The phenomenon of waking up at 3 a.m. is not that rare, experts say. At the same time, it naturally attracts attention from the medical community. After all, despite the fact that waking up at 3 o’clock is not fatally dangerous, it does not cause death, it can still be harmful to health, and also signals that the human nervous system cannot relax. Aleksey Melekhin, candidate of psychological sciences, psychoanalyst, somnologist, clinical psychologist of the highest category, associate professor, told AiF.ru about why the phenomenon of waking up at 3 a.m. occurs and what it is fraught with, as well as how to deal with it .
Psychological reasons
“This phenomenon of waking up at 2-3 am is very interesting. After all, in fact, people wake up at the same time for no apparent reason. They do not understand what is happening to them and are looking for reasons. Sometimes they even go as far as mythological and mythical options for explaining the problem. In fact, nothing like that happens there - there is no need to look for any hidden meanings; even biological reasons do not always provoke such a situation,” notes Alexey Melekhin.
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Will sleeping pills help?
The medical opinion on this matter is clear: long-term use of sleeping pills is harmful to health. Many sleep aids have two unpleasant effects. The first is the formation of dependence. As a result, the patient’s sleep mechanism malfunctions and, in the absence of sleeping pills, does not work at all.
Second adverse effect: medications with sleeping pills are addictive. Because of this effect, it is necessary to regularly increase the dose of the drug. However, large doses can potentially cause the heart to slow down.
Taking medications should be limited to 2 weeks
It turns out that sleeping pills, including over-the-counter ones, should be regarded as a means of prompt assistance in some cases of insomnia. You need to drink them in a minimal dosage and not for long.
Which products are safe?
Herbal-based sleeping pills are harmless:
- motherwort;
- valerian roots;
- hawthorn.
The drug Melaxen, which enhances the synthesis of melatonin when its production is deficient, has now gained great popularity. However, you need to remember that melatonin does not give an immediate sleeping effect, but normalizes biorhythms - if going to bed occurs at the same time every day.
Sometimes insomnia is caused by a lack of the trace element magnesium in the body. Therefore, vitamins containing the element should be included in a set of measures to combat normal sleep.
Problem solving
One of the reasons why this phenomenon occurs is the problem-oriented personality type of a person. Such people, says the psychoanalyst, constantly solve various problems - just give them free rein, and they will solve them endlessly. So why do they wake up at 3 am? “The fact is that it is at 3 am that the synthesis of hormones occurs - melatonin (sleep hormone), serotonin and cortisol (stress hormone). And people who constantly solve various problems and save the world, plan and doubt, and so during the day there is an active production of these hormones, and at night it intensifies further, as a result of which they begin to have problems sleeping and they wake up,” says Alexey Melekhin.
Such people can wake up in different ways. For example, waking up can be calm, but often they are simply thrown out of sleep.
Often this problem arises against the backdrop of an important event that will happen tomorrow. “A person marks the day as important, for example, he will have an important meeting, a trip, etc. He needs to do everything and not forget anything. Psychologists even coined the term “anticipation anxiety” against this background. Against this background, the nervous system loses basic trust, begins to overestimate the day, and sensitive sleep appears,” says Melekhin.
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What is insomnia?
There are more than a hundred different sleep anomalies and disorders, they can be very diverse. In healthy people, the cause of insomnia can be a change in sleep pattern, stress, depression, anxiety, or heavy physical activity.
Insomnia can be caused by poor sleep hygiene: drinking tonic substances in the afternoon, smoking before bed, eating a large late dinner, an unventilated room, an uncomfortable bed or pillow.
Also, the reason why insomnia torments may be mental disorders or neurological diseases, diseases of internal organs, consequences of traumatic brain injury, and intoxication.
According to the course of insomnia, acute, subacute and chronic forms are distinguished. By degree of severity - mild, moderate and severe.
Insomnia is divided into three groups:
- difficulty falling asleep (most common);
- disruption of sleep maintenance;
- early final awakening, in which there is no feeling of freshness and rest.
In medicine, insomnia is considered to be a condition in which the biological rhythm of the body is disrupted and a person cannot fall asleep for a long time. Usually there are many reasons for this, which is why different doctors deal with this process.
It has been diagnosed that when there are problems with a person’s mental state, sleep disturbances often occur. Stress, depression, and frequent bad mood can cause such disorders. It can easily go away on its own, but sometimes the help of an experienced doctor is required.
Problem since childhood
The situation can also develop when a person has been exposed to it since childhood. You can ask your parents how he slept when he was little. If some similar difficulties were observed there, then they will carry over into adulthood.
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Recommendations for improving sleep
A few simple tricks for those who sleep poorly to improve the quality of their rest:
- Limit physical activity 3 hours before bedtime. This does not mean sitting and not moving. You just need to reduce active movement a little.
- Elimination of psychological stress, refusal to work on a PC. School-age children should not be forced to do their homework before bedtime. Mental stress activates the brain. It takes at least 60 minutes for the body to switch to sleep.
- Avoiding large evening meals. A full and overworked stomach will not allow you to sleep peacefully.
- Elimination of any stimulants: alcohol, coffee, tea, cigarettes. Although small doses of alcohol will allow you to fall asleep quickly, in the second half of the night the resulting ethanol processing products will interrupt your night's rest.
- Compliance with the regime and hygiene of night rest: bedtime at a strictly defined time so that the body develops the habit of falling asleep.
Refusal of daytime sleep is relevant for people who do not sleep well at night after the daytime admiral's hour. If such sleep does not reduce the quality and duration of the night, then it is useful because it increases a person’s productivity and ability to work.
What does waking up in the night look like?
It would seem that he woke up and woke up. But waking up at 3 a.m. is not always quiet and peaceful. “Pushing out of sleep is often accompanied by the discomfort of horror. A person experiences a rapid heartbeat, shortness of breath, hot and cold flashes, and he wants to move,” says Alexey Melekhin.
As the specialist notes, a fear of the night, a panic attack at night, is formed. People begin to be afraid to fall asleep. “A person is already vigilant during the day, but now he becomes vigilant at night. Some people start deceiving themselves and try to go to bed later, for example at 4 am, to protect themselves. At the same time, they do not understand that these measures lead to the fact that the nervous system suffers even more,” says the psychoanalyst.
Physiological factors
Sleep is a physiological state, and it can be interrupted due to a number of external pathogens:
- too bright lighting from a lantern or sunlight penetrating through loosely drawn curtains;
- lack of clean indoor air due to rare ventilation;
- dry air or high temperatures in the living room;
- powerful foreign sounds from outside;
- uncomfortable bed;
- pregnancy, due to a huge belly, a woman often has difficulty sleeping;
- stage of menstruation;
- eating fatty foods before going to bed to rest.
Important: If a person begins to worry about waking up at 5 o’clock in the morning, then first of all it is worth looking around and analyzing what could become a factor in interrupting sleep.
And finally, a person can often get up ahead of time if he is bothered by snoring. In this case, the quality of night's rest deteriorates not only for the patient, but also for his relatives. For this reason, a doctor's visit cannot be delayed.
How to deal with the situation?
To begin with, when it comes to the 3 am phenomenon, you should understand what exactly causes it. “If it is caused by anxious anticipation, that is, such episodes appear on the eve of important things, you need to use this option: remove the labeling of the day as responsible, you should not stick such a label of super-importance of the day on it. After all, when defining a day as very important, the nervous system goes into mobilization mode. Here you should give yourself the reasons why this day does not particularly stand out from the series of ordinary ones, and also give yourself 5 pleasant things that you can enjoy,” notes the psychoanalyst.
Article on the topic
How to overcome drowsiness? Advice from a somnologist on how much and when to sleep If the reason for awakenings lies in sensory overload or overload with problems, then it’s worth paying attention to the technique of small victories. “It’s enough to simply ask yourself at the end of the day: what am I happy with today? And thank the passing day for all this,” says Alexey Melekhin. This will relieve and calm the nervous system. If I am in constant tension that I am not doing something in time, then the quest to solve problems will continue.
Additionally, you should worry about sleep hygiene. “First, you should give up simple carbohydrates. This is exactly what we especially love at night: rolls, bread, sandwiches. Such food only shakes and mobilizes the nervous system due to the influx of energy. At the very least, you should abstain from such food 2 hours before bedtime,” says the psychoanalyst. You should also give up problem solving and planning before going to bed. “When planning begins, the nervous system goes into “Why sleep?” mode. There’s no need to sleep, we need to solve problems.” This is not worth doing. As well as cheering yourself up with caffeinated drinks and alcohol,” notes Alexey Melekhin.
If you have already woken up, but you can’t fall back to sleep, you need to get up and walk around the house. “Just don’t turn on the lights, don’t pick up gadgets and don’t start thinking hard, analyzing and scolding yourself,” says Alexey Melekhin. After all, in essence, this is just an overload indicator, like a smartphone, when it issues a warning that it has 20 percent of charge left. This is how the nervous system also shows that it is missing something before going to bed in order to relax.
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Treatment
With the question: “Why did I start waking up early, what should I do, how can I normalize my sleep?” It’s better to contact specialists. Many people try to ignore this problem for a long time or solve it on their own with the help of folk remedies or pharmaceutical drugs.
In most cases, this not only does not give the desired result, but also creates additional difficulties:
- stress increases due to prolonged unsuccessful attempts to normalize sleep;
- addiction to drugs or drugs that stimulate brain activity occurs;
- diseases that could provoke systematic early rise are not identified and treated.
Therefore, if you have ruled out physiological reasons why you began to wake up early, but nothing has changed, then it is better to immediately seek help from specialists.
In the absence of serious pathologies, a psychologist will help solve the problem, who will teach you how to fall asleep faster in the evenings and effectively cope with stress. Sometimes it may be necessary to take sedatives or antidepressants, with strict control of the duration of use and dosage.
If early awakening is accompanied by difficulties falling asleep, the use of folk remedies gives good results. A glass of warm milk with honey or a banana smoothie drunk at night will speed up falling asleep and provide the body with an additional portion of vitamins.
A decoction of hop cones, lemon balm tea, and a lavender pillow placed under your head will help you quickly immerse yourself in the arms of Morpheus.
For neurological diseases, electrosleep gives good results. Electrodes are attached to biologically active points on the patient's head, which gently stimulate them, causing deep relaxation.
A course of relaxing massage, preferably performed in the afternoon, will also be useful. Before going to bed, you can take a bath with sea salt and the addition of essential oils: cedar, lavender, peppermint, sandalwood, peppermint, neroli.
#6. Owls don't think well in the morning
Neuroscience PhD Matthew Walker says that when night owls are forced to wake up early, the brain's prefrontal cortex, which controls thought processes and logical judgment, remains dormant or "switched off."
“This is similar to a cold engine that takes time to warm up to operating temperature during an early morning start,” he writes.
According to a University of Pennsylvania study, 37% of car accidents are caused by drowsy drivers. Even a slight lack of sleep can have serious consequences.
You will join an exclusive club of highly productive people
What do Howard Schultz (CEO of Starbucks), Richard Branson (founder of Virgin Group), Anna Wintour (editor-in-chief of Vogue) and Tim Cook (CEO of Apple) have in common besides amazing business success? All these powerful people get up early in the morning. Richard Branson and Anna Wintour wake up at 5.45, and Howard Schultz and Tim Cook at 4.30.
Let's not forget about such outstanding people as Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Margaret Thatcher, Barack Obama and George W. Bush. There is a clear connection between determination and success, waking up early and achieving great results, having a plan in the morning and the ability to change the world.
#9. Owls are smarter
Psychologist Richard D. Roberts of the University of Sydney and Patrick K. Kyllonen of the Air Force Research Laboratory conducted the chronotype study. They determined the chronotypes of 420 participants and then tested their intellectual abilities.
It turned out that night owls are superior to early risers in most intellectual indicators. A particularly big difference is in memory and speed of information processing.
Another study published in the medical journal Intelligence shows that MBA students who are night owls score higher on the GMAT (General Management Aptitude Test) than their peers who rise early in the morning.
Healthier and more attractive body
Most often, I devote my morning to either an important project or health. If I'm not reading, writing, or finishing an urgent project at 5 a.m., I'm drinking a green smoothie, going for a run, or hanging upside down in gravity boots.
Morning hours are the ideal time to take care of yourself. Most people only budget a few minutes for a quick trip to the gym, or don't have time at all. But of all the things you can do at five in the morning, eating a healthy breakfast and exercising come first.
Waking up early won't be a magic solution that will automatically make you lose weight, but the trend is clear: early risers tend to exercise. And those who do them usually eat more healthily. Those who eat right tend to lose excess weight, which means they gain more confidence and feel more attractive.
Minuses
It is impossible not to mention the disadvantages. For some unknown reason, this topic is often kept silent. However, to make an informed decision, you must be aware of them.
- If you don’t follow your daily routine and go to bed late, then instead of vigor and inspiration, you will feel tired, weak and have a strong desire to lie down for an hour or two.
- It won't be easy at first. It’s rare that anyone manages to introduce the practice of getting up early into everyday life without resistance from the body. Especially if you used to be a night owl.
- In some cases, this can lead to disharmony in the family. A classic example: a wife who gets up at 5 in the morning and goes to bed at ten in the evening. In this case, the husband comes home from work, has dinner at 8-9 pm, then rests for an hour in front of the TV. And only after 22 hours is he ready for tenderness. But at this time the wife falls off her feet. She has to wake up again at five!
