advantages for our health. To know why might a person wake up at 2 am every night, it's important to gain a deeper understanding of the different stages so as to improve sleep quality.

The stages of sleep

Stage 1: This is a light stage of sleep which lasts for about 1-7 minutes. In this stage, you can be easily woken up. It's a transition period from wakefulness to sleep. The body is not completely relaxed but the activities in the body and brain start to slow down.

Stage 2: In this stage, your breathing and heart rate slows down, your muscles become more relaxed and your body temperature drops. You spend almost half of your sleep time in this stage.

Stage 3: Stage 3 is the hardest stage to wake yourself up from. In this, you get a deep sleep that contributes to creativity, memory and insightful thinking. It's also the stage during which your pulse and breathing rate decreases, your body repairs muscles and tissues, stimulates growth and development, boosts immune function, and builds energy for the next day.

REM Sleep: The REM (rapid-eye movement) stage usually begins about 90 minutes after you fall asleep, and is important for cognitive functions like creativity, memory and learning. It's when you have dreams. Your eyes move quickly, your heart rate and blood pressure increase. Additionally, there's an increase in your brain activity, similar to when you're awake. Throughout the night, you cycle through these stages several times, with each complete cycle lasting approximately 90 to 110 minutes.

Each of these stages are important for both your brain and body to relax, rewind and develop. Insufficient sleep, especially the lack of deep sleep and REM stages affects your thinking as well as physical health. Some pople may suffer from sleep disorders like insomnia or sleep apnea which means that they struggle to reach the deeper stages of sleep.

Potential causes of lack of proper sleep

You might often wonder, "Everyday I wake up at the same time, how is that even possible?" While that may seem surprising, there are potent reasons to answer this question:

Stress and anxiety

You might have noticed that particularly in stressful situations, you wake up at the same time be it 2am or 3 am every night. In times of stress and anxiety, the body releases stress hormones, cortisol, which increases levels of alertness. This makes it difficult to fall asleep and even if you do, the lingering effects of anxiety disrupts your natural flow of sleep which makes you feel restless.

Lifestyle habits

Your lifestyle habits, especially what you do before going to bed, majorly affect your sleep patterns. For example- consuming caffeine or alcohol can either prevent you from falling sleep or lead to premature sleeping. Similarly, having dinner right before bed can disrupt your sleep. Additionally, the blue light generated from using phones or laptops before sleeping  or a lack of physical activity could be the culprits.

Age factor

As we grow and age, our sleep patterns change and so does the structure and distribution of sleep stages. Old adults tend to sleep for fewer hours and have fragmented sleep. This is one of the major reasons why you, everyday, wake up at the same time. This can be due to a variety of reasons like being more sensitive to environmental factors, pain or the need to use the restroom.

Sleep disorders

Sleep apnea, the condition in which breathing stops and starts repeatedly and other medical conditions like thyroid, menopause, restless legs syndrome can cause you to wake up multiple times during the night. One of the most common sleep disorders is sleep maintenance insomnia, the inability to remain asleep throughout the night. These could answer your question why you feel tired the next day despite being in bed for what is considered sufficient number of hours.

Environmental factors

If your room is too hot or too cold, you're exposed to bright lights (can be blue light from screen usage) or surrounded by disruptive noises, this largely affects the quality and quantity of your sleep- leading to frequent awakenings and difficulty falling asleep.

Hormonal fluctuations

Hormones affect your bodily functions majorly, including sleep. Especially in women, menopause, menstrual cycle or pregnancy can cause physical discomfort, anxiety, excessive sweating, hot flashes leading to disrupting sleep or insomnia in certain phases of their cycle.

Feeling in stomach

In addition to these points, acid reflux, feeling too full or too hungry can also affect your sleep patterns. So, as you see, the reasons for experiencing breaks in your sleep can range from physiological to environmental and hormonal. Disruption to your internal clock can cause you to wake up every night as it determines the best time to sleep and wake up, aligning with your day-night cycle. The key is to identify your personal reason and address it to have a restful sleep throughout the night.

How to improve sleep quality

You may not believe this but waking up in the night is very common amongst a lot of people out there. However, it should be easy for you to get back to sleep without much effort. If you wake up in the middle of the night for prolonged periods and this happens at least thrice a week for three months which also starts affecting your functionality during the day, then, it's chronic insomnia. In this case, you should consult a healthcare professional.

Apart from this, majorly, your disturbed sleep patterns and your consistently finding yourself waking up in the middle of the night is due to the need for some lifestyle changes to improve your sleep quality.

Here are some steps you can take to achieve better sleep:

1. Establish a regular sleep schedule: Try to go to bed and wake up at the same time every day. This reinforces your body's sleep-wake cycle and can help you fall asleep and stay asleep throughout the night. Frequently changing your sleep timing can confuse your body and disturb your sleep.

2. Create a restful environment: Ensure your bedroom is conducive to sleep. This means a cool, dark, and quiet environment without disruptive lights or disturbing noise. Consider using earplugs, an eye mask, or a white noise machine if necessary.

3. Limit screen time: The blue light emitted by phones, tablets, computers, and TVs can interfere with the production of melatonin, a hormone that regulates sleep. Try to limit your screen time in the evening, when you're nearing the bedtime.

4. Be mindful of your eating habits: Your sleep might get disturbed or you may face difficulty falling asleep if you're either too full or too hungry. Your discomfort might keep you up. Also, avoid heavy or large meals within a couple of hours of bedtime. Avoid consuming caffeine or alcohol before bedtime as they can contribute to your waking up in the middle of the night.

5. Move your body: When you exercise regularly, you're more likely to achieve balanced sleep patterns. So, workout consistently but ensure that you don't do it too close to bedtime, as it might interfere with your sleep.

6. Manage stress:  If stress or anxiety is keeping you up at night, consider strategies to manage your stress. You can meditate or listen to sleep stories for overcoming feelings of overwhelm and for a smooth transition to sleep. Additionally, journaling or jotting down your thoughts, setting priorities and delegating tasks at work helps you organize better and stress less. However, if your anxiety keeps shooting up, it is advisable to talk to a counselor or therapist if you need more help.

Get restful sleep with Swa:aha (formerly Level SuperMind)

Sleep is interlinked to everything. From your physical health, mood, fitness to how you think and function when you're awake. This makes it utmost important to keep a track of your sleep using a sleep diary to ensure that you're getting proper rest every night.

Add Swa:aha (formerly Level SuperMind) app to your sleep hygiene which has an entire collection of 100+ sleep content ranging from sleep stories, yog nidra, sleep meditations to sleep music to help you sleep better or overcome the onset of insomnia by tackling it at the right time.

Sleep stories: From mythological stories like Ramayana and Mahabharat to midnight mysteries and travel stories, listen to sleep stories, available in Hindi and English, and sleep like a baby.

Sleep music: Access ambient sounds of jazz, nature, and space for a smooth transition into sleep.

Sleep meditation: From yog nidra by Ranveer Allahbadia to Buddhist mantras by Palga Rinpoche, combat insomia and sleep issues and enhance your rest potential to function at optimum levels during the day.

Here's a teaser of Andre's yog nidra for you:

Head over to the app to access the full content and observe the positive changes in your sleep pattern.