3 ways to stop your 3AM wakings
Sep 29, 2024
From 2024 scholar and sleep consultant Alanna McGinn of Good Night Sleep Site
Waking up in the middle of the night is never easy. Waking up and not being able to fall back to sleep makes it even harder. There are a few reasons why you wake up and are stuck lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, and doing the clock watch in your head. Luckily there are also ways to be able to drift off back to sleep or avoid those nightly wakings all together.
Why we wake up in the middle of the night:
You have low blood sugar
Hypoglycemia can definitely be the culprit of a middle-of-the-night waking. During the night, your liver is working hard at metabolizing glucose. If you eat dinner at 5 or 6PM and then not again until breakfast the next morning, your blood sugar level may get too low throughout the night, and then your body begins to secrete cortisol from your adrenal glands. Cortisol is one of our stress hormones, which suppresses our natural sleep hormone, melatonin. Cortisol also makes it tough to keep us calm and relaxed, so now you wake up and your stress levels are raised, so falling back to sleep becomes difficult.
A small snack with protein can help as both protein and fibre will help keep your blood sugar stabilized while you’re sleeping. These bedtime snacks can help maintain your blood sugar level throughout the night.
- Two handfuls of raw pumpkin seeds (not in the shell)
- A piece of bread with peanut butter (optimally peanut butter with >5g of protein per serving)
- Hard-boiled egg
- Legumes like chickpeas, beans, nuts, seeds
- Protein shake or protein bar
- Veggies, crackers or pita dipped in hummus.
You have to pee
Midnight bathroom breaks can happen, and sometimes, once you crawl back into bed, you may find yourself tossing and turning, unable to fall back to sleep.
Start by avoiding peeing in the middle of the night so you can sleep through. While there could be many reasons why you need to pee during the night, it’s best to monitor all fluids before you go to bed, including avoiding alcohol or caffeinated beverages too close to bedtime as both can act as a mild diuretic and they encourage the body to release extra fluids.
If you do wake up to go to the bathroom, practise these steps if you can’t fall asleep:
- Don’t turn on every light. It takes 7 minutes to be exposed to bright lights to suppress our melatonin and turn our sleep switch off in our brain, so when we turn the lights on in the middle of the night, we have a hard time falling back to sleep because our brain has been tricked into thinking that it’s time to wake up. We can’t get away from LED lights in our homes, but for night lights or our night table lamp, choose the right colour of the light bulb. Choose red, orange and yellow to encourage the body to continue to sleep.
- Stop clock-watching. We’re all guilty of it! Checking the time and watching the clock becomes a job we feel we must do, which robs us of sleep. The dreaded clock countdown is a huge sleep buster, so just set your alarm and then turn your clock around or hide it. If you know the alarm is set, you don’t need to know what time it is.
You’re too hot or too cold
Throughout the night, we want our body to focus on one thing only: sleeping. If our body is busy regulating our temperature throughout the night, it can’t focus on deep restorative sleep, causing more night wakings. We all sleep better in a cooler environment, and an optimal room temperature is 65 degrees.
- Dress accordingly. If you are a hot sleeper, focus on more breathable fabrics for PJs. Natural fibres like cotton or bamboo. Fabrics that will wick away perspiration.
- Layer accordingly. Include covers like sheets, quilts or duvets that you can peel away or pull up throughout the night if need be.
Other top reasons for 3AM wakings are because perhaps you’re trying too hard to sleep, which is backfiring, and you need to manage your stress better so you’re not bringing it to bed. I share surefire ways to combat those two common sleep issues with my FREE 5-Day email course—Reclaim Your Restful Nights—and stop those 3 am wakings!
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Alanna McGinn is the Founder and Certified Sleep Expert of Good Night Sleep Site, a global sleep consulting practice. She is host of the ‘This Girl Loves Sleep’ Podcast and author of This Baby Loves Sleep. Alanna has established theMom worldwide brand of Good Night Sleep Site as being a #1 sleep resource for families. She and her team of sleep consultants strive to help families (babies to adults) and corporations overcome their sleep challenges and have well-rested smiles in the morning. You can learn more about Alanna McGinn and how to work with a Good Night Sleep Consultant at goodnightsleepsite.com. Follow Alanna and all her sleep tips on Instagram.
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