I keep waking up too early. Is this pathological?

December 5, 2014 9:43 PM

Over the past six months, I've got into this consistent habit of waking up much too early. Like from 4 to 5am. That would be fine except I go to bed around 12 or 1. Is this a big problem?

It happens even -- or especially -- if it's the night before I have something I need extra sleep for, like giving a presentation. It happens even if I'm super tired from the previous night. What usually happens is I struggle to go back to sleep for about an hour then I get bored and then just fire up my laptop and start my day, even if it's 4.30am. I've been trying to deal with it by using a sleepmask, earplugs, better sleep hygiene, with only moderate success.

I guess I have two questions:

1. Even though I find it annoying and am often a bit run down, I'm actually fine after a couple of coffees and I don't think it's negatively affecting my work. To the contrary I've actually got a couple of projects done that I wouldn't otherwise have done if I didn't have this issue. In view of that, should I even bother trying to fix it? Maybe I'm just like Margaret Thatcher and don't need more than 4 hrs sleep a night?

2. If it is a problem, is there any sleep medication or other magic cure you can take to *stay asleep* rather than get to sleep?

posted by dontjumplarry to Health & Fitness (24 answers total)

This is a signal of anxiety for me. It's a natural response in the short term or to specific stressors.

If this a long term thing, or a more free-floating thing I'd maybe think about doing what I could to address it, either with relaxation if you know what's causing it or perhaps looking into therapy if you don't.
posted by Middlemarch at 9:53 PM on December 5, 2014 [3 favorites]

I think long term, it might cause problems with memory and recall. It's also increasing your need for caffeine. Also, not getting enough deep sleep is not great for healing that occurs during sleep.
posted by discopolo at 9:56 PM on December 5, 2014

Early waking can be one of the physiological symptoms of depression.
posted by embrangled at 10:05 PM on December 5, 2014 [4 favorites]

What Middlemarch and embrangled said. I started sleeping great once I started SSRIs.
posted by infinitewindow at 10:24 PM on December 5, 2014

There are more and more studies showing how important sleep is for your body, which makes me feel that it probably is something you'd want to try to address (this is the pot calling the kettle black here, I have some of the worst sleep habits imaginable).

Most of the traditional or older sleep medications would help people stay asleep, and the main complaint with those medications was that people would still feel overly sleepy when they needed to wake up (this was particularly a problem for insomniacs trying to take them on an as-needed basis, who would wait until a late hour when they had already been trying to get to sleep for a while before taking the drug). For example, trazodone, a relatively old drug often used for insomnia, has a half life of 3-6 hours, while zolpidem (Ambien) is one of the newer type of short-acting sleep aids with a half life of 2-3 hours.
posted by treehorn+bunny at 10:32 PM on December 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

Ambien helped me sleep through the night.

Another thing that works now that I'm no longer on Ambien is if I wake up in the middle of the night, I immediately get up and pee without turning on the light then go back to bed. I've found that the amount of pee in my bladder that wakes or keeps me up is less than the amount of pee required to create sufficient pressure to generate that "gotta pee" signal, so try peeing even if you don't feel like you need to pee.
posted by Jacqueline at 11:11 PM on December 5, 2014 [2 favorites]

I almost always wake up before my alarm rings these days, even if I'm still super tired. I agree that it may be anxiety (stress) and/or depression, as I have had both before, and feel super stressed right now as well. Anything underlying you're not addresing?

Also, this may be only me, but I'm sometimes absolutely convinced that especially when I have something important the next morning, I will not hear my alarm and oversleep, which of course makes for very fitful sleep, if I can sleep at all.
posted by LoonyLovegood at 12:47 AM on December 6, 2014

There's a bunch of recent articles talking about how availability of laptops and gadgets can affect quality of sleep. By making your early morning routine to "fire up the laptop", you may be creating a 'reward' in the form of brain chemicals (dopamine, adrenaline, etc) which might not be perceptible to your rational brain. Examining the thoughts/feelings that first pop into your head right as you awake, might be a start.

Also, taking time to think through how you _do_ like to wake up, and preparing something else (besides stressful emails) to look forward to, might offer a different 'carrot' that isn't tied to a jolt of stress hormone and therefore be easier for your sleep deprived body to ignore.

If I find that I'm in a bad sleep cycle waking up too early, (happens 4/5 times a year) I try a night taking a passionflower supplement, right before bed. I always wake up feeling like I've been in a particularly deep and restful sleep. I sleep longer the next morning. It takes me a bit longer to wake up in the morning as well however (no chemical hangover, not groggy, but just pleasantly slow to wake up), so if I had a presentation the next day etc I would avoid passionflower the night prior.
posted by iiniisfree at 12:54 AM on December 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

For me this is usually related to stress or anxiety or other sorts of bad stimuli. The sole non-medication thing that has worked for me is getting a lot more exercise. Otherwise I'm fine with taking an ambien if I'm worried about restless sleeping, but I'm aware that it's not exactly everyone's cup of tea.
posted by poffin boffin at 1:41 AM on December 6, 2014

I've always had sleep issues. I agree with everyone upthread that if I am habitually waking up early, it is generally related to stress/anxiety; essentially, my mind can't stop at night. But, what stresses me out the most is constantly counting the hours I've slept to see if I've gotten enough. So, I try not to worry. I attempt to assess whether I'm "up up" or whether I could possibly sleep more if I read in bed and then I follow through with how I feel at that moment. Seemingly, my sleep loss self-corrects (a bit) on a random weekend and I sleep a lot.

Also, I find that I sleep less depending on my diet. If I'm eating less and/or fewer carbs, I don't seem to need as much sleep. If your diet has changed, maybe that's a factor?
posted by youdontmakefriendswithsalad at 3:48 AM on December 6, 2014

At some point I lost the ability to sleep 8 hours in a row. Now I nap. I gather that bi-phasic sleep patterns are pretty common.
posted by Jode at 4:29 AM on December 6, 2014 [3 favorites]

When I'm stressed I wake very early too. In my case it was because I take an anti-anxiety drug at around 7 in the morning and it wears off in the wee hours of the following day. I started taking it later in the day and that's worked out well for me.

My anxiety was controllable when I was younger, but as I've gotten older, I really need the Celexa. It's worth exploring if it starts causing you trouble.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 5:16 AM on December 6, 2014

Humans by nature sleep in two shifts. When humans went to bed earlier with les electric lighting etc this was considered reading quietly time, sexy time, or just daydreaming until you feel asleep again time. Now a days we live hectic lives with alarm clocks and bright light until second before we settle down to sleep and get anxious we have anxiety because we're not sleeping in one huge chunk, when sleeping like that is the aberration.

Practice good sleep hygiene, go to bed earlier, when you do wake up, relax, do not fight it, do not reach for the light or your phone, not even for a second. I like to meditate until I drift off again on the theory if I don't fall asleep at least I am resting.
posted by wwax at 6:56 AM on December 6, 2014

This is a signal of anxiety for me.

Me too and it used to plague me. I do a few things.

- benadryl or something that keeps me a little sleepier
- exercise the day before, same thing
- try to not have a bunch of morning things to do stressing me out (may not be available for everyone but this changed my life)
- make sure I've had enough to eat the night before
- if I DO wake up in the middle of the night, I get up and go to the bathroom (if I need to) and then just lie in bed and actively just say "You are still sleepy" or something over and over until I drift back off. I don't start chewing on weighty problems, I don't touch my laptop, I don't turn on the lights. It's actually more work than just letting my mind wander but doing the work seems to actually work for me,.

If I've given myself an hour and I still can't sleep I'll just read a book until I get more tired. But yes, sleepy hygiene is the thing you should look into and see if there are routines that will help you.
posted by jessamyn at 7:06 AM on December 6, 2014 [4 favorites]

In line with what jessamyn said about not chewing on weighty problems, when I wake up early or in the middle of the night, I tell myself "we do not solve big life problems lying awake in bed at 3am." I think I read that tip here on MeFi, but regardless--it's true. Thinking about Big Things at that time is very unlikely to generate a solution and definitely not going to help me get back to sleep, and saying/thinking that simple, very absolute phrase is helpful.
posted by needs more cowbell at 7:40 AM on December 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

Sleep patterns change as you age, so it's possible that one component of what you are dealing with may be that. It sounds like more is going on, but be aware that going back to the sleep patterns of you past may well not be a realistic goal.

Personally I've found that I can control the time I go to sleep a lot easier than I can adjust the time I wake up. When I recognize the signs of increasingly disordered sleep (which for me, like you, means waking up ridiculously early), the first thing I do is to make sure I'm going to bed early. It's not a perfect solution, but at least it avoids the untenable sleep debt you accrue by going to sleep at 1am and waking up at 4, which for me leads fairly quickly towards a depressed immune system and getting a nasty flu or other illness.

I occasionally use a xanax to break the cycle where my mind is racing and anxious; there are other, more sleep-specific drugs available that probably work better but this has worked adequately for me so I haven't looked into other options. It's a common problem and there are a range of medications available depending on whether the base problem is anxiety or otherwise, so a chat with your doctor is a very productive first step.

And it's also true that there is rest value in laying there with and relaxing in the dark, even if you aren't asleep, so don't make jumping up and turning on the computer the immediate thing if you wake up in the middle of the night.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:46 AM on December 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

Agree with the bi-phasic sleep people, a lot of people naturally sleep in two chunks of roughly four hours. This is easier when you sleep from, for example, 10-2, have a quiet hour between 2 and 3, and then sleep from 3-7.

There could also be something outside waking you up around the same time... garbage collector, neighbors leaving, etc., You don't remember what woke you up, you just know that you're awake now.

Have you completely ruled out going to bed earlier instead of trying to sleep later?
posted by anaelith at 8:45 AM on December 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

There could also be something outside waking you up around the same time... garbage collector, neighbors leaving, etc., You don't remember what woke you up, you just know that you're awake now.

It's not uncommon to have a neighbor who gets home in the middle of the night (shift work, bartender, partier, etc) and has a car that makes a "chirp chirp" sound when the lock button is pushed. You'll never hear the sound itself, you'll just all of a sudden be awake at 3:30 again.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:52 AM on December 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

Without knowing your age, medical situation (e.g. weight, activity level, etc), or other factors like sleep environment, it's hard to give a definitive answer, but some people suggest taking a tablespoon or two of honey before bedtime. The theory is that you wake up because your brain runs out of energy, so give yourself a slow-digesting energy source before going to sleep.
posted by sprague at 9:37 AM on December 6, 2014

I have this too. I read the book The Insomnia Answer. It mentions (among a lot of other things of course) that bright light early in the day can cause exactly this, so your habit of getting behind the computer at 5AM may contribute to this problem. It even recommends sunglasses early in the day for some people. The idea is to reset your inner clock by getting bright light later in the day.
The book also has a lot of suggestions similar to the ones in this thread: consider if you have anxiety/depression, do relaxation "exercises", don't keep looking at the clock, etc. The book isn't perfect, but it was still useful to me.
posted by blub at 10:18 AM on December 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

I had a solid year of insomnia, and this was the way it manifested most often. Someone (here in askMe, in fact) suggested taking magnesium supplements - magnesium was supposed to help you stay asleep, they claimed.

It hasn't totally eliminated the problem - I do still sometimes have nights when I wake up at about 3 am; but usually it's only because I need to pee suddenly, or I'm too hot/cold or something like that is going on, and I tend to much better able to get back to sleep quickly after. Also, I noticed that even if I didn't get a full 8 hours, the magnesium seemed to ensure that the number of hours of sleep I got were GOOD sleep nevertheless.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:10 PM on December 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

Oh, and what people say about the light may be part of it too. What helped with THAT was getting window blinds that were good about blocking out light, so it takes more than a trucker with his high beams on driving by to wake me up.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:14 PM on December 6, 2014

I also sleep in two phases, and have done for years. If I have to, I can get up and function for a full day after the first sleep phase of 3-4 hours. If you don't feel like you need to fix it, then I wouldn't worry, if you're otherwise healthy. So no, I don't think it's pathological (and if it is, I'm right there with you).
posted by culfinglin at 12:03 PM on December 8, 2014

I was just looking for more information about this for myself and stumbled upon an article which suggests that bright light late in the day can help with this: The Treatment of Early-Morning Awakening Insomnia With 2 Evenings of Bright Light (link goes to pdf). Also, FYI in case you want to look for more information in medical literature, the clinical term for this kind of thing is "terminal insomnia."
posted by needs more cowbell at 11:03 AM on December 16, 2014