Did you know that waking up at 3 or 4 a.m. is a clear sign of … ? Show more

To understand these phases of awakening, we must first examine the mechanisms of sleep. The night is divided into cycles of 90 to 120 minutes, alternating light sleep, deep sleep, and REM sleep. At the beginning of the night, the body prioritizes physical recovery through deep sleep.
But as dawn approaches, the cycles change.
Sleep becomes lighter, more volatile and therefore more susceptible to disturbances.

Exactly between 3 and 4 a.m. most sleepers enter this sensitive phase.
A quiet noise, a movement of the partner, a change in temperature or an internal body signal can be enough to trigger waking up.

So you’re not dreaming: these hours correspond to a biological window of time in which sleep is intermittent.

Stress, anxiety: the real disruptive factors in the early morning
Stress is one of the most common causes of nocturnal awakenings. When the environment becomes completely quiet and no stimuli hold our attention, everyday thoughts – worries, pent-up tensions, mental stress – resurface.
The brain, now partially awakened, then resumes cognitive activity, sometimes abruptly.

This phenomenon is even more pronounced in people who suffer from the following conditions:

Fear,