Why does it take so long to fall asleep initially, but feels super easy when woken up by your alarm?
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There’s a term in sleep medicine called sleep inertia. Essentially as the day progresses that inertia steadily increases, making it easier and easier to fall asleep. Once asleep, the inertia is at a critical point. That same inertia helps us fall back asleep if it’s disturbed. As your need for sleep dissipates, said inertia declines. There are a lot of factors contributing to sleep inertia including hormones as noted above, but there’s a lot we don’t understand (otherwise true, pathologic insomnia and narcolepsy wouldn’t be the beast they are to treat).
I’m not sleep-boarded, but I did a lot of sleep medicine in my practice.
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