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Why You Wake Up At 2 A.M. And How To Fix It · Doctor Turned Health Coach

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  There is nothing more frustrating than waking up in the middle of the night and you're wide awake.
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  The first things that go through your mind is, oh my God, I'm going to be exhausted tomorrow.
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  I'm going to feel like shit and this is going to keep happening.
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  And I don't even know when I'm going to fall back asleep.
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  So today we're going to dive a little bit deeper into this topic.
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  Waking up at 2 a.m., what's actually going on and what you can do about it.
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  And maybe I'll tell you right off the bat, reframing what's going on is probably
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  90% of solving this conundrum.
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  Middle-of-the-night awakenings or wake-ups, they're not the actual problem.
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  In fact, it is perfectly normal for your body in the middle of the night to
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  have multiple awakenings.
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  The thing is, or the problem, is the story that we tell ourselves.
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  That is what's going to create all of the other problems that ensue.
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  You suddenly wake up in the middle of the night. It's 2 a.m.
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  Classically, and you go straight into catastrophizing mode.
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  You start worrying about everything else that's going to happen and what to
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  do now and oh my god am I going to fall asleep this is something that's kind
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  of been developing in the back of our mind,
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  over the years that we've developed some of these insomnia issues and this part
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  is what we're what I really want to focus on but I'm also going to give you
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  a few other tricks you can try because anytime we develop this fear loop we
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  never end up being able to get a hold of our sleep because sleep is something you actually train.
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  It's a mental training for your mind.
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  Your physiology can also change, but the things that you tell yourself,
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  especially when you wake up in the middle of the night, is what's going to set
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  you up for success over the next few nights.
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  So starting off, why do we wake up at 2 a.m.? Now, as I mentioned,
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  the brain is going back and forth into different sleep cycles.
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  And one of the things that it does, it actually wakes us up a little bit in
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  the middle of the night. There are many important reasons why this happened.
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  There could also be some evolutionary reasons for it.
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  And again, there is no danger signal. There is nothing wrong with your brain.
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  Every single patient I've ever had, if they take a home sleep study,
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  they are going to wake up.
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  They're going to have many frequent awakenings at night.
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  What sets us apart, One person can go right back to sleep because they're like,
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  I'm awake, no big deal. I'm not worried.
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  I'm not going to get caught up in my thoughts. I'm not going to start catastrophizing
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  it. There's no internal dialogue.
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  There's no pressure because maybe their job's simpler.
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  Maybe they don't care as much if they do or don't fall asleep.
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  But another person creates this spiral of worry and thoughts and fears and projects
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  things into the future and all of a sudden they are wide awake.
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  It's totally normal for you to feel irritated when you wake up.
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  So this is the second point, the bed and stress cycle.
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  I call it the mattress stress cycle, but I've read other people talk about the bed and stress cycle.
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  It's essentially knowing that, oh my God, I'm the guy who's going to develop
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  this insomnia. I'm the gal who's going to wake up in the middle of the night.
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  What do I do when this happens? Oh my God.
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  You get irritated. You're awake, right?
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  The bed now becomes this kind of like obnoxious thing and everything's wrong.
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  There is a background noise.
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  The dump truck is coming along. There's a dog barking. You're sweating.
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  All of these things start getting amped up in your brain.
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  And especially if this happens a few nights in a row, you really start tuning
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  this up and it becomes incredibly frustrating.
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  And here's the best solution.
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  The way to break the cycle is to have no judgment, to not assume that anything
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  is wrong with you, but instead, if you notice that 15 or 20 minutes have gone by.
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  You just very calmly step out, walk out of the room, go somewhere dimly lit,
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  and do something you really enjoy, but that's not too stimulating.
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  For me, that's always going to be grabbing my Kindle or one of my books and
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  just reading for a little bit.
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  The goal here is to do something that resets your brain from that,
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  oh my God, why are you awake?
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  What did I do wrong that I'm so awake?
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  And instead, you want to kind of welcome that sleepiness back.
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  Sometimes it won't happen for another two hours. Sometimes it'll happen in 30 minutes.
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  The good news is when you stay in that calm state, your brain is actually going
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  to be in those lower frequency alpha waves and you can still get some great rest.
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  Believe it or not, even while you're awake, you can actually still rest so that
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  the next day you're still going to be sharp, even if for those two hours you
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  were just kind of dozing in and out,
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  looking at your Kindle or reading your favorite book.
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  The last thing you want to do is stay in bed and problem solve or force yourself
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  to fall asleep or punish yourself in any way.
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  That doesn't work. And again, after 15 or 20 minutes, if that's not happening,
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  the best thing to do is to get up and get out of bed.
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  So here's what you can do in the moment as well this is now not just the action
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  of reading or doing something kind of very light-hearted but you can also give
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  your brain a small job and what i mean by that especially if you're an overthinker
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  an engineer classically a surgeon,
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  you want to do something that keeps your brain busy but not too engaged.
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  What I do is the body scan. I've mentioned this many times before.
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  The body scan is when I go from the very top of my head, I usually have my eyes
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  closed, and I start feeling the hair on my scalp. I start feeling my eyebrows.
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  I start feeling the muscles connected to my eyes. I start feeling my gums over my teeth.
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  I start feeling the muscles, the tongue, and I start just going down and feeling the vertebra.
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  Again you're just doing this whole body scan
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  very slowly from top to bottom for some
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  people they prefer to do like a counting
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  backwards routine or they start thinking of words that start with a and then
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  whatever letter it ends in they think of the next word that ends in that last
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  letter but it should be something easy simple i would say do your sheep counting
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  but for some people, sheet counting can be frustrating.
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  What you definitely want to avoid is looking at your clock.
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  So get into the habit of turning your clock around, flip over your phone.
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  That's the last thing you want to look at.
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  Even though you think that it gives you some peace of mind, it's actually going
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  to stimulate you and it's going to bring you to this awakening moment of processing
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  why this is happening and it shouldn't be happening.
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  And this is actually something that comes straight out of one of my favorite
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  sleep books the hello sleep book and it's a great exercise that i've given my
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  patients now when it comes to getting up and your brain.
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  Don't let it get overly stimulated. You could be in your backyard,
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  if it's dark, on a porch and just let it enjoy the sounds and the smells and the wind, but no emails,
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  no bright lights, nothing stimulating, nothing that's going to get your mind
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  to do problem solving or, God forbid, even worse,
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  anything critically minded like self-criticizing or criticizing somebody else
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  or even having negative thoughts towards your neighbor who is deciding to play
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  rock and roll in the middle of the night.
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  Now, I also talk about this physiology part in the daytime, kind of like what
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  happens in the daytime is going to affect what's going to happen at night.
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  So, of course, if you are somebody who at all is struggling with any kind of
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  sleep issues, having a consistent wake up and go to bed routine is important.
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  Now, I would never make this super, super strict. I'm just talking about somewhat
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  consistent. The more you force yourself to have a very strict routine, that can also backfire.
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  Now, alcohol, caffeine, those things are big, big problems for a lot of people.
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  In fact, I usually recommend slowly cutting that out.
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  And, you know, the problem is that if you have alcohol on Monday,
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  it can still disrupt your sleep on Wednesday, even Thursday.
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  Because everybody functions differently with alcohol and caffeine.
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  The idea that it's out of your system in 24 hours, that's a really outdated concept.
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  If you're a thinker, remember, towards the end of the day, you want to develop
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  a kind of a slowing down routine, a wind down routine.
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  Keep your room on the cooler side, don't engage in deep conversations,
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  don't plan anything else.
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  Whatever comes to your mind, try to just either write it down or leave it for the next day.
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  Of course let's not forget that sometimes you're
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  waking up in the middle of the night because maybe you ate too much you
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  ate too heavy you ate too fast so now you got some gas pain maybe you're getting
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  some acid reflux or you're getting a little bit of sleep apnea maybe your hormones
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  are kicking up you got you got some hot flashes don't forget those things as
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  potential causes and if they happen welcome them don't again don't self-criticize that is.
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  Usually very problematic. Now, there is this paradoxical trick that you can try.
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  Many authors have talked about this in their books, but this is the intention
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  to actually try to stay awake.
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  And it sounds backwards, but when you stop trying to fall asleep,
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  the nervous system sort of relaxes and it loosens its grip on that goal.
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  So you say, no, I'm actually going to try to stay awake. I'm going to try to
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  read five more pages here.
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  I'm going to actually try my best to stay awake another the 30 minutes or 45 minutes.
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  So I know that this is not a fully comprehensive strategy for getting your sleep
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  fixed, but if you're waking up at 2 a.m.
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  In the middle of the night, this is a great start. If you're taking any supplements,
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  if you're taking any prescription medications, it's a great idea to discuss
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  that with your own physician or health coach and come up with a way to sort
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  of normalize that so that you don't have to depend on them and so that they
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  don't cause maybe some other problem in your whole sleep routine.