Golden Slumbers II: How to Overcome Waking up in the Middle of Night

My journey in solving the problem of interrupted sleep

Photo by Nubelson Fernandes on Unsplash

Imagine waking up refreshed, activated, and wide awake, looking forward to starting a productive day after a good night’s sleep. But then a time check reveals that it is 2:00 AM, and enthusiasm turns to dread on realizing that you just got 3–4 hours of sleep and the upcoming day will be spent in a zombie-like sleep deprivation.

Many years ago, this was a regular occurrence for me and I am glad to be referring to it in the past tense. It also means that after struggling for a long time, I finally overcame this challenge. Here, I would like to share my experience, hoping it might also be helpful to the readers.

I would encourage reading this article to the end, sharing experiences, and commenting on the ideas presented here. I view Medium as a platform to share ideas and refine solutions that work. It will also help the search engine make these solutions accessible to a larger audience.

Biphasic Sleep

Firstly, waking up in the middle of the night, also called biphasic sleep, was common in pre-industrial societies [1] due most likely to the absence of artificial light and not-so-overdriven work culture. Bedtimes were early and initiated by sunset, only to wake up in the middle of the night. People used this time to catch up with chores and even have sex before falling asleep again.

This definition of a good night’s sleep has evolved to that of an uninterrupted block of 8 to 9 hours as it conforms to the needs of the modern work culture. Therefore, I found biphasic sleep to be very frustrating. It is challenging to control this habit as we voluntarily relinquish self-control when sleeping. If I had a choice, I would not have woken up. Moreover, if I knew what caused my sleep interruption, I would have fixed it the same night. Hence, many days went by guessing the cause and trying various approaches to no resolution.

My struggles to fix sleep issues

I was finally able to crack the problem. This list, prioritized from the lowest to the highest in its effectiveness, illustrates various approaches I tried to address my sleep disturbance.

1. Sleep test: My persistent sleep issues caused my doctor to suggest getting a sleep test. This medical-grade test involves sleeping with a headband that collects data about brain activity, eye movements, muscle activity, breathing patterns, heart rate, blood oxygenation, etc. Unfortunately, this did not find anything significant. Despite this, I would recommend (I am not a doctor) taking a sleep test to find issues like Sleep Apnea that can go undiagnosed for a long time and may lead to several other long-term health problems [4].
2. How much water to drink: I still struggle with this aspect. Too much water interrupts sleep due to excessive restroom breaks. Not enough means risking extreme grogginess and exhaustion in the morning due to dehydration. I usually lean towards more water as the latter makes it difficult to wake up in the morning.
3. What to do in the middle of the night: The idea here is to burn up the extra energy instead of getting even more activated. Chores can be a good challenge for the mental exhaustion associated with waking up in the middle of the night. It also induces a sense of accomplishment in productively using the time to get things done.
4. The vicious cycle of frustration and sleeplessness: The realization of waking up at night can be frustrating due to the lack of control, and worrying as we anticipate having a bad day. This made me more active and awake, tossing and turning in a futile attempt to fall back to sleep, creating a vicious cycle that extends insomnia. Once I understood the paradox of falling asleep: trying hard to sleep makes it more difficult, I went to the other extreme of just giving up trying, accepting that it was not in my control.
5. No Aacohol at night: This is contrary to the modern lifestyle where evening social activities inherently involve alcohol intake. I have also heard people using alcohol to go to bed. I don’t drink alcohol for the very reason that even though initially it promotes sleep, I always wake up wide awake in a couple of hours, followed by not being able to sleep at all. These disruptive effects of alcohol on sleep are well-researched [2]. It adversely affects the sleep architecture, and our body and mind’s ability to recover.
6. Too many deadlines and things to do: This was the main reason for my sleep disturbances. It was a time when I had too many tasks to finish within short deadlines. I wasn’t even aware of my chronically higher stress levels as I focused on getting things done, hence causing overactivation of the flight and fight stress response. Then I discovered various relaxation techniques [3] that helped me quickly fall asleep after waking up at night. Practicing these reduced the time I would stay up at night. Eventually, my workload eased, hence eliminating bi-phasic sleep. Since then, this has never been an issue as I continue to practice these techniques.

Final Thoughts

When I did not have sleeping difficulties, I used to take sleep and bedtime for granted. Only when I started waking up in the middle of the night, I realized its importance and how tricky it can be. By its very nature, fixing sleep requires action that can only be done either before we go to bed or after we wake up. Through this article, I hope the readers can use my experience for themselves. Wishing you all Happy Slumbers!!

References

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4763365/
[2] Colrain IM, Nicholas CL, Baker FC. Alcohol and the sleeping brain. Handbook of Clinical Neurology 2014;125:415–31.
[3] https://medium.com/new-writers-welcome/golden-slumbers-part-i-how-to-overcome-difficulty-falling-asleep-d6c6738902fa
[4] https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/sleep-apnea/living-with

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