Why does it take so long to fall asleep initially, but feels super easy when woken up by your alarm?
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Sleep, like a lot of functions in your body, is controlled by hormones. To fall asleep your body needs to produce a certain amount of sleep hormones, as soon as that threshold is reached you fall asleep. When you get woken up by your alarm and haven’t gotten enough sleep yet your body is still full of sleep hormones, so falling back asleep is really easy. Then there are also sleep cycles, each cycle is around ~~3 hours~~ 90 minutes long. If you get woken up near the beginning or end of a cycle you’ll probably feel more or less fine, but if you get woken up in the middle you’ll feel super groggy and want to finish up the cycle as fast as possible.
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One thing not being mentioned is you go through cycles when you sleep. Being woken in the middle of a cycle will make you feel more tired, groggy, etc than if you woke up at the end of a cycle OR BEFORE you hit the deep sleep part
So a 15 minute nap will be more refreshing than a 60 minute nap because you havent interrupted your deep sleep stage.
The other answers are also correct just wanted to give an answer from a different perspective
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.
I can actually fall asleep relatively quickly now because I kind of do this mindfulness thing where I imagine how I feel when I’m first waking up. I’m loose and relaxed. I used to have a difficult time falling asleep which stemmed from anxiety, but I realized I was always tense when trying to fall asleep, semi squeezing my eyes shut. When I had this revelation, it pretty much eliminated my insomnia.
I fall asleep within like 10 seconds every night. Honestly can’t relate. Maybe you’re forcing yourself to sleep too much? I know that it’s recommended to sleep 7-9hrs but I can never sleep more than like 6hrs, and if I do then I will struggle to fall asleep the following night. Some people are the opposite and need 9hr+ every night.
It can be harder to fall asleep than to wake up because the body’s natural sleep-wake cycle, or circadian rhythm, regulates the release of certain hormones and chemicals that affect alertness and drowsiness. At night, the body releases melatonin, a hormone that promotes sleep, while in the morning, the body releases cortisol, a hormone that promotes wakefulness. Additionally, people may be more mentally active and have racing thoughts before bed which can make it harder to fall asleep. Stress and anxiety can also play a role in making it difficult to fall asleep.
The juice in your brain is different. It’s like asking why is it harder to boil water that’s cold on a stove still warming up versus water that was just boiling but you took it off for a couple seconds and then placed it back on the same burner.
A simple answer is how active certain parts of your mind are.
If you can clear your mind and prep it for sleep, you can fall asleep fast.
And if you train yourself to come fully awake when your alarm goes off you can wake up instantly and not fall back asleep.
The biggest hurdle is that we train ourselves with bad habits to do things that are counter to what we want/need.
There are 4 things you van do to train yourself to fall asleep in a minute or two ( takes me 1 breath now)
Meditate to clear your mind. Meditate on your body to relax it and teach it to calm down. Start to think pleasant thought or problems (i focus on winning the lottery). And then take it all together, take a deep breath and let it all go. ZZzzzzzz. 😁
This must be your personal experience. It does not necessarily take long to fall asleep. I can do it in less than 2 minutes.
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