Back when I was dealing with insomnia and a broken circadian rhythm (without actually knowing it), I’d go to sleep around 3am and I’d say 80% of the time I’d wake up naturally around 6:00am or 7:00am in the morning.

I was waking up too early. It felt like I was waking up too early to get out of bed, but too late to fall back asleep for 4 more hours.

The three to four hours of sleep I did get was not uninterrupted. I’d fall asleep, then wake up and the cycle would seem to go on forever.

Mind you, those 3 to 4 hours were not deep or did not include the sleep phases below…

Wakefulness , NREM Stage 1, NREM Stage 2, NREM Stage 3 (Deep Sleep), REM (Rapid Eye Movement).

Now that I have healed my mitochondria and restored my circadian rhythms I go to bed around 9:30 or 10pm each night and wake up around 7:00am consistently.

I’d say I wake up to go pee once a night about 40% to 50% of the time. More often than not I sleep soundly all through the night and feel completely rested when I rise in the morning with the sun.

I’m still working on regulating my cortisol levels and waking up to pee sometimes but man what I difference I have made. I’m so thankful because now I feel energetic and rested 95% of the time.

When Is The Best Time To Go To Sleep?

Whenever there’s a lot of scientific debate, I always defer to our ancestors, nature and how we got here. For most of human history we did not have the lightbulb which was invented around 1879. This invention (albeit revolutionary) is also one of the main reasons we are sick today.

Not only is insomnia rising but so are sleep disruptions like sleep apnea, insomnia and sleep cycle dysregulation.

The primary cause of these sleep issues is staying up too late at night. The only reason we can stay up so late is the invention of lightbulbs which when you think about it are mini alien suns. Man in his hubris decided to become god and make artificial suns.

This has had a detrimental effect on our circadian rhythms, our sleep and ultimately our health and life span.

Getting back to our history, if we were fortunate enough to be able to make a fire, we might stay up for one to two hours after the sun set when the campfire went out. Here in Southern California the sun sets around 4:45pm in the Winter and around 8:12pm in the Summer.

That means we’d go to bed around 7pm in the Winter and 10pm in the Summer.

I don’t care what any scientist or sleep doctor tells me, this is how we lived for all of human history except for the past 200 years.

When is the Best Time To Wake Up?

The general consensus is we need to get roughly 8 hours of sleep per night. This is obviously going to depend on situations like pregnancy, terminal illness, age and other factors too. Going back into human history its possible our sleep was disrupted multiple times throughout the night because of threats in our environment (nocturnal hunting animals like lions etc.).

If you track your sleep with something like an Oura Ring or Whoop band, you may find out you need 9 hours or 8 hours depending on the factors above.

Personally I feel best on 8 to 9 hours of sleep per night and I feel best when I wake up at 6 or 7am in the morning. This way I can watch the sunrise and get started on my creative projects for the day.

This will obviously be different for you and your lifestyle.

I recommend tracking your sleep to find out what sleep timing and sleep duration is best for your body.

8 Possible Causes & Solutions

Broken Circadian Rhythm

I like to think of my circadian rhythm like a physical organ. Even though it’s not a physical thing inside our body, it is that important and we should treat it as such. A broken circadian rhythm comes primarily from a disconnection from nature.

Usually it means not watching the sunrise and not being grounded and outside during the sunset. You’re also probably wearing sunglasses and rubber sole shoes often (which disconnect us from nature) and not getting outside multiple times per day.

Indoor blue light is going to cause circadian mismatches which alter the timing and release of key sleep hormones. If these hormones are off by just two hours, that could be the difference between falling asleep easily at 10pm or getting a “second wind” and staying up until 1am.

How To Fix:

• Watch the sunrise
• Get outside multiple times per day with no shoes or sunglasses on
• Watch the sunset
• Install special software on your computer to block blue light
• Wear yellow glasses when inside during the day, orange at sunset and red two hours before bed. Make sure you wear your blue blocking glasses correctly.
• Install circadian lighting in your home
• Avoid eating after sunset
• Take melatonin – But make sure you take it correctly!

Going To Bed Too Early

If you’re waking up too early in the morning, it could be that you simply went to bed early. If you normally go to bed around midnight (for example) and you want to start getting up earlier (while still getting eight hours or more of sleep) it’s going to take a good week to reset your circadian rhythm.

I highly recommend doing this (depending on your age and life situation) as it will force your biology to adhere to your diurnal sleep/wake cycles.

Cortisol & Hormone Issues

Many times if you’re waking up too early, your cortisol levels are rising at the wrong time. Normally cortisol spikes around 6am to 8am. It starts slowly rising around 4am. But if you’re circadian rhythms are not working properly or are mistimed, cortisol could spike at 5am waking you up after only a few hours of sleep.

Before considering supplements I would recommend supporting adrenal gland health. Your adrenals produce hormones like adrenaline and cortisol depending on the needs of the body and each situation.

Your adrenal glands LOVE RHTYHMIC CYCLES. They love when you wake up at the same time, go to bed at the same time each night. Try your best to keep the timing of what you do each night, regular.

Regulating stress is also another huge issue when it comes to your adrenal gland health. Stress raises oxidation inside the body which causes sleep issues like insomnia but also could be linked to every known disease.

You must remove all stressful people, circumstances, relationships and work from your life. What you cannot get rid of, you must ways to lower them and then change your response to them. This could be with breathing techniques, mediation, personal development or reading books like Loving What Is and my favorite, The Four Agreements.

You Have Insomnia or Sleep Apnea

Sleep apnea and insomnia are indications of a broken circadian rhythm. Both of these sleep conditions can alter pH levels of the blood (increasing acidity) while also raising cortisol and oxidative stress.

All oxidative stress means is a loss of electrons. When a molecule loses an electron (due to stress, lack of sleep, chemical exposure, eating toxins etc.) then another molecule donates an electron to keep it balanced and even.

Then that molecule that donated becomes unbalanced and needs an electron donor. It’s a cascade that goes on forever.

Two major ways you can counteract this oxidative stress and electron loss is by eating foods high in antioxidants along with grounded to the earth. The earth because of the thousands of lightning strikes it receives per day, is an electron donor if we’re walking barefoot.

Your Room Is Not Dark

If light from the sun is waking you up each morning and you need a darkened room to sleep in, I recommend uBlockout curtains. These are game changers and will change your sleep forever. Waking up too early sucks but keeping your room dark while you sleep is mission critical.

Food Allergies & Eating Too Late

Waking up too early could be due to the fact that you ate too late and are having digestive reactions to the food you ate. I don’t recommend eating food after the sunsets. When I read The Daylight Diet and Yes, No, Maybe Chronobiotic Nutrition this all made sense to me.

When we eat food, we’re eating photons of light captured by the sun. In order to allow the deep sleep cycle of sleep to heal you, your body should not be digesting food. Digestion requires a ton of ATP (energy). Sleep should be a time where the body uses its energy to heal and restore rather than to digest food.

For 30 days try eating no food after the sun sets and see how it affects your sleep. After doing this myself I noticed the length and quality of my sleep was much better. I also felt better waking up in the morning.

Mental Issues

Many times waking up too early can be the result of stress or mental issues like depression, anxiety or fear. One of the best things to do is to work on these issues with a counselor along with mediation and breathing exercises you can do during the day.

Reading The Four Agreements and Loving What Is offer actionable strategies for being able to let go of mental stimulation.

Finally if you cannot turn your mind off because of anxiety or depression, there are key supplements that could really help. These issues could be a mutation in the COMT gene (catechol-O-methyltransferase) which can be mitigated by proper supplementation. There’s a simple cheek swab test to find out if you have that genetic mutation.

Napping Too Long

I don’t take naps but if you do, you could have taken a nap during the day that’s too long or at the wrong time. If you nap daily for 1 hour at 2pm but then the next day you nap for an hour at 3pm this could change your entire diurnal sleep/wake cycle.

If it’s getting too late in the day, consider skipping your nap. As always it’s better to nap for too short amount of time than too long.

Conclusion

As you can see waking up too early can be caused by a multitude of factors but they all can be dealt with if you know what you’re looking for and how to fix the issue. For me, waking up too early is not an issue anymore since I was able to completely overhaul my life that dramatically improved my sleep.

Questions: 

1. What time do your normally wake up every morning?
2. What time do you normally go to bed at night?
3. Do you take naps? If so, how long and at what time?
4. Do naps affect your sleep at night?

Comment below.