No one told me that when you become a mom, the middle-of-the-night wake-ups may not end when you get past the baby stage. My youngest is almost five, and I still have to go into his room at 3 a.m. to listen to him recount his weirdo dreams.
Making matters more exhausting: After jolting awake—due to mom duty or some other nocturnal disturbance—I’ve struggled to get back to sleep. For a long time, lying awake in my bed while everyone else in my household was conked out led to anxious, distressing thoughts: I’d wonder how I could possibly get through my to-do list the following day while sleep-deprived, I’d worry that I’d never get back to sleep, or I’d ruminate on overwhelming sociopolitical issues that are impossible to solve on my own (especially from my bed).
I was doing what you might expect someone who woke up way before their alarm does: Get really stressed about the fact that they’re awake when they shouldn’t be. Also not surprisingly, that’s the exact wrong thing to do, Fiona Barwick, PhD, director of the Sleep & Circadian Health Program at Stanford University School of Medicine, tells SELF. So what should you do instead of freaking out that you’re not sleeping? We asked Dr. Barwick for her best advice on dealing with middle-of-the-night wake-ups so you can (hopefully) get back to sleep peacefully—without crying into or punching your pillow.
Recognize that your brain is overreacting.
As SELF previously reported, there are a lot of reasons why you might wake up at night: You’re anxious, you drank alcohol before bed, you have to pee, your partner (or dog) is snoring, you heard a loud noise outside—any manner of disruptions can pop your eyes open. “On average, adults wake up 10 to 12 times per night,” according to Dr. Barwick. If you’re awake for less than three minutes, you probably won’t remember, she says, which is why you don’t realize you’re experiencing most of these interruptions.
Sometimes, though, it can be hard to get back to sleep, and that’s okay. “It doesn’t mean your sleep is broken,” Dr. Barwick says. That’s important to remember, she adds, because it’s easy to spiral into catastrophic thinking, like, I’ll never get back to sleep and my day tomorrow will be ruined! In fact, we’re primed for these spirally thoughts: As you fall asleep, your brain shuts down front to back, starting with your frontal lobe, a region that influences your ability to reason and regulate emotions, Dr. Barwick explains.
When you wake up during the second half of the night (after the first three to four hours of sleep), you’re largely operating from your limbic system, which includes the amygdala, an area in the back of the brain that’s involved in emotional responses like fear and anxiety, as well as the hippocampus, your brain’s memory hub. As a result, your emotional volume may get turned up, Dr. Barwick says, making it easy to ruminate about a high-school-era mistake, say, or the state of your inbox, or how worried you are about the declining whale population.
Simply recognizing what’s happening may keep you from spiraling too far from dreamland, Dr. Barwick says. You can try checking your catastrophic thinking by saying to yourself, I’m actually okay. My brain is just overreacting. This awareness can help you stay calmer, priming you to fall back asleep. “Being in a more anxious, aggravated state will override your sleep drive,” Dr. Barwick explains.
Do something relaxing (that doesn’t involve a screen).
“What usually happens is that we focus our attention and effort on actively trying to get back to sleep,” Dr. Barwick says. Unfortunately, “That practically guarantees you will stay awake longer,” she says. Thinking about the fact that you’re not sleeping can rouse your mind and make you more anxious. A better move is to accept your situation—don’t resist being awake—and find an alternative focus.
If you don’t fall back asleep after what feels like 20 minutes, Dr. Barwick suggests getting up and doing something distracting but enjoyable that keeps you calm and relaxed—like reading, knitting, or journaling. Skip screen-based activities, like completing a work project or turning on the TV to finish that thriller—you want to distract yourself, not stress yourself out or blast your eyes with sleep-sabotaging blue light. (Twenty minutes is a recommendation, by the way—not a rule. Dr. Barwick suggests gauging how you feel: Are you awake, alert, and starting to feel anxious? That’s a good signal to get up.)
The goal is to stay calm and allow your sleep drive—the body’s natural “pressure” to sleep—to kick in again, which will help you drift off, Dr. Barwick says. At any rate, focusing on an enjoyable, calming activity is also just a more pleasant way to spend your twilight time rather than agonizing over the clock. And on that note: Don’t check your phone—not only might looking at the time make you anxious, but the closer the aforementioned blue light is to your face, the more likely it is to activate your nervous system and keep you awake, Dr. Barwick says.
Try to keep your sleep disruptions in perspective.
Yes, sleep is important. It gives you energy and helps you feel your best. It’s natural, then, to worry that you won’t be able to function after a sucky night of sleep. “The reality is that you will likely get back to sleep and you will be okay tomorrow,” Dr. Barwick says. “People don’t realize that you can typically function after a night of poor sleep.” That doesn’t discount your fears—it’s normal to worry that the following day will be awful—but remember, that might be the emotionally reactive part of your brain talking, not the rational one.
You might be sleepier tomorrow. Your workout might feel harder, and you might be a little more irritable. But Dr. Barwick’s advice is to go about your day as normal and anticipate that the next night will bring better sleep. “The sleep system is self-correcting. If you get poor sleep one night, you’re more likely to get better sleep the next, as long as you don’t do anything to interfere with that process,” she says. Don’t try to take an extra-long nap or go to bed wildly early, both of which can throw off your sleep schedule. (And if you chronically can’t sleep or wake up feeling unrested, talk to a doctor to figure out what might be the cause).
For me, all of the above advice has been key. I flipped my script and stopped pressuring myself to sleep, reminding myself that I had survived on far less rest before. Instead, I tried to enjoy my time awake wrapped up under my cozy covers or reading poetry (Kate Baer is a fave)—and I found that waking up in the middle of the night actually became a nice experience. There were no expectations of me from others. I didn’t have to work or do laundry or return a text or hand a snack to someone.
Releasing the pressure valve worked: I often fall back asleep faster than I did when I was more stressed out about waking up at night. And even when I don’t, I ultimately feel more rested than I used to. “Achieving a state of deep relaxation allows the body to recover in a way that lying awake stressed out does not,” Dr. Barwick says. In other words, even when I’m awake when I’m arguably not supposed to be, I’m still doing my health some good when I chill out about it.
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