Sleep Expert Reveals Why Some of Us Wake up at 3 Am Every Night – It’s Not Always Stress

History is punctuated with accounts of artists and creatives who suffered from insomnia. They woke up in the middle of the night, around 3 to 4 am, and while crickets chirped and the fulgent light of candles illuminated their notebooks, they painted dreamy portraits of sleeplessness. From Vincent Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” to Franz Kafka’s “Metamorphosis,” countless works of art have been inspired by insomnia for centuries. However, when looked from a physiological perspective, this tendency of broken sleep could be a medical or psychological condition, although it is not always related to stress or anxiety. Speaking to Science Alert, psychology researcher, Greg Murray explained why many people wake up around 3 am every night.

“Our neurobiology reaches a turning point around 3 or 4 am,” Greg wrote in Science Alert, and further explained, “Core body temperature starts to rise, sleep drive is reducing, secretion of melatonin (the sleep hormone) has peaked, and levels of cortisol (a stress hormone) are increasing as the body prepares to launch us into the day. Remarkably, all this activity happens independent of cues from the environment such as dawn light.”