Dr. Matt Walker

I'm just simply saying, be aware of that and don't worry, don't stress about this unique 90 minute cycle.

And there's some products out there that say they're going to time you on your 90 minute cycle and wake you up.

I would probably stay a little bit clearer of some of those.

I would say that if you feel as though there's still more sleep in you... There is.

Or... I love that this has become biographical instantly.

It's going to be a good episode when that happens.

I would say hold tight, stay in bed with an asterisk that I'll come back to and see if you can get back to sleep.

And we can speak about different ways of helping you do that.

But...

The reason I put a slight asterisk there is the following.

If you're then in bed for the next 45, 50 minutes wide awake, the danger, and it doesn't happen to everyone, but the danger is that you start to associate this thing called your bed with this thing called wakefulness and not sleep.

And one of the things that we do in cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia is we try to prevent you from spending long periods of time awake.

And I would say it's probably about a 25 minute rule of thumb.

It's not a rule, it's a rule of thumb.

If after about 25 minutes, you just can't seem to catch it, and this is happening frequently, I would just be mindful of you then starting to build a bonded association in your brain that your bed is also the place of being awake.

The analogy would be,

You would never sit at the dinner table waiting to get hungry.

So why would you lie in bed waiting to get sleepy?

And the answer is that you shouldn't.

And so we need to break that association.