If you get up early, you're not only depriving yourself of sleep, but you're also robbing your body of the majority of REM (rapid eye movement) sleep — the stage of sleep that, according to the National Sleep Foundation: Provides energy to brain and body. Supports daytime performance.
"As soon as you wake up after a night of sleep, you should get out of bed. If you lie awake in bed, your brain links being awake to being in bed," according to Professor Matthew Walker from University of California Berkeley.
And taking our waking slow, without the jar of an alarm and with the rhythms of light and biology, may be our best defense against the thoughtlessness of a sleep-addled brain, a way to insure that, when we do wake fully, we are making the most of what our minds have to offer.
“The overall best is if you can wake up naturally because you're done sleeping,” he said. On the other hand, if you're waking up early on just a few hours of sleep, you should probably try and squeeze in some more shuteye.
Try to go to bed and wake up at the same time every day, which helps synchronize your sleep-wake cycle. Limit awake-time in bed. If you don't get back to sleep within 20 minutes after waking up in the middle of the night, get out of bed and do something relaxing until you feel sleepy again.
It is very difficult to wake someone during stages 3 and 4, which together are called deep sleep. There is no eye movement or muscle activity. People awakened during deep sleep do not adjust immediately and often feel groggy and disoriented for several minutes after they wake up.
The "Gradual" method
The most efficient method for changing the time you wake up is to do it gradually — 10–15 minutes earlier for 1–3 days until you feel used to it, and then lower it down.
Can Boost Your Mental Health and Productivity, a New Study Shows. Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh noted that the best daily routine includes rising early each morning and staying active throughout the day.
It's important not to stay in bed, even if you're reading, Buenaver says. “Doing this will lead your brain and body to associate your bed with wakefulness instead of with sleep. It can be difficult leaving a warm, comfortable bed after waking up in the middle of the night.
Our first few hours of the morning is when we're at peak state for making better decisions. In the first hour, we can spend a little bit of time planning our day and visualising the goals we have and achieving them. Create the day you want in your mind and go and do it.
Paradoxically, experts say to get out of bed. Yes, even at 3 a.m. “Abandon the idea of getting back to sleep,” Troxel said. “When you do that, when you let the pressure go that sleep isn't so effortful, sleep is more likely to come back.”
Do not press the snooze button, press the stop button and stay there for some time. The time you spend standing will alert your mind and will help you get awake from the sleep. It is these 5 minutes which helps your mind decide that you go back to sleep or get your day started.
However, you confuse the hell out of your body when you wake up as usual, but choose to go back to sleep. Your brain doesn't know when it should prep your body for wakeup. As a result, you usually end up emerging again from dreamland smack within your deep sleep—or REM sleep—cycle.
According to the National Sleep Foundation, it's important to use your natural circadian rhythm to wake up. Since an alarm disrupts us when we're in deep sleep, we need to figure out how much sleep we really need.
In addition to that, some studies recommend that early bedtimes are preferable for a healthy body clock and some argue that 8 am is the best time to wake up.
Stage 1: Your eyes are closed, but it's easy to wake you up. This phase may last for 5 to 10 minutes. Stage 2: You are in light sleep.
And while the occasional long sleep is generally nothing to worry about, oversleeping several days a week could be a sign that something more serious is going on.
Sleep feels good because when we rest, our bodies produce melatonin, which controls our sleep patterns. Our melatonin levels increase at bedtime, making us feel tired. Melatonin, secreted by the pineal gland, makes us feel cozy and relaxed, allowing our bodies to get the time off they need at the end of each day.
Teens should try to go to bed between 9:00 and 10:00 p.m. Adults should try to go to sleep between 10:00 and 11:00 p.m.
For most people, feeling tired when you wake up is the result of sleep inertia, which is a natural feeling you experience as you transition between being asleep and awake. This feeling generally dissipates between 15 and 60 minutes after waking, but for some it can last longer.
“If you're sleep deprived, it takes a lot longer to feel refreshed and alert when you wake up,” says Cynthia Fellman-Couture, RN, a sleep research coordinator at Henry Ford Health. “During sleep there's less blood flow to the brain.
If you aren't feeling rested when you wake up, despite getting to sleep at least 8 hours prior, then it might not be the quantity of your sleep that's the problem. It could be your sleep quality that needs some attention. The amount of sleep you get is important, but equally important is the quality of that sleep.