• News
  • Film and TV
  • Music
  • Tech
  • Features
  • Celebrity
  • Politics
  • Weird
  • Community
  • Advertise
  • Terms
  • Privacy & Cookies
  • LADbible Group
  • LADbible
  • SPORTbible
  • GAMINGbible
  • Tyla
  • UNILAD Tech
  • FOODbible
  • License Our Content
  • About Us & Contact
  • Jobs
  • Latest
  • Topics A-Z
  • Authors
Facebook
Instagram
X
Threads
TikTok
YouTube
Submit Your Content
Surprising meaning behind people who keep waking up at the same time every night

Home> News> Health

Published 16:02 15 Jun 2025 GMT+1

Surprising meaning behind people who keep waking up at the same time every night

It's surprisingly common

Liv Bridge

Liv Bridge

Featured Image Credit: Getty Images/golubovy

Topics: Sleep, Health

Liv Bridge
Liv Bridge

Liv Bridge is a digital journalist who joined the UNILAD team in 2024 after almost three years reporting local news for a Newsquest UK paper, The Oldham Times. She's passionate about health, housing, food and music, especially Oasis...

X

@livbridge

Advert

Advert

Advert

If you wake up at the same time every night, you're not alone and there's actually a scientific meaning behind it.

Even for the least superstitious of us, you can't help but go into a panic if you find yourself waking up at a specific time in the middle of the night every time you go to sleep.

A good night's kip is vital for our health and getting us through the day, so when we wake up suddenly in the early hours, usually around 3 or 4am, it can feel frustrating.

Yet it's surprisingly common according to one study by Sleepfoundation.org which found 35.5 percent of people in the US reported the jarring phenomenon as many as three times a week.

Advert

Some believe the nightly disturbance is caused by an overactive mind and many wonder if they should seek medical help.

The phenomenon can impact all of us at some point in our lives (Getty Images)
The phenomenon can impact all of us at some point in our lives (Getty Images)

Cognitive therapist and sleep expert, Greg Murray, wrote in The Conversation: "I sometimes joke that the only good thing about 3am waking is that it gives us all a vivid example of catastrophizing.

"Waking and worrying at 3am is very understandable and very human."

Advert

However, it's not for reasons you may suspect, like anxiety, high cortisol levels prompted by stress or the painful reliving of life's most embarrassing moments, but rather something far more simple.

Murray, the Director of the Centre for Mental Health at Swinburne University of Technology in Australia, revealed the collective experience is actually anchored to our body's hormonal rhythms, and we're all pretty similar on that front.

Our neurobiology, the part of our nervous system's structure, function and development, hits a point when we're asleep which is typically around that 3am or 4am mark.

At this point in our sleep, body temperature rises and the sleep hormone, melatonin, has peaked since our body has already rested.

Advert

Then the stress hormone does it's annoying job of kicking in when we don't want it to, to prepare us for the day ahead.

Stress can also play a part (Getty Images)
Stress can also play a part (Getty Images)

And it all happens without any signals, like our phones going off or bright light emerging from behind the curtains, as the human body is apparently able to predict the sunrise and the sunset due to our natural circadian rhythm.

However, higher cortisol levels than normal can also play a part in jolting us awake in the night as the stress hormone does a good job of putting our bodies on high alert.

Advert

It triggers the release of glucose (sugar) from your liver to provide the body with a boost of energy in stressful moments and when we're more stressed than usual, it goes into overdrive and can release more cortisol during the night, therefore eerily waking us up around the same time every day.

Choose your content:

19 mins ago
23 mins ago
an hour ago
  • 19 mins ago

    ‘Worst disease possible' explained after right-to-die activist ends life by starving herself so kids won’t see illness

    Emma Bray was diagnosed with motor neurone disease (MND) two years before her death

    News
  • 23 mins ago

    Moon landing conspiracies reignite after resurfaced clip shows Buzz Aldrin saying ‘it didn’t happen’

    As celebrations gear up to mark the 56th anniversary of the 1969 moon landing, conspiracy theories are raging once again

    News
  • an hour ago

    Doctor explains how weight-loss jabs impact sex life as study reveals huge differences between men and women

    The findings come as 6.7 million Americans have been reported as using GLP-1 medications

    News
  • an hour ago

    Singer of viral 'Pretty Little Baby' song Connie Francis dies aged 87

    A friend of Connie Francis' announced the news of her death on social media

    Music
  • Expert reveals the real reason why people wake up at 3am every night and how to fix it
  • Expert explains why you keep waking up at 4am and it's not just because you're tired
  • Expert issues warning to people constantly waking up too early as it could be sign of life-changing illness
  • Health expert explains why 'cringe memory attacks' keep us awake late at night when we're trying to sleep