It’s only half past 8 in the morning, but yet the urge to fall back asleep is already starting to overcome you. Is there something wrong with your body?
Your late nights play an obvious part in your early morning suffering, but it’s not the only reason why your eyelids feeling like they’re attached with weights.
The Donut You Had The Night Before
All too familiar with the food coma you get after a meal? Well, the science behind food comas also relates to your sleep quality. You could have a hard time falling asleep along with poorer sleep quality thanks to heavy portions of carbohydrates at night. The bloated feeling could be disrupting your sleep patterns, leaving you feeling extra groggy the next day.
Large portions of carbohydrates, like late night pratas, can lead to elevated levels of insulin before bed. The resulting peak and crash of insulin can wreak havoc on blood glucose levels throughout your night to cause interrupted sleep. If you’re already a JC student struggling to keep afloat with 5 hours of sleep, I’d say skip the prata.
Have all the snacks you crave in moderation, just make sure you brush your teeth after.
Whatever You Do, Do Not Hit That Snooze Button
The snooze function could arguably be one of the best or worst inventions, but it’s definitely an accomplice of your grogginess in the morning.
We’re all too familiar with setting 4 timings (maybe 6) ahead of the actual time you need to wake up, just so you could cheat yourself with those extra, precious, beautiful minutes of sleep. But as it turns out, our body needs a ‘special pre-waking hour’ when it prepares for the start of the day. During this preparation hour, sleep gets lighter, resulting in a state where you wake up easier, says Dr. Stanley in an interview with Dailymail.
‘If you hit the snooze button you may go back into deep sleep and you’re not supposed to wake from deep sleep – you’re supposed to pass to the lighter preparation stage first, then open your eyes. So snoozing creates a huge shock to the body and it makes you feel awful.
‘If you wake up feeling worse, you’ll only be tempted to hit snooze again and then you’re in for a vicious cycle.’
We’ve all been through one of those ‘rude-awakenings’ when we get jolted out of sleep abruptly. Though the first moments being awake feel energetic, the lethargy would always get the better of us eventually.
Sometimes, You’re Just Born With It
It’s in your genes, to put it simply.
Around 10% of the population are natural ‘larks’ – and another 10% are ‘owls’. The rest of the population are just in between. ‘Larks’ are the obedient ones who are capable of going to bed early and waking up early.
The ‘owls’ on the other hand, experience something called sleep inertia – that feeling of grumpiness, slowness, lack of get-up-and-go – for anything up to 2 hours after waking up.
There are genes in the body that are responsible for processes to trigger hormones that make us sleepy at night and alert during the day. These hormones coordinate our circadian rhythm or natural body clock. Unfortunately, much of this can be attributed to genetics, which is not entirely under our control.
‘In larks these processes are slightly altered and their clock runs slightly faster.’, explains Professor Russell Foster in the same interview.
‘So they start feeling sleepy earlier in the evening than others. The owl’s body clock, on the other hand, is running a bit slow.’ This means that owls follow a wake-sleep cycle that is slightly longer than average people, resulting in chronic tiredness if they’re forced to wake up too early everyday.
TL;DR, if you’re tired every morning, blame your genetics for making you an owl.
Lighting Is Everything
Although the ideal conducive environment to sleep in would be a dark one, letting some light through in the morning helps to regulate your circadian rhythms, which can have you feeling more awake and energetic, a study by UCLA Sleep Center shows.
Letting light seep into your room is also another telltale that it’s already daytime, and a sign for your body to kick-start the internal clock.
Just Put The Blame On Being A Teenager
Believe it or not here’s your shot at blaming the hormonal change in your body. Due to the fluctuation of hormones, physical and emotional changes in the body, more lie-ins are required to accommodate the growth.
Sex hormones such as testosterone and progesterone flourish during this stage of life. This interacts with the body clock, meaning teenagers naturally wake up earlier.
With millennials in Singapore already known to be more sleep deprived, we could all use a little less caffeine and tap on the invigorating methods instead to make our day less snoozy.
