After a long sleep time you feel always tired and sleepy seeking a cup of coffee, you are not alone don’t worry, and they are nothing wrong about it, in this acticle we will discuss why 8 hours doesn’t mean you’re fully rester, so what’s affects how you woke up?
1. Quality Matters More Than Quantity
Sleep is a combination of multiple cycle each cycle has 3 phases (light , deep , and REM), interupting those phases disturb the sleeping process and doesn’t help you restore your energy.
Common quality disruptors include:
- Feeling partially awake (often caused by noise, light, or a restless partner)
- Sleep apnea, which interrupts breathing
- An inconsistent resting schedule which confuses your mind
2. Clock schedule
The body has an internal clock that schedule your sleep time during the day. Which means if you’re getting your eight hours at the “wrong” time you will still feel tired.
That means that your body need to sleep from 10pm – 6am which is its clock schedule, if you try to another schedule from 11pm – 7am for exemple, it still cover the 8 hour but it’s doesn’t match your clock schedule and that’s why you feel tire even if you slept for the same period of time.
3. Wake up mid-cycle
Waking up on a mid-cyle of sleep disturb the mind, and that’s why you may feel a little dizzy and still sleepy even after 8 hour of sleep, but if waking up is right after the end of cycle you will feel more energetic and less tired in the morning.
4. Bad sleeping habits
Even a perfect eight hours can’t fully garantee a healty sleeping if you do the following habits:
- Consume caffeine too late
- Alcohol help you fall asleep faster but cuts your sleep cycle.
- Screen exposure before sleep
- Low activity during the day reduce overall sleep quality since the body/mind isn’t tired.
5. Health condition
This covers the conditions such as:
- Sleep apnea: Breathing difficulties that interupt the cycle.
- Restless leg syndrome: the urge of moving the leg to a more confortable position
- Thyroid imbalances: mostly linked with hormones
- Anemia: not enough bloode cells to transport oxygen to all your body
- Chronic stress and anxiety: mostly coming from personal and professional problems
6. Environment
Mostly related to light intensity and temprature, and noise, the body needs a quiet dark with a recomanded temperature from 16° to 19° which explaines why peaple sleep better in winter compared to summer.
What to do about it?
Sleeping is not about quantity but quality so always remember to:
- Keep a consistent schedules and wake time even on weekends.
- Get natural light exposure early in the day to help your biological sleeping clock.
- Limit caffeine after early afternoon and alcohol close to bedtime.
- Optimize your sleep environment cool, dark, and quiet tends to work best.
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