Somewhere between three and five most mornings, my eyes open.
A lot of mornings it’s three.
I’m not lying there miserable, staring at the ceiling, begging for two more hours sleep... I’m wide awake.
Sometimes I stay put and drift back. Yesterday I woke around three, went back under, and it was 5:30. But a lot of mornings I actually get up.
I’ve tried going to bed later. Doesn’t matter much. Normal bedtime is eight or nine. Push it and my eyes still open around the same damn time every day.
I read an article the other day explaining why people over 60 do this. Clock shifts earlier. Fall asleep seven to nine. Wake three to five. People try staying up later and still come to at the same hour.
Hello.
That part wasn’t wrong. Then they handed me a protocol to fix my 3 AM problem.
I’m no longer sure I have a problem.
Most mornings I’m up long before daylight. By 6:30 or 7 I’m heading to a studio. I teach. Often I have private lessons after. Then home, post the classes, answer things, mess around with whatever caught me that day.
I’m not dragging through it. A lot of mornings I’m wired.
Then noon shows up and I want a nap.
I blamed food for a while. First meal is usually noon to two. I’d eat, get tired, wander toward the bed. Pretty obvious. Except Mondays I teach at one and I don’t eat before class. Around noon I still sit in the chair and fall asleep. No breakfast required.
So it isn’t the sandwich.
Sunday is my one day without a class. No alarm. No students waiting. Peggy sleeps until eight or nine. I could sleep in. I don’t. Same hour.
Sometimes I get in the car alone and drive somewhere beautiful. Park. Sit. Stare. Answer email.
I like being out there before anybody else is moving.
Eventually Peggy gets up and Sunday morning is ours. Drive. Walk. Wander. Come home and make breakfast.
Then I take the nap.
Take away the classes, the alarm, even lunch, and a surprising amount of the rhythm stays. Early to bed. Early to rise. A lot of living packed into the morning. A little sleep around noon. Another round in the afternoon. Dinner. British television with Peggy. Bed. Repeat.
If I wake up with something I’m excited to work on, I’m wide awake. If I’m sitting around trying to invent a reason to get up, I can feel tired. That’s not a treatment. That’s just what I’ve noticed.
If I were lying awake miserable and falling apart during the day, that would be a different conversation. I’m not.
Three o’clock is when a surprising number of my days begin. Sometimes with work. Sometimes with a dark drive to sit somewhere before the rest of the world shows up.
I’m glad I went looking for an explanation. Turns out I don’t need the cure.
Your Monday experiment settles it. The midday slump comes from the body clock. Alertness dips on a fixed circadian schedule in the early afternoon whether you've eaten or not, and a meal only makes it more noticeable. Sleep medicine judges waking early by how you function during the day, not by the hour on the clock, and on that measure you haven't got a disorder, just an early schedule and a nap. The protocol was solving a problem you never had.
Dr Tom Kane