This is why waking at night does get more common as you age

It’s that time of night again. It’s 3am and you’re wide awake, hit with a wave of dread as you blink at your phone and see there are still hours to go until morning. Only you can’t sleep at all now because you’re panicking about getting enough rest to function the next day. Your heart starts to race, thoughts spiral, and you’re trapped in a vicious circle. Sleep expert Professor Russell Foster explains just why these early-morning “witching hour” wakings happen – and how to sleep through the night.

It’s a natural part of your sleep cycle

You may not realise it but all your life you’ve woken up several times a night as part of your normal sleep cycle. Most of the time, you don’t notice these “micro-arousals”, which occur as you drift in and out of deeper and lighter sleep. But as we get older, changes in our sleep and stress hormones make it more likely we will wake – and also make it harder for us to get back to sleep.

By later life, one in three older adults over the age of 60 say they wake too early or struggle to stay asleep regularly, according to a study in the journal Sleep. According to Professor Foster, Professor of Circadian Neuroscience at the University of Oxford and author of Life Time: The New Science of the Body Clock: “It’s not waking up in the night that’s the issue. It’s the difficulty of going back to sleep that’s the problem.”

Why women especially wake in the witching hour

As women approach menopause, hormonal shifts make “witching hour” wake-ups more likely. One is the gradual drop in the female sex hormone oestrogen, which plays a key role in helping women achieve deep sleep, so sleep becomes more erratic. As oestrogen also regulates body temperature, when it starts to fall it can result in temperature spikes, such as hot flushes. When this happens in the middle of the night, the brain can interpret the temperature increase as a signal that it’s time to get up.

Another hormonal shift that contributes to night-time waking in women is the drop in progesterone, known as the “calming hormone”. This means that when midlife women wake, they feel more stressed than they used to and less able to drift off again.

But men are affected too Waking bolt upright at 3 or 4am is a common complaint among older men – often blamed on stress or “overthinking”. However, the reasons are often more biological than psychological.

Men are likely to wake because the frontal areas of the brain that generate deep, restorative sleep gradually shrink with age – and this process usually happens faster for men than women. This means they lose slow-wave sleep sooner in the early hours, making them more vulnerable to night-time waking.

You need to go to the loo more

Another reason you are more likely to wake in midlife is a fuller bladder. As we age, the amount of urine our bladders can comfortably hold drops by as much as half. In women, falling levels of oestrogen after menopause thin the walls of the bladder and urethral tissue, making them more sensitive. In men, the prostate gland gradually enlarges, making it harder for the bladder to expand and sending messages it is already full.

For both sexes, levels of the hormone vasopressin, which dampens urine production during the night, also fall. This means the bladder fills more than it used to overnight, particularly in the early hours. Professor Foster explains: “At this stage of life, lighter sleep makes you more aware of signals from the bladder, and that will wake you up too.”

How to avoid waking in the witching hour

1. Keep your bedroom cooler

You can’t drop off to sleep until your core body temperature falls by roughly 0.3 to 0.5°C. This cooling sends messages to your brain that it’s time to wind down and for the nervous system to rest. But if hormonal fluctuations, like hot flushes, start to warm you up earlier, the brain interprets this as a cue to wake up. To give yourself a better chance of sleeping through the night, keep your room cooler — around 16 to 19°C. Choose lightweight natural fabrics for nightwear and bedding to regulate temperature so you don’t overheat.

2. Ditch the nightcaps

While it may feel like you need a drink to unwind, alcohol disrupts the second half of your sleep cycle. As alcohol breaks down in the liver, it creates a chemical with a stimulant effect, so you spend less time in deep sleep and are more likely to wake in the second half of the night. As it breaks down, it also raises skin temperature, which is another reason you may wake up. Professor Foster says: ‘Alcohol reduces REM sleep during the first part of the night, alters slow-wave sleep, decreases sleep quality. That results in a shorter sleep duration and produces more fragmented sleep.”

3. Shrink your problems back down to size

Clinical psychotherapist Dipti Tait of diptitait.com points out that your brain is not designed to problem-solve in the early hours. “When we wake in the small hours, the rational part of the brain is offline,” she explains. “The prefrontal cortex, which helps us weigh things sensibly, is quiet. Meanwhile, the amygdala, the brain’s alarm system, is far more active.

“In the dark and silence of night, it can become overprotective. Without logic, worries swell and distort. A small concern about tomorrow can turn into ‘I’m going to lose my job.’ A minor health niggle can feel catastrophic. It’s not that problems are bigger at 3am – it’s that our perspective is smaller.”

One powerful way to shrink worries back down to size is to remind yourself that your brain is simply doing what brains evolved to do – protect you, says Dipti. To calm anxious night-time thoughts, she advises giving your body reassurance that you are safe. “Place a hand on your heart or belly and say quietly, ‘Thank you, amygdala, for trying to keep me safe, but I don’t need to solve this right now.’ Then move from overthinking to feeling in control. The nervous system responds to the body more than to logic at night. When we feel in control, we feel calm, and vice versa.”

4. Slow your heart rate

To sleep, your heart rate needs to drop 20 to 30% from its daytime rate. To drop off again, it helps to take steps to slow it down. Psychotherapist Dipti Tait suggests this breathing exercise so you can fall back to sleep: “Inhale gently for four, exhale slowly for six, making the out-breath longer,” she advises. “This stimulates the vagus nerve — the body’s main nervous system superhighway — and signals safety to the body.”

5. Next relax your muscles from head to toe.

“Tense them for five seconds, then release them, silently repeating the word ‘soften’,” adds Dipti. But don’t try to force it, as that can make it worse. Instead see it as gently guiding the nervous system back into regulation. When the body feels safe, the mind usually follows.”

6. Go with the flow

Don’t tell yourself off if you’re having a bad night’s sleep, says Professor Foster. Ironically, it’s precisely this worry about how you will feel the next day that is likely to keep you awake. Instead, he says it helps to accept that some nights you will sleep better than others, and you can always catch up. Avoid sleep trackers too, which he advises can make you more anxious about your sleep.

7. Avoid checking your phone

To reduce your stress levels when you wake up, avoid checking the time on your phone, as the light it gives off will stimulate your brain even more, advises Professor Foster. If you have a digital alarm clock, consider turning its face to the wall so you don’t panic if you wake up.

8. Make the most of the early hours

If you are still awake after 15 minutes, instead of getting frustrated with yourself, Professor Foster advises getting up to do something non-stressful rather than lying there tossing and turning. Wait until you feel tired again.

9. Avoid tricky topics last thing at night

We often leave important conversations with our partners until the last thing at night. But try to deal with them earlier in the day if you want to sleep through, says Professor Foster. Otherwise raised levels of the stress chemicals cortisol and adrenaline may make it harder to stay asleep. Before bedtime, he advises avoiding stressful topics such as personal finances or current events – and choosing more relaxing topics. Instead, you could ask your partner about the best thing that happened to them during the day.”