Waking Up At 3 AM?

Three o’clock in the morning is a dreadful time to be awake, especially if you have to get up a few hours later for work, school, or an appointment.
The first thing you usually do is toss and turn, hoping to get back into a comfortable position so that you can catch some more shut-eye before the alarm goes off.

But it doesn’t always work, and when it doesn’t, you may shift into worry mode about not being able to fall asleep before the sun comes up.

Rather than becoming frustrated, Dr. Allie Hare, a sleep medicine consultant and co-founder of Grace Sleep, takes a different approach.
“If I wake at 3 am and it doesn’t feel like I am about to return to sleep, I try cognitive distraction strategies first,” Dr. Hare told HuffPost UK.

What is Cognitive Distraction?

Cognitive distraction, also known as cognitive shuffling, is a mental technique that helps you fall asleep by using unrelated words and images to distract your brain from stress and worry and rein in uncontrollable thoughts.

One way to try cognitive shuffling is to think of a simple word and generate as many random words from each letter. For example, if your word is “car,” you might think of unrelated words, such as:

• Carrot, cat, celery
• Apple, air, arrow
• Rhubarb, random, reading

If you are still awake, continue this exercise by using longer words.

You can also choose a word and visualize an image for each letter of the word. For example, if you want to use the word “car” again, you might imagine a carrot for “c”, an apple for “a”, and a rhubarb for “r.”
Continue these cognitive-shuffling exercises until you feel less focused or drowsy and ready to fall asleep.

Dr. Hare told HuffPost UK that one of the cognitive techniques she uses is “counting backwards from 1000 in sevens.”

No matter which technique you use, the goal is to distract your mind from worrying about not being able to fall asleep. After all, stress and frustration are the natural enemies of a great night’s sleep, according to Dr. Neil Stanley, an independent sleep expert and author of A Sleep Divorce: How to Sleep Apart, Not Fall Apart.

“There is no point trying to sleep if you are not sleepy, so don’t worry about being awake,” Dr. Stanley said.

Still Can’t Sleep? Get Out of Bed

While cognitive distractions are her go-to methods, Dr. Hare told HuffPost UK that if those methods don’t work, she gets out of bed, since “trying to get back to sleep never works and can condition your body and brain to associate the bed with tossing, turning, and frustration.”

Other sleep specialists recommend getting out of bed after 20 minutes of being awake. They also advise against scrolling through your phone, turning on your laptop, or watching a late-night show on TV. In other words, avoid bright lights on electronic devices that will keep you awake. It’s alright, however, if you want to do something like folding laundry.

“I’ll do something else, like reading or listening to music for 20-30 minutes before going back to bed,” Dr. Hare told HuffPost UK.

Dr. Hare, like other sleep experts, advises against letting a poor night’s sleep interfere with your normal routine.

“If I’ve had a bad night, I will still focus on getting up at the same time I usually would in the morning and focus on getting early bright, outside light to minimize fatigue,” she said.

Source Links:
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/best-thing-to-try-wake-up-3am_uk_6925d0f5e4b063285310c7d5
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/how-to-fall-back-asleep-3am_uk_691c8a19e4b073def3ee48da