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Have you ever wondered, or perhaps even felt absurdly upset, why you wake up at the same time as yesterday, even though you purposely didn't set the alarm - and today is your day off? Buyar had all the plans to get up late and relaxed. What is there, you actually feel in good shape, even though it's still 5 in the morning. Science can explain it for you.
As it turns out, the body has its own alarm
Our daily life is regulated by the body's internal clock called the circadian rhythm. Circadian rhythm works to regulate when you go and wake up following any changes in habits, physical activity, mental, behavior, even to the light conditions of your environment in a 24 hour cycle. The circadian rhythm can also help with hormone production, body temperature, and various other bodily functions.
Sleep is a way for the body's circadian clock to automatically reset itself each day to keep it operating in a 24 hour cycle. The dim atmosphere and cold weather at night will trigger the brain to release the hormones melatonin and adenosine which make you feel sleepy and relaxed, a sign of your time to sleep. The more sleepless hormones are released at night.
During the night when you are asleep these two hormones will continue to be released, but will begin to brake production in the morning and slowly replaced with the hormones adrenaline and cortisol. Adrenaline and cortisol are stress hormones that help you stay focused and alert once you wake up in the morning.
Simply put, the reason why you can wake up always at the same time is because the circadian rhythm works in response to changes in light and dark. As soon as the body is exposed to light in the morning (whether it's natural sunlight peeking out from behind the curtains, room lights, or even a cellphone screen that turns on due to email notifications), the body's biological clock will stop the production of sleep-making hormones and replace it with stress hormones to prepare you up early.
The sleep-inducing hormones adenosine and melatonin usually start to stop being produced around 6-8 in the morning.
Why do I like to wake up in the middle of the night?
Sometimes, you may find yourself waking up in the middle of the night for no reason. No, it's not because you have a pair of invisible eyes watching you in the corner like in the movies. The phenomenon of waking up in the middle of the night is commonly called "midnight insomnia".
The body's biological clock, as described above, regulates sleep patterns - from chicken sleep to deep sleep, the so-called REM sleep stage. The non-REM and REM sleep stages alternate once every 90-100 minutes throughout the night. You are more likely to wake up in the middle of the night during non-REM sleep. Also, as time passed the dawn broke.
"We're moving toward a lighter stage of sleep, so we're more likely to wake up," says Ames Findley, Ph.D., CBSM, clinical director of The Behavioral Sleep Medicine Program at the University of Pennsylvania, said of the Huffington Post.
The habit of waking up in the middle of the night may also be influenced by changes in sleep patterns. Everyone has a different body clock (circadian rhythm), but it is generally 24 hours and 15 minutes long. The circadian rhythm of people who like to sleep late at night will be longer, while the rhythm of people who are diligent in getting up early will be shorter than 24 hours.
Changes in sleep patterns mess up the body's biological clock system, which in turn has a detrimental effect on health. This is because the body's biological clock not only controls the alertness and alertness of our conscious mind but also regulates the "working hours" of every organ in the body.
In other words, stress factors that affect the functioning of the body's biological clock, such as deadline work, relationships with lovers, or unfinished college assignments make you always go to bed with all the anxiety that often leads to trouble sleeping well.
Waking up in the middle of the night can also be caused by various other things, for example eating spicy food or drinking coffee in the afternoon or even at night before bed.
