You most likely can't wake up early anymore because you're sleep deprived, out of sync with your circadian rhythm, or have a medical condition or sleep disorder like insomnia, sleep apnea, or parasomnias.
So when you're getting eight hours and still feeling tired the next day, it's frustrating. There are four likely culprits behind your low energy: your sleep need is more than eight hours, you're getting less sleep than you think, you've got sleep debt to pay back, or you're out of sync with your circadian rhythm.
Possible underlying reasons include depression and anxiety. Depression is linked to dysania, a nonmedical term for when a person feels the need to stay in bed without sleeping. A wide range of physical conditions can also lead to fatigue, making it hard to get up. They include ME/CFS and long COVID.
People with ADHD frequently report having trouble waking up in the morning. For help getting out of bed, try using light therapy or plan something enjoyable for when you get out of bed, such as exercise or a nice breakfast.
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. Various sleep disorders can reduce the quality of your sleep and make it so your night isn't restful.
If you can't wake up, you may have a medical condition, such as chronic fatigue or diabetes, a mental health condition, like anxiety or depression, or a sleep disorder, like hypersomnia and narcolepsy.
Dysania means an extreme difficulty rising from bed or an inability to leave the bed. Dysania is closely associated with clinomania, which is an obsession with or profound desire for staying in bed. These terms are not widely recognized by the medical community. Some professionals use the term clinophilia.
Sitting or lying down for too long increases your risk of chronic health problems, such as heart disease, diabetes and some cancers. Too much sitting can also be bad for your mental health. Being active is not as hard as you think. There are lots of simple ways to include some physical activity in your day.
For example: a person needing 8 hours of sleep but getting only 6 would build a sleep debt of 2 hours that day. A person with an 8-hour sleep need who gets 6 hours each day for 5 days builds a sleep debt of 10 hours. As sleep debt builds, brain and body functioning deteriorate. Sleep is needed to “pay down” this debt.
Sleep inertia is the feeling of grogginess, disorientation, drowsiness, and cognitive impairment that immediately follows waking. View Source . Sleep inertia generally lasts for 15 to 60 minutes. View Source but may last for up to a few hours after waking.
Science-backed ways to wake yourself up when you're tired include getting natural light, drinking coffee, taking a nap, exercising, skipping the snooze button, taking a cold shower, drinking water, doing breathing exercises, taking a break, and listening to music.
Hypersomnia means excessive sleepiness. There are many different causes, the most common in our society being inadequate sleep. This may be due to shiftwork, family demands (such as a new baby), study or social life. Other causes include sleep disorders, medication, and medical and psychiatric illnesses.
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.
As is evident from the meaning of the word clinomania, people who suffer from this problem have this strong and unnatural urge to remain cooped up in bed, even to the point of obsession or madness. They feel no desire to get out of bed and do something productive. They feel lazy and have no focus.
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.
Sleep inertia happens when you wake up in the morning but feel your mind isn't clear until a bit later. The exact cause is still unknown but other sleep disorders may be at work. In some cases, the symptoms of sleep inertia may emerge when you wake up suddenly from a deep-sleep stage in the sleep cycle.
When it comes to waking up full of energy, sleep hygiene has its place. But it's your deeper habits that matter most. If you really want to wake up full of energy, commit to waking up at the same time every day, keeping your phone away from your bed, journaling to clear your mind, and getting enough daylight.
But in reality, it's usually a stress response. 🤯 And, some individuals with ADHD experience fatigue because they must make so much effort to keep up with the world around them. So, whether it's the restless body or the racing mind, hyperactivity in ADHD can take its toll and leave us exhausted.
Difficulty Waking Up with ADHD
ADHD sleepers are commonly irritable, even combative, when roused before they are ready. Many of them say they are not fully alert until noon.
A: ADHD brains need more sleep, but find it doubly difficult to achieve restfulness. It is one of those ADHD double whammies: ADHD makes it harder to get enough sleep, and being sleep deprived makes it harder to manage your ADHD (or anything else).
Try to expose yourself to natural light first thing in the morning, even if it's cloudy outside. Practice deep breathing, stretching, or yoga right after you wake up. Keep a water bottle by your bed so you can hydrate immediately upon waking up. Give yourself an incentive.
A parasomnia can occur before or during sleep or during arousal from sleep. If you have a parasomnia, you might have abnormal movements, talk, express emotions or do unusual things. You are really asleep, although your bed partner might think you're awake.