You may also feel symptoms of sleep inertia if you didn't get enough hours of sleep. Everyone needs a certain number of sleep hours, and if you don't get what you need, you may find it difficult to hop out of bed feeling refreshed. Finally, sleep disorders could be the cause.
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 or a loved one feel sleepy or fatigued, despite having 7-8 hours of sleep, it could indicate poor sleep quality or be a sign of an underlying sleep disorder. If you have questions or concerns about your sleep health, please speak with your primary care provider.
You might be always sleepy no matter how much sleep you get because you're still not getting enough sleep, you've got sleep debt from previous short nights of sleep, you're out of sync with your circadian rhythm, you're pregnant, you've got anxiety or depression, or you've got a sleep disorder or an underlying medical ...
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.
If you have built up sleep debt, allow extra time for sleep: go to bed early. You sleep more deeply when you are sleep deprived, so you do not need to “pay back” hour for hour the lost sleep. However, if you have not had enough sleep for many days, it might take several nights of good-quality sleep to recover.
Non-restorative sleep occurs when you spend enough time resting but you still wake up feeling tired. Many different factors could lead to low-quality sleep. Sometimes non-restorative sleep occurs with other sleep conditions like insomnia, restless leg syndrome, or narcolepsy.
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.
If you wake up early feeling alert, should you just get up? It depends how early it is. If it is 3am, you should do your best to get back to sleep because if you don't, you're likely to feel tired and irritable later.
Should you go back to bed if tired? Waking up tired doesn't necessarily mean you should go back to bed and sleep more, especially if you're getting the recommended 7-9 hours of sleep each night. Experiencing a little tiredness upon waking is totally normal and should subside within 15 minutes to an hour.
“Be mindful and avoid overdoing it, no matter how good it may feel in the moment,” he said. Lounging in bed for more than a day or two is concerning and could point to different mental health issues, Gold said.
“You start creating your sleep debt from the moment you wake up in the morning,” notes Dr. Foldvary-Schaefer. While a nap may help you refocus for a bit, it's not a long-term solution. You may feel better that day, but it can create a cycle that compounds your sleep debt.
Short naps generally don't affect nighttime sleep quality for most people. But if you experience insomnia or poor sleep quality at night, napping might worsen these problems. Long or frequent naps might interfere with nighttime sleep.
It could be you have an underlying mental health issue or mental disorder that needs attention. Depression is the most common mental health issue that has low motivation as a symptom. The onset of low motivation is for many long-term depression sufferers a sign they are falling into another cycle.
Sleep needs can vary from person to person, but in general, experts recommend that healthy adults get an average of 7 to 9 hours per night of shuteye. If you regularly need more than 8 or 9 hours of sleep per night to feel rested, it might be a sign of an underlying problem, Polotsky says.
It could mean a person has pain or that they are depressed or maybe they are sleepy or maybe they broke something or they are sick or maybe they are on heavy meds, maybe they get dizzy or have migraines or maybe they just like their bed or maybe it's a combination.
Sleep debt, also known as sleep deficit, is the difference between how much sleep you need and how much you actually get. When you sleep fewer hours than your body needs, you have a sleep debt. Sleep debt adds up over time and can negatively impact your health.
The Best Time to Sleep Is Between 8 p.m. and Midnight
To align our sleep schedules with our body's natural cycles (our circadian rhythms), adults should go to bed when it's dark out, after 8 p.m. We also get deeper, more restorative sleep when our sleep time begins before midnight.
Middle insomnia describes a difficulty maintaining sleep after initial sleep onset. For these individuals, sleep is fragmented with frequent awakenings at night. Middle insomnia is commonly associated with neurological syndromes (e.g., RLS), pain syndromes, or depression.
Improved Performance. Early birds and night owls not only sleep on different schedules, they also experience peak performance at different times of day. For example, those who stay up late tend to perform worse. View Source in the morning at both physical and mental tasks.
So if you occasionally wake up early after putting in at least seven hours of sleep the night before, it's probably your body's way of telling you that you've satisfied both systems and you should get up and start your day, Morgenthaler said.