If you often wake up at night and then cannot fall asleep for a long time, you are not getting enough sleep.

Fatigue accumulates over time and leads to quite unpleasant consequences for physical and mental health.

The Sun gathered the opinions of sleep experts who explained why we wake up in the middle of the night and how to help ourselves fall asleep quickly.

When the chances of waking up increase

Experts say that when we sleep, we go through several 90-minute cycles.

These cycles contain different stages of sleep.

In the last part of the cycle, you fall into a lighter sleep.

It is at this time that you are much more likely to wake up to the slightest noise, such as a car passing by or the light movement of your partner.

In the morning, you are unlikely to remember all the cases when you were woken up at night.

At what time is it more difficult to fall asleep?

Sometimes it is difficult for us to fall asleep after waking up at night.

The hardest time to fall asleep is around 3-4 in the morning.

As the body prepares for the morning, the body's core temperature and wakefulness hormones begin to rise and sleepiness decreases.

Add a little stress, and there's a good chance you'll wake up feeling groggy and have a hard time falling asleep.

Here are some tips shared by sleep experts to help you get back to sleep:

Avoid trips to the toilet

You might think that getting up to empty your bladder will help you get back into the dream, but that's not the case.

That's because if you leave the warmth of your bed, your heart has to pump more blood throughout your body, and you need a low resting heart rate to fall asleep.

So going to the bathroom does the opposite of what you need.

Photo: Credits

Stop looking at the clock

It's almost second nature to pick up your phone and check the time when you wake up in the middle of the night.

But this should be avoided at all costs, as the anxiety associated with checking the time can keep you awake for longer.

Experts say that if you haven't fallen asleep within 15 minutes, you should get out of bed.

You can lie down again as soon as you feel sleepy.

This is necessary so that you do not associate the bed with wakefulness and anxiety.

Give up alcohol

A glass of wine or a sip or two of brandy is a bedtime ritual for some and can certainly help you fall asleep.

But it can spoil the quality of your sleep.

Alcohol blocks tryptophan, an amino acid that helps you sleep, from getting into the brain.

So alcohol has a strange and dual effect: it makes it easier to fall asleep, but it makes it harder to fall asleep and affects the quality of our sleep.

Lock pets in another room

It may be nice to have a warm, fluffy pillow to snuggle up to, but you shouldn't keep your pets in bed: they'll squirm, snore, pass gas, and cover the bedding with a layer of wool.

The latter, among other things, can aggravate allergies or asthma.

Chill out

You may think that a warm, cozy home is essential comfort during the colder months, but it can actually disrupt sleep.

This is due to the fact that central heating systems dry out the mucous membranes, which makes you very thirsty at night.

The optimal temperature for a good night is 18 degrees or below.

The human body lowers its temperature by one degree to fall asleep, if you sleep in a room that is too warm, your body will not be able to get rid of excess heat, which means that your sleep will be disturbed.

Calm your mind

Try a little meditation before bed.

Learning to quiet your mind and stop the internal dialogue can be useful skills for both coping with stress and falling asleep at night.

If you've never tried it, start with just a few minutes, sit still and focus on your inhales and exhales.

It is also recommended to exercise more, as people who exercise regularly tend to fall asleep faster and sleep more soundly.

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