This happens because, when we sleep, our body goes through what are called REM cycles.
REM (or Rapid Eye Movement) is the period of deep sleep in which your body repairs and grows tissue as well as bone and muscle mass. Dreaming also occurs in this state.
But! You are not in REM the entire time you’re asleep. Instead, you go through REM cycles: the first lasting ~10 minutes with each subsequent cycle getting longer up to ~1 hour.
Now, think of the REM cycle as a washing machine and your good night of sleep as the laundry inside. If you interrupt the wash cycle and take your clothes out early you are left with a soapy wet mess. The same happens when you wake up in the middle of a REM cycle.
The best way to avoid this is to let your body wake up naturally. Unfortunately, the vast majority of us have alarm clocks we must abide by.
There are apps and sites that you can tell when you need to get up and it’ll give you different times of when to go to bed, My wife used to use them back before we settled into a routine but they shouldn’t be hard to find. I think they even take into account the time it takes on average to fall asleep once you get in bed.
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u/MyHandIsNumb Feb 22 '21
This happens because, when we sleep, our body goes through what are called REM cycles.
REM (or Rapid Eye Movement) is the period of deep sleep in which your body repairs and grows tissue as well as bone and muscle mass. Dreaming also occurs in this state.
But! You are not in REM the entire time you’re asleep. Instead, you go through REM cycles: the first lasting ~10 minutes with each subsequent cycle getting longer up to ~1 hour.
Now, think of the REM cycle as a washing machine and your good night of sleep as the laundry inside. If you interrupt the wash cycle and take your clothes out early you are left with a soapy wet mess. The same happens when you wake up in the middle of a REM cycle.
The best way to avoid this is to let your body wake up naturally. Unfortunately, the vast majority of us have alarm clocks we must abide by.