"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.
Staying in Bed Too Long: If you wake up during the night and cannot fall back asleep, experts recommend getting out of bed after 15 to 30 minutes. To help your brain associate your bed with sleeping rather than with being awake, you want to avoid lying awake in bed for too long.
"Most people hit their deepest sleep between 4 a.m. and 6 a.m.," says WebMD sleep expert Michael Breus, PhD, D, ABSM, "so it's very hard to wake up during that time."
"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.
If you're actually reducing sleep to become an early riser. Sacrificing sleep means you may be hit by the many negative effects of sleep deprivation, including moodiness, poor concentration, potential weight gain, anxiety, increased risk of heart disease and higher blood pressure.
The next time you wake up at 3 a.m. (or whatever time), give yourself 15 to 20 minutes to doze back into dreamland. It's OK. If you're awake longer than that, it's best to get out of bed, says Dr.
The more abruptly you are awakened, the more severe the sleep inertia. While we may feel that we wake up quickly enough, transitioning easily between sleep mode and awake mode, the process is in reality far more gradual.
Studies show exercise temporarily boosts alertness, in part because of the accompanying rise in body temperature and the boost of blood to the brain. One study found that a mix of caffeine, bright light and face washing with cold water helped jump-start alertness after a short nap.
Sleep: what to expect at 5-11 years
At 5-11 years, children need 9-11 hours sleep a night. For example, if your child wakes for school at 7 am and needs approximately 10 hours sleep per night, your child should be in bed before 9 pm. Some children fall deeply asleep very quickly when they go to bed.
The best time to go to sleep and wake up will vary from person to person. In general, though, people should aim to fall asleep a few hours after dark and wake up within the first hours of sunlight in the morning, where possible.
“When you wake up in the morning, there's all this sweat and bacteria from the sheets that's just kind of sitting there on your skin.” So take a quick shower in the morning, he said, “to wash all of that gunk and sweat off that you've been sleeping in all night.”
Get Some Exercise
So go for a brisk walk or hit the gym if you have 20-30 minutes to spare. If you're crunched for time, even a 7-minute routine that combines gentle yoga poses and body-weight exercises could energize you and lift your mood.
The peak time for waking up is between 6 and 6:30am. Twenty-three percent of our sample rises in that half-hour, and this is the point when more than half of the nation's potential audience is now awake. Another 26% rise between 6:30 and 7:30 – and now most all respondents are awake.
Ten- to 20-minute naps will help you perk up with little to no grogginess, so you can rally throughout the afternoon and don't have to worry about crashing later.
If your school or work schedule requires you to be up between 5:00 and 7:00 a.m., these are the suggested bedtimes: School-age children should go to bed between 8:00 and 9:00 p.m. 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.
Research shows that rising early can boost mood, lead to greater life satisfaction, and minimize mental health problems. There is also a link between greater well-being in older people who get up early.
Sleep inertia, or wake-up grogginess, is the main reason you're unable to fully wake up in the morning or after a nap. It's a completely normal part of your sleep-wake cycle that's intensified by factors like high sleep debt and circadian misalignment (caused by sleeping in, social jetlag, and travel jet lag).
Americans spend an average of 7 hours and 18 minutes in bed each night. They go to bed at 11:39 p.m., wake up at 7:09 a.m., spend 23.95 minutes snoring, have an average sleep quality of 74.2 percent, and rate their wake-up mood at 57 on a scale of 100.
Going to sleep after midnight was associated with a 25% higher risk of heart disease compared with falling sleep between 10:00 and 10:59 p.m. Going to sleep between 11:00 and 11:59 p.m. was associated with a 12% higher risk of heart disease compared with falling sleep between 10:00 and 10:59 p.m.
Waking at the same time every day will actually help you to sleep better at night. A fixed wake time helps to build a strong desire for sleep throughout wakefulness. This sleep drive gradually builds, and shortening it by sleeping in will make it harder to fall asleep the next night.