<p>I'm interested in sleep research, and sometimes in conversations with people the following idea gets discussed: "A person becomes aware at a certain time in the morning and feel great(while still in bed). But the wake up time is later, so that person keeps sleeping and the feeling is gone. It's much harder to get out of bed". The general pattern is that there's a perceived good time to get out of bed, but people oversleep it.</p>

<p>From my understanding, the second part of this statement is caused by sleep inertia, where a person slips into deeper sleep(slow wave sleep SWS) stages. But what about the perceived "perfect wake up time"?</p>

<ul>
<li><strong>What sleep stage or sequence of sleep stages</strong>, if any is associated with this feeling of energy in the morning(NREM1,2?)?</li>
<li><strong>is this feeling associated with light exposure</strong> (ex: 20 minutes after light exposure)</li>
<li><strong>does it happen every day</strong>, for all people?</li>
<li>Is there some " deep sleep hormone" (probably not melatonin) that gets released in deeper sleep stages and produces sleep inertia?</li>
</ul>

<p>There are a couple very successful sleep apps for smartphones that are marketed for this principle (they advertise the ability to find this "best wake up time" for you) and hundreds of imitations ("smart alarm clocks"). But is there really a phenomenon like I'm describing above, or is it a rare glitch of the endocrine system or something?</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-04-29T21:37:38.007Z
`There are a couple very successful sleep apps for smartphones that are marketed for this principle` as long as I can remember people have been trying to find an "ideal" wakeup time, but it depends on so many factors (prior sleep debt, energy level, levels of certain medications) that it likely varies too widely to pin down even for one individual.
Chuck Sherrington
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-04-29T21:39:42.013Z
Grab a used copy of Kryger, Roth, and Dement.  It's costly, but it's the veritable *santa biblia* of sleep physiology
Chuck Sherrington
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-04-30T00:29:44.307Z
Great suggestion, I long wanted to find the KR manual
Alex Stone
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-04-30T00:33:50.650Z
It's so chock full of stuff, it will keep you reading for a long time.  It has a very clear explanation of PGO waves that I used to like to reread.
Chuck Sherrington
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-04-30T00:36:38.330Z
Got 4th edition (latest is 5th) for 7$ shipped :)
Alex Stone
<sleep>
What defines the easiest time to get out of bed in the morning for humans?
Alex Stone
# What defines the easiest time to get out of bed in the morning for humans?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2013-04-28)

I'm interested in sleep research, and sometimes in conversations with people the following idea gets discussed: "A person becomes aware at a certain time in the morning and feel great(while still in bed). But the wake up time is later, so that person keeps sleeping and the feeling is gone. It's much harder to get out of bed". The general pattern is that there's a perceived good time to get out of bed, but people oversleep it.

From my understanding, the second part of this statement is caused by sleep inertia, where a person slips into deeper sleep(slow wave sleep SWS) stages. But what about the perceived "perfect wake up time"?

* **What sleep stage or sequence of sleep stages**, if any is associated with this feeling of energy in the morning(NREM1,2?)?
* **is this feeling associated with light exposure** (ex: 20 minutes after light exposure)
* **does it happen every day**, for all people?
* Is there some " deep sleep hormone" (probably not melatonin) that gets released in deeper sleep stages and produces sleep inertia?

There are a couple very successful sleep apps for smartphones that are marketed for this principle (they advertise the ability to find this "best wake up time" for you) and hundreds of imitations ("smart alarm clocks"). But is there really a phenomenon like I'm describing above, or is it a rare glitch of the endocrine system or something?

**Tags:** sleep

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: `There are a couple very successful sleep apps for smartphones that are marketed for this principle` as long as I can remember people have been trying to find an "ideal" wakeup time, but it depends on so many factors (prior sleep debt, energy level, levels of certain medications) that it likely varies too widely to pin down even for one individual.  
> **username_1**: Grab a used copy of Kryger, Roth, and Dement.  It's costly, but it's the veritable *santa biblia* of sleep physiology  
> **username_0**: Great suggestion, I long wanted to find the KR manual  
> **username_1**: It's so chock full of stuff, it will keep you reading for a long time.  It has a very clear explanation of PGO waves that I used to like to reread.  
> **username_0**: Got 4th edition (latest is 5th) for 7$ shipped :)  

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## 0 answers

