What time did you wake up last night, and what were you thinking about?
I want you to actually answer that question. Not for me. For your notebook.
Think back. Last night, or whenever your worst wake-up was this week. What time was it? And what was your brain doing the second you surfaced? Because that second part is where the real information is.
For me it's almost always 3am and it's almost always a jobsite problem. Something about a subcontractor, or a permit, or a thing I said in a meeting eight hours earlier that I'm now re-litigating in the dark. My brain doesn't get the memo that it's supposed to be off duty. I used to think that was just how my brain was built and there was nothing to do about it. Turns out there was plenty to do about it, but that's a different lesson (evening wine, if you're curious — lesson two territory).
Today I want to talk about the waking-up part itself, and why the time you wake up matters almost as much as the fact that you woke up at all.
Two different problems wearing the same disguise
"I wake up at night" is not one problem. It's at least two, and they need different fixes.
Problem one: you wake up around the same time, every night, close to clockwork. Say it's always somewhere between 2 and 4am. This is usually your body doing something regular — a light leak, a temperature swing, a noise pattern in the house, or a hormonal dip that happens on a schedule (cortisol starts rising in the early morning hours for everybody, and if your sleep is already thin, that rise can be enough to pop you awake). Regular timing is actually good news. It means there's a lever somewhere.
Problem two: it's random. Sometimes 1am, sometimes 4:30, no pattern you can find. This one's harder to chase down and it's more likely to be stress, or something that actually belongs with a doctor — which we covered in the "what's in my lane" lesson. If this is you, I'm not going to pretend I have a tidy fix. I don't.
So step one of tonight's homework, basically: for the next week, write down the time. Not the vibe of "I slept badly." The actual number on the clock. Patterns don't show up in vibes.
The elevation thing I got wrong
Here's a story about me being confidently wrong, because I think it's useful.
When we first moved to American Fork, I could not sleep. Woke up constantly, felt foggy, chalked the whole thing up to elevation. We're sitting around 4,600 feet here, which is a real jump if you're coming from sea level, and I'd read that altitude messes with sleep — lighter sleep, more wake-ups, weird dreams even. So for a good two weeks I just told everyone, "it's the elevation, my body's adjusting." Sounded smart. Felt true.
Then I actually went and read past the headline. Turns out that effect is real but it's short — your body adjusts to moderate elevation like ours within a week or two for most people. After that, elevation stops being the reason. I was still blaming a two-week-old excuse a month later, when the actual culprits were dry air, boxes everywhere, a toddler on a new schedule, and me not having unpacked the blackout curtains yet.
I file that one under "things I was sure about that weren't true." It's a good reminder that your first guess about why you're waking up is worth testing, not worth trusting blind. That's the whole method of this course, really — you get a theory, you don't marry it.
What to actually do with your 3am data
Once you've got a week of wake-times and thoughts written down, look for the pattern.
- Same time every night, mind on stress or to-do lists: this points at evening habits — screens, wine, a brain that's still "on" at bedtime. Start there.
- Same time every night, mind foggy or just annoyed to be awake, no clear thought: this points more at environment — temperature, light, noise. Cool the room down, check for light leaks, look at what's making noise.
- All over the map, no pattern: track it another week before you do anything. And if it's paired with gasping, loud snoring, or legs that won't sit still, that's a "talk to your doctor" pattern, not a "try a new pillow" pattern.
One opinion of mine, stated as mine: most people reach for a pill or a gummy before they've done anything about the free stuff — the light in the room, the phone by the bed, the wake-up time. I'm not saying supplements never help. I'm saying test the free stuff first, because it usually works better than what's on the shelf at the pharmacy.
Before next time
Keep the notebook by the bed for the next week and write down the wake-up time and the first thought, even if it's just "annoyed." We'll use that data in the next lesson to actually pick your one experiment.