For many people, waking up tired is quite "normal. Yet it is certainly not normal to be more tired while getting up than when you go to sleep. Find out what may be causing it with you. Find a structural solution and discover how nice it is to wake up rested.
Deep sleep restores
A possible cause of many fatigue complaints is too little deep sleep. You go through different sleep phases during the night. These range from light phases to deep phases. You begin with a transition phase between sleeping and being awake. Then you sleep lightly and still wake up relatively quickly. Then come the deep sleep phases. Blood pressure, heart rate and breathing reach their lowest point and hormones are released that help you recover. And finally, you enter Brake sleep: this is also a deep sleep phase that involves rapid eye movements and increased brain activity. Your brain processes all the impressions and experiences of the day.
Research shows that the deep sleep stages and Brake Sleep are the most important and provide the best and fastest recovery. If you are tired and listless then the quality of your sleep has probably not been optimal (a lot of sleep in stage 2). This can be a cause of fatigue symptoms.
Improve your sleep quality
If you suspect that you often wake up tired, due to not enough deep sleep, it may help to start working specifically on improving your sleep quality. Here are some tips to get you started:
Make sure your bedroom is dark and cool (about 18 degrees). And try to let in as much fresh air as possible. It may sound obvious, but these factors have a direct and major impact on your sleep quality.
Stop drinking caffeinated beverages in the afternoon. The body's breakdown of caffeine takes longer than you think.
Don't drink alcohol before you go to sleep. It has an adverse effect on your sleep quality.
Actively work on reducing stress and tension.
And limit the number of carbohydrates in your diet. Sugars in particular cause cortisol (stress hormone) spikes that negatively affect your sleep quality.
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The wrong time
When you wake up halfway through your sleep cycle (during Deep Sleep and Brake Sleep), you wake up groggy, tired and disoriented. Try to remind yourself what it's like to wake up in the middle of a dream. Often you have no idea where you are. Therefore, waking up at the wrong time is the most common cause of waking up tired.
Choose a "smart" alarm clock
What is one solution to waking up halfway through your sleep cycle? Make sure you wake up during the lighter sleep stages. Making a schedule to wake up exactly on time makes little sense. Waking up can't be planned. The best solution seems to be using digital tools. There are a number of "smart alarm clocks" that can wake you up at exactly the right time. Based on a non-contact sensor, they can figure out exactly at what time you are lightly asleep and best awakened.
An inexpensive smart alarm clock is the app "Sleep Cycle. This app analyzes your sleep and wakes you up in the lightest sleep phase. The result is that you start the new day less tired.
You snooze you lose
Setting your alarm clock early so you can hit the snooze button several times and go back to sleep for another 9 minutes. Stop it! You confuse your body with it. Repeatedly dozing off again signals your body to get back into a deep sleep. The result is that you wake up with increasing difficulty.
Consider your doctor
Have you been sleeping poorly for a long time for no apparent reason? Then a visit to the family doctor is the wisest thing to do. A family doctor will work with you to find the cause and possibly refer you to a specialist. For example, excess weight can be a major culprit. In most cases, losing extra pounds also makes sleep disorders disappear.
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How do you wake up rested?
Multiple theories exist about the proper timing of waking up. For example, it is hypothesized that the higher brain activity during REM sleep is important to send the brain from deep non-REM sleep back to consciousness. Therefore, when one falls asleep, the first cycle consists mainly of non-REM sleep but as the night progresses and it becomes morning, REM sleep occupies an increasing portion of the cycle. A study measuring the time of spontaneous awakening in young adults showed that in the majority of cases it occurs during REM sleep.
The sleep cycle is an evolutionary strategic principle
During a normal sleep cycle, there is often a brief moment of awakening between the REM sleep and non-REM phases. The fact that the sleep cycle exists may be evolutionarily beneficial. During the brief moment between sleep cycles, a decision can be made to continue sleeping or to terminate sleep. In the case of a safe environment, sleep is continued. Termination of sleep may be necessary in case of, for example, danger or physical discomfort.
Knowledge in practice
A good night's sleep is characterized by going through the sleep cycle several times. Research shows that we may wake up from REM sleep most fit and refreshed. We find REM sleep at the end of each cycle. Assuming that an average sleep cycle lasts 90 minutes and the cycle is completed 4-6 times, the optimal time of awakening is 6, 7.5 or 9 hours after falling asleep.
References
[1] Patel AK, Reddy V, Araujo JF. Physiology, Sleep Stages. In: StatPearls. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK526132/ (2020, accessed January 28, 2021).
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