The clock strikes 3 A.M. and, like clockwork, you’re awake — just like you are every other night. It can get a little spooky waking up at the same time every single night, but it could be perfectly normal.
It becomes a problem, though, when you can’t fall back to sleep and your health, focus, and energy levels start taking a hit.
Below, we’ll explain why you wake up at the same time every night — whether that’s 2 A.M., 3 A.M., or 4:07 A.M. And we’ll share how you can use the RISE app to help you wake up less often to get a good night’s sleep.
There are many reasons a person could be waking up at 3 A.M. every night, including natural patterns in sleep architecture, sleep disorders, and poor sleep hygiene, which includes late-night meals and caffeine.
Let’s dive into the many culprits in more detail.
Sleep architecture is how your sleep is structured and organized. Each night of sleep includes several sleep cycles made up of light sleep, deep sleep, and REM sleep. You may wake up briefly at the end of each sleep cycle (wakeups you may not even remember due to the nighttime phenomenon of “retrograde amnesia”).
You may also wake up more often in the second half of the night. That’s because you spend more time in deep sleep in the first half and more time in REM sleep in the second half.
It’s easier to be woken up from REM sleep, so the snoring you slept soundly through in the first half of the night could suddenly be waking you up in the second half.
If you wake up at 3 A.M. on the dot each night, sleep architecture could be to blame again.
If you go to bed at roughly the same time each night (which we recommend), you may find yourself switching over to spending more time in a lighter sleep stage at roughly the same time in the night. And therefore waking up at the same time, too.
For example, if you need eight hours of sleep, fall asleep at 11 P.M., and wake up at 7 A.M, the midpoint of sleep would be bang on 3 A.M.
We all need a different amount of sleep, have different sleep times, and our sleep architecture can change, so this midpoint can look different from night to night. But this is one reason you could be waking up at a very similar time each night.
Another reason you wake up more in the second half of the night is adenosine. This is a natural compound that builds up in your system throughout the day making you feel sleepy.
Adenosine gradually gets cleared as you sleep. In the second half of the night, you’ll have lower levels of adenosine and so may wake up, and you may find it hard to fall back to sleep if something else wakes you up.
The fix: If you fall back to sleep easily, there may not be anything to fix! Waking up a few times throughout the night is normal — even when it happens at the exact same time.
If you struggle to fall back to sleep, improve your sleep hygiene, the daily habits that can help you get a good night’s sleep. More on those below.
Expert tip: Keep an eye on your sleep debt. This is the amount of sleep you’ve missed out on recently. If this is low and stays low, you probably don’t need to worry about waking up once or twice in the middle of the night. If this starts creeping up, however, follow the tips below to help you get more sleep throughout the night.
RISE can work out how much sleep debt you have. We recommend keeping it below five hours for the best energy, mental performance, and health.
RISE users on iOS 1.202 and above can view their sleep debt here.
If there’s a noise, a bright light, or your bedroom is too warm, you may be woken up.
And this may be a regular occurrence if it’s a snoring partner, you sleep with the lights on (which research shows leads to more nighttime awakenings), or your bedroom gets too warm during the summer.
Even your pet may be to blame. A 2023 study found owning a dog was associated with higher odds of having trouble sleeping.
The fix: Before you crawl into bed, make sure your bedroom will stay cool, dark, and quiet all night. Set your thermostat to 65 to 68 degrees Fahrenheit, use blackout curtains and an eye mask, and wear earplugs or use the white noise assist in the RISE app.
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Alcohol fragments your sleep, meaning it can wake you up during the night. And if you have a nightly nightcap, this could be behind your 3 A.M. wake-ups.
Beyond waking you up directly, alcohol can also trigger night sweats, sleep apnea, and an increased need to pee — all of which could wake you up from sleep.
The fix: Avoid alcohol three to four hours before bed to stop it disrupting your sleep. We’ve covered more on how long before bed to stop drinking alcohol here.
Caffeine can make it harder to drift off initially, but that’s not the only way it messes with your sleep. Research shows it can increase how often you wake up during the night, too.
It can also decrease the amount of deep sleep and increase the amount of light sleep you get. And as it’s easier to be woken up from light sleep, this makes you more vulnerable to disruptions, like noise, waking you up.
The fix: Stop drinking caffeine about 12 hours before bed. We’ve covered more on when to stop drinking coffee here.
It’s not just light during the night you need to think about. A 2017 study found evening exposure to short-wavelength light — the light you’d get from screens — can disrupt sleep continuity. Light suppresses the sleep hormone melatonin, making it harder to fall and stay asleep.
And the amount of light you get during the day makes a difference, too. Research shows those who get later first exposure to more than 10 lux of light had more awakenings when they next went to bed. An overcast day will give you about 1,000 lux of light, so getting outside first thing — no matter the weather — can help you sleep more soundly.
The fix: Get outside for at least 10 minutes as soon as you can after waking up. Stay out for 15 to 20 minutes if it’s overcast or if you’re getting light through a window.
We’ve covered when to get light and what color light is best for sleep here. And RISE can tell you exactly when to get and avoid light each day.
RISE users on iOS 1.202 and above can set up their get bright light reminder here.
Stress can cause you to wake up in the night and struggle to get back to sleep. It’s a common problem — RISE users say stress and anxiety are the biggest barriers stopping them from getting a good night’s sleep.
But while it’s common, stress affects us all differently. The higher your sleep reactivity, the more stress is likely to disrupt your sleep and the higher your odds are for insomnia.
Research suggests once you’ve been exposed to stress and developed insomnia, your sleep reactivity can increase. The bad news? It may not return to pre-insomnia levels, meaning waking up often in the night can become the norm.
The fix: Try doing breathing exercises. A 2023 study (by one of our sleep advisors Dr. Jamie Zeitzer, co-director of the Center for Sleep and Circadian Sciences at Stanford University) found five minutes of daily psychological sighing can reduce stress. Psychological sighing is also known as cyclic sighing, and it involves extended exhales.
The timing of your last meal could be behind your middle-of-the-night awakenings.
A 2021 study found eating or drinking an hour or less before bed increased the odds of waking up during the night.
This may be because eating can lower your arousal threshold, which is how easily you can be awoken from sleep. If a late dinner lowers your arousal threshold, you’ll be more likely to be woken up by any disruption. That could be something in your bedroom like a noise, or other bad habits like late-night alcohol, such as the wine you had with the late dinner.
Eating close to laying down can also cause digestive problems like acid reflux or bloating, which can wake you up in pain or make it hard to fall back to sleep if you’re up in the night.
The fix: Stop eating two to three hours before bed. We’ve covered more on what time to stop eating before bed here.
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If you regularly have an early dinner, hunger pangs may wake you up at 3 A.M. This can also happen if you haven’t eaten enough throughout the day.
You might also get nocturnal hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar at night, which is a common cause of insomnia.
The fix: Try eating a small snack before bed. Go for Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, or fruit and peanut butter. Avoid anything too sugary, fatty, or spicey before bed.
You might wake up at the same time each night because you need to use the bathroom.
Waking up and needing to pee is called nocturia, and it’s totally normal — especially if it only happens once or twice a night.
The fix: Drink most of your fluids earlier in the day and avoid having anything to drink about two hours before bed.
Many of us associate insomnia with struggling to fall asleep, but the sleep disorder could be behind you waking up in the night, too.
There are four types of insomnia:
If you find yourself regularly waking up in the night and not being able to fall back to sleep, sleep maintenance insomnia or early morning awakening insomnia could be to blame.
Part of what’s at work here is conditioned arousal. This is when your brain and body associate your bed and nighttime sleep with wakefulness. Worrying about 3 A.M. wake-ups, and not being able to fall back to sleep, can cause more 3 A.M. wake-ups, even when the initial trigger for them is long gone.
The fix: Try improving your sleep hygiene (more on this soon) and speak to your healthcare provider for the best treatment options for you. Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) is often used as a first-line treatment and can help break the association between sleep and the seemingly inevitable 3 A.M. wake-ups.
Obstructive sleep apnea is another sleep disorder that could be causing you to wake up throughout the night. Sleep apnea is when your airways close and your breathing is temporarily cut off as you sleep. Your body wakes you up to kickstart your breathing.
The fix: Speak to a doctor if you think you have sleep apnea. Sleeping with a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine may help. Look out for symptoms like snoring, waking up gasping for breath, waking up with a sore throat, morning headaches, and daytime sleepiness.
We’ve covered more ways to know if you have sleep apnea here.
Beyond insomnia and sleep apnea, other sleep issues and disorders could be behind your nighttime awakenings.
These include:
The fix: Speak to your doctor about getting tested for sleep disorders. If you have one, they can recommend the best course of action to help you sleep through the night.
Mental health issues can wreak havoc with your sleep, including causing you to wake up during the night. These include:
The fix: Speak to your doctor if you think mental health issues are behind your sleep problems. They can recommend the best treatment options.
Hormones don’t just mess with your days, they can make your nights harder, too.
Fluctuating hormone levels can cause sleep disorders like insomnia, mood changes, anxiety, and an increased body temperature. Even just one of these symptoms is enough to wake you up at night.
You may find yourself awake at 3 A.M. when you’re on your period, when pregnant, or at different points in your menstrual cycle.
The fix: Pay extra attention to making sure your bedroom is cool enough for sleep, you’re cutting yourself off from caffeine at the right time, and you’re keeping your stress levels in check.
Menopause and perimenopause (the time leading up to menopause) can both impact your sleep.
You may experience hot flashes, an increased need to use the bathroom at night, sleep disorders like sleep apnea, and increased anxiety.
The fix: Again, pay extra attention to making sure your bedroom is cool, you’re calm and stress-free before bed, and other sleep disruptors (like coffee and late meals) aren’t making matters worse. Hormone replacement therapy can also help relieve symptoms.
Some medications can disrupt your sleep and wake you up in the night.
These include:
The fix: Speak to your healthcare provider to see if you can switch up your meds.
Your body might wake you up in pain at night. You could also experience nighttime pain from laying on an injury or aggravating a bad lower back.
This could also come from health conditions like:
The fix: Experiment to find a comfortable sleep position that doesn’t cause you pain. Speak to your healthcare provider about pain management solutions. Medication may help ease your symptoms. Try to avoid prescription sleep aids, as they come with many side effects, but they may be needed in some situations.
Sleep can be so fragile that sometimes even a tiny bit of discomfort can wake you up. And this can happen every night if something in your bed — like a hard pillow, lumpy mattress, or constrictive pajamas — is causing the discomfort.
The fix: Experiment to find the best pillow position for you — or ditch the pillow altogether. Switch up your nightwear and consider a new mattress if yours is too old, too soft, or too hard for you.
Pain from digestive problems can wake you up, or make it harder to fall back to sleep if you’re already awake. Digestive problems may also wake you up with a sudden need to use the bathroom.
These include:
The fix: Inspect your diet to see if it’s triggering nighttime digestive issues. Keep a log of your meals and symptoms to see if there’s a pattern.
We all know smoking isn’t great for our lungs, but it messes with our sleep, too.
Research shows smoking can lead to:
Smokers are also more likely to report depression and a high caffeine intake, both of which may cause you to wake up in the night.
The fix: Work on giving up smoking. Former smokers report sleep disturbances similar to non-smokers, so if you’re a smoker, all is not lost.
You might be woken up by breathing problems like:
The fix: Speak to your doctor if you think issues like asthma or sleep apnea are waking you up. Stop snoring by sleeping on your side or with your head elevated, and try mouth taping to break the habit of mouth breathing.
If you’re out of sync with your circadian rhythm — your internal body clock — you may find yourself awake at odd times, including at 3 A.M.
You may be out of sync if:
The fix: Get in sync by keeping a regular sleep schedule, even on your days off. Bonus: RISE users with low sleep debt have a more regular sleep pattern than those with high sleep debt. So keeping regular sleep-wake times could help you get enough sleep overall.
RISE can predict your circadian rhythm each day to help you stay in sync with it.
RISE users on iOS 1.202 and above can see their circadian rhythm on the Energy screen here.
Older adults may find it harder to sleep through the night.
That’s because:
The fix: Pay extra attention to good sleep hygiene to make sure nothing else messes with your sleep, and try to stay in sync with your circadian rhythm to maximize the chances of keeping your sleep cycle in check.
To sleep through the night, improve your sleep hygiene. This includes getting light exposure first thing in the morning; avoiding light close to bedtime; and avoiding caffeine, alcohol, and large meals too late in the day.
With good sleep hygiene, you’ll wake up less often to begin with, have an easier time falling back to sleep if you do wake up, and you’ll be less vulnerable to things you can’t control (like a noisy neighbor or illness) waking you up.
Here’s how to improve your sleep hygiene:
Good sleep hygiene is key to getting better sleep. But we know it’s a lot to stay on top of. To help make it easier, RISE can tell you when to do 20+ sleep hygiene behaviors at the right time for you.
RISE users on iOS 1.202 and above can set up their 20+ in-app habit notifications here.
If you wake up at 3 A.M. (or any other time), you can fall back to sleep by keeping the lights low, avoiding looking at the time, staying calm, and doing a sleep reset if needed.
Here’s more on those key steps:
We’ve covered more tips on how to fall back asleep here and dive deeper on why you should stay up if you can't sleep here.
If your 3 A.M. wake-ups and inability to fall back to sleep are impacting your daily life, consider seeking extra help. A healthcare professional or CBT-I practitioner can guide you through additional techniques to help you get more sleep.
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Most of the time, you shouldn’t worry about waking up at 3 AM every night. It’s natural to wake up once or twice in the middle of the night. And, as long as you can get back to sleep easily enough, it shouldn’t impact your health or energy levels.
While undisturbed sleep is best, the most important metric to focus on (and the metric you have the most control over) is sleep debt.
As long as you’re keeping your sleep debt low (through good sleep hygiene to get healthy natural sleep), your energy, productivity, health, and wellness will be at their highest. We recommend keeping your sleep debt below five hours to feel your best.
RISE can work out how much sleep debt you have and keep track of it each night, so you can tell if waking up in the night is adding to your sleep debt or not.
Fun fact: RISE can work out how much sleep you need (also known as sleep need) and this may be more than you think. We looked at the sleep needs of 1.95 million RISE users and found the median was eight hours. But 48% of users needed eight hours or more sleep a night.
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Most of the time, waking up at 3 A.M. (or any time) every night is nothing to worry about — as long as you can fall back to sleep easily. If, however, you find yourself waking up very often during the night or struggling to drift back off (and improving your sleep hygiene hasn’t helped), it may be worth speaking to a doctor. They can test you for underlying medical conditions or sleep disorders that may be to blame.
Waking up at 3 A.M. (or any time for that matter) is normal. It may be because of natural changes in your sleep architecture during the night But poor sleep hygiene — which includes late caffeine or a hot bedroom — could also be to blame.
Try improving your sleep hygiene to increase your chances of sleeping through the night. The RISE app can help by telling you when to do 20+ sleep hygiene habits each day at the time that makes them the most effective for you.
RISE can also work out how much sleep debt you have. You can then keep an eye on whether your 3 A.M. awakenings are causing sleep deprivation. If they’re not, try not to worry too much about them.
If they are, know that 80% of RISE users get more sleep within five days, so you could be sleeping soundly in no time.
You may keep waking up at 3 A.M. because you’re more likely to be in a lighter sleep stage during this time, so you’re more easily woken up. Caffeine, stress, alcohol, hormones, and sleep disorders could also be causing you to wake up at 3 A.M.
You may wake up at the same time every night as your body switches to lighter sleep stages at the same time. Caffeine, stress, alcohol, hormones, and sleep disorders could also be causing you to wake up at the same time every night.
You may wake up at 3 A.M. with anxiety because, at this time of the night, you’re more likely to be in a lighter stage of sleep, so you’re more easily woken up by anxiety. Other culprits, like a noise or light, could wake you up at this time, too, and then you start feeling anxious.
You may be waking up at 3 A.M. hot because, at this time of night, you’re more likely to be in a lighter sleep stage, and so you’re more easily woken up by a warm bedroom, hot flashes, or night sweats.
You may wake up at 2 A.M. because you’re more likely to be in a lighter sleep stage during this time, so you’re more easily woken up. Caffeine, stress, alcohol, hormones, and sleep disorders could also be causing you to wake up at 2 A.M.
Stop waking up at 3 A.M. by improving your sleep hygiene. This includes making sure your bedroom is dark, cool, and quiet; avoiding caffeine, alcohol, and large meals too close to bedtime; and doing a relaxing bedtime routine to keep stress levels low.
RISE makes it easy to improve your sleep and daily energy to reach your potential
RISE makes it easy to improve your sleep and daily energy to reach your potential
