Waking too early. Every day.

April 12, 2022 9:29 AM

For the past ~5 weeks I have been waking up at 2:00-4:00am, every day. I don't care for it.

The (usually excellent) NHS website is not terribly helpful on the matter. And googling of course brings up page after page of sketchy-looking bullshit.

Mostly I can get back to sleep again. Rarely, I can't. Neither way is particularly pleasant. I'm not waking up with the need to wee, just waking. I don't consume caffeine. There's no new stress, food, habit or other phenomenon in my life. It just started one day.

I've been very careful with my sleep hygiene for many years now. I go to bed at a consistent, reasonable hour every night. I don't use screens in bed; I read for 45 minutes or so then I fall asleep quickly and without difficulty. Before this I would even wake at a normal, regular time without an alarm clock.

I'm aware that as we age, sometimes these things will just happen. But I'd rather it wasn't. So, as a last resort: Metafilter.

Have you or someone you know you ever had this problem, and did anything help?

posted by Lorc to Health & Fitness (18 answers total)

This is a pretty good compilation of tips.

Some things from that list that might help which you didn't mention:

-If it's been 20ish minutes, get out of bed and do a calming (non-screen) activity; make yourself a cup of tea, read a magazine in the living room, etc.

-try to reduce the amount of time you spend in the bedroom generally; ideally, you want that space to be for sleep and sex only so your brain associates it with those activities.

-not on the list, but... don't watch the time if you wake at night; that'll just get you anxious as you calculate how much sleep time you (don't) have before you have to get up.

-there are lots of good mindfulness/meditation youtube videos for sleep that you can listen to. Personally I can't fall asleep to music; I need a podcast about something semi-interesting but not super exciting or requiring focus or (ugh) politics/current events. I'm liking Irish History Podcast right now; the accent doesn't hurt :) Futility Closet is good too for interesting little odd historical stories. That sort of thing.
posted by tivalasvegas at 9:50 AM on April 12, 2022 [2 favorites]

Something that really helped me was magnesium supplements.

This was exactly how my insomnia manifested in 2010 (and full disclosure, stress WAS part of the problem); I would wake up at about 2ish, spend a couple hours lying awake asking myself "why?" and sometimes go back to sleep. Every night.

I tried melatonin and it didn't do diddly. I tried sipping valerian tea now and then and that didn't seem to help. Then I read that magnesium was helpful for staying asleep, which sounded like exactly my problem. I spoke with my doctor as well, who warned me that the thing with magnesium and valerian was that it wasn't like an insta-pill where you take one and it does the job - you need to take it regularly and it builds up in your system gradually, over the course of a week or two, and THEN does its work.

And - well, the magnesium did take two weeks to fully keep me asleep, but BEFORE that two weeks was up, I was gradually feeling more and more rested despite waking up in the middle of the night. Like a week into it, I still woke up at 2 am, but I seemed to get back to sleep a tiny bit faster, and when I woke up "for real", I realized "huh, it still feels like I slept all night even though I didn't." So I am absolutely convinced that it was the magnesium that did the trick, and it even started helping before it kept me sleeping through the night.

I found a supplement that was a combination of magnesium, calcium, and zinc, as the three kind of work together for an even better effect.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:55 AM on April 12, 2022 [6 favorites]

My therapist noted that this is a common symptom of depression, and since starting treatment, I do notice that my early morning wakefulness is a pretty good barometer of the severity of my depression levels at the moment. Something to consider?
posted by Rock Steady at 9:57 AM on April 12, 2022 [10 favorites]

Seconding Rock Steady.

The early waking form of insomnia is a common symptom of depression. It's worth talking to your primary care doctor about a screening. (My PCP includes a question about early wakefulness on her mental health questionnaire, because the correlation is really quite strong.)
posted by champers at 10:20 AM on April 12, 2022 [4 favorites]

Magnesium citrate supplements, and an odd trick that works for me: trying to keep my eyes open, instead of holding them closed if I can’t sleep.

I found holding my eyes shut made me way more tense - I’d hold tension in my eyes and head, and then start really overthinking the whole “I should be sleeping” thing.

Also, if you don’t have blackout curtains and there is light coming through, try em.

Good luck!
posted by glaucon at 10:45 AM on April 12, 2022 [5 favorites]

I experienced this about 4 years ago, was waking up every night around 2am and awake for ~2 hours before falling back asleep. It was driving me crazy -- I wasn't all that tired during the day or unable to function at work or anything, but the regularity of the nightly wakeup was really irritating. I talked to my doctor and he asked about how I felt during the day, the type of hours my parents slept, a few other things, and just basically said, "Well, why don't you try going to bed later? Maybe you don't need as much sleep as you're trying to get." (I've had a sleep apnea test in the past and it revealed nothing.) So.... I started going to bed an hour or so later, and the problem cleared up very quickly, and has not returned.
posted by jabes at 11:05 AM on April 12, 2022 [1 favorite]

It's springtime. About 3-4 weeks ago a local bird decided that my property was an excellent place to settle in for his 3am daily screaming session, which lasts for about a half hour before he moves on to other tasks. Have you fully ruled out environmental causes?
posted by phunniemee at 11:24 AM on April 12, 2022 [4 favorites]

Exercise, not eating too much or too late, and watching my alcohol intake are the things that help me avoid that 2am wake-up call. Sometimes if I'm going through a period where I still wake up despite everything, a little bit of CBD oil helps me get back to and stay asleep.

On a slightly different tack: As annoying as that middle-of-the-night wakeful period is, I found that teaching myself not to stress about it also helps me get back to sleep faster. In other words, a mental shrug, maybe turning over to a new comfy position, just closing my eyes and letting the thoughts flit by without dwelling on (i.e. consciously focusing on/prolonging) or being upset by them. I started doing that because I read somewhere that even just lying there with your eyes closed is still more restful for your brain than being fully awake and upright; so I figured what the hell just roll with it. And that (lack of) attitude about the situation helped me fall back asleep and feel better in the morning.
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:26 AM on April 12, 2022 [1 favorite]

Someone on AskMeFi a year or so back mentioned that often waking up at about that time is due to low blood sugar, and your body giving you a spike of cortisol to counteract it (and, in the case of the questioner, making you feel anxiety). They said eating a bit of protein before bed works to counteract that. I can't say one way or another about the theory and explanation, but eating a bit of protein before bed works for me to counteract the 3AM wakeup.

I added strength training a few months ago, and that's improved my sleep overall as well. It's not 100%--worked out yesterday and still slept for shit last night--but I have good sleep more often than not now, and it used to be the opposite.
posted by telophase at 11:35 AM on April 12, 2022 [3 favorites]

Are you getting enough afternoon sunlight? Make sure to take walks in the afternoon to get enough light exposure and suppress melatonin.

Also, are you exercising enough? I struggle with insomnia, and find it is much worse when I haven't been walking or exercising much.
posted by moiraine at 12:38 PM on April 12, 2022

I read somewhere that even just lying there with your eyes closed is still more restful for your brain than being fully awake and upright; so I figured what the hell just roll with it.

I too take this approach. I've got a Garmin watch and past data from lying awake in bed that supports the idea for me personally, so I will sometimes just lie there and reassure myself that resting is almost as good as sleeping, so it doesn't matter all that much. If I'm not too amped, I'll usually fall back asleep while "just resting."
posted by deludingmyself at 3:44 PM on April 12, 2022 [1 favorite]

When this problem hit me, it turned out, I can't feel my bladder is full, laying on my back, but, it can still make me wake. I get up and go, and sleep returns now. It's weird, because I've mostly always needed to get up to pee in the night.
posted by Goofyy at 3:52 PM on April 12, 2022 [1 favorite]

It happened to me for a while. I started just getting up and doing stuff--nothing intense, just fun, puttery stuff. I got to really like being up early and messing around. Sometimes I'd go back to sleep, sometimes I'd stay up. I realized I could do this easily forever and get more done and have more time for myself. As soon as I realized it was great, it stopped. My brain likes to fuck with me, I guess?
posted by Don Pepino at 6:31 PM on April 12, 2022 [1 favorite]

CBD and magnesium glycinate. I have also tried melatonin. If you are a ladyperson, this can be associated with horomonal shifts and is not uncommon. Still sucks.
posted by *s at 7:06 PM on April 12, 2022 [2 favorites]

I have been diagnosed with Vitamin D deficiency. My doc said that it could negatively affect sleep, and that it's common during the winter months if you don't get enough sunlight. It's an easy blood test. Might be worth discussing with your doctor.
posted by gemmy at 7:39 PM on April 12, 2022

Try earplugs. You could be waking up due to some environmental sound that happens around that time. Could be a sound that's over by the time you wake up, or something very subtle that you haven't consciously picked up on, like an appliance cycling.
posted by Flock of Cynthiabirds at 3:25 AM on April 13, 2022

I had this issue on and off for a year (also with all the normal sleep hygiene stuff), discussed with my doctors, tried melatonin, and nothing helped. My doctor put me on 50 mg of Trazodone and that's helped enormously. Standard disclaimer: there's a lot of mixed evidence on this, but I've been using it now for several months and I'm not exaggerating when I say it's been life-changing.
posted by mostly vowels at 4:21 PM on April 14, 2022

+1 for a bite or two of protein before going to bed. Usually some cooked chicken from dinner or even a slice of deli meat or a piece of cheese. My morning (waking) glucose levels were always higher than the rest of the day. This helped me sleep all night (and helped with my A1C, too!) Good luck!
posted by Arctostaphylos at 11:36 AM on April 15, 2022