Sleep Better

Lesson 9: Waking in the night

Goal: get back to sleep faster when you wake at 3 am, and cut down the trips to the toilet.

Waking briefly between sleep cycles is normal (Lesson 2). The problem isn’t waking; it’s what happens next. Clock-watching, worrying and trying hard to sleep all switch the brain on.

What to do when you wake

1. Don’t check the time. Keep the clock turned away (Lesson 6). Knowing it’s 3:12 am doesn’t help you sleep.
2. Don’t pick up your phone. Bright light and something interesting to read is the fastest way to wake fully.
3. Breathe slowly with long out-breaths. In for four, out for six to eight (Lesson 7).
4. Try the eye-movement trick. On the Diary of a CEO podcast, Andrew Huberman described a technique he uses after waking in the night: with eyes closed, gently move your eyes from side to side for a short while, combined with long, slow exhales. It’s his personal tip rather than a tested treatment, but it’s harmless and many people find it settles them.
5. Let your mind wander. Some people like a “cognitive shuffle”: picture a random, harmless object, then another unrelated one (a teapot, a bicycle, a cloud), and keep going. It occupies the mind without giving it anything to solve. Again, a popular tip with limited research behind it.
6. If you’re still awake after about 15 to 20 minutes, get up. Don’t watch the clock to time it; go by feel. Go to another room, keep the light dim, and do something boring (that dull book) until you feel sleepy, then go back to bed. This is a core part of CBT-I (Lesson 10) and works by teaching your brain that bed is for sleeping, not for lying awake.

Night-time toilet trips

Waking to pee once a night is common, especially as we get older. Waking more often than that wrecks sleep, and there’s a lot you can do.

During the day:

• Drink most of your fluids earlier in the day: plenty in the morning (Lesson 5), then taper off.
• Ease off drinks in the last 2 to 3 hours before bed.
• Cut caffeine and alcohol in the evening. Both make you produce more urine.
• Go to the toilet just before you get into bed.
• If your ankles swell by evening, put your legs up for 30 to 60 minutes in the late afternoon. Fluid that has pooled in the legs moves back into the bloodstream and gets passed before bed rather than at 2 am.

When you wake needing to go:

• Try lying on your back for a few minutes, then roll back onto your side. Sometimes the urge is just pressure on your bladder from the way you’re lying rather than a full bladder, and a change of position relieves it. This is a personal tip rather than medical research, but it’s easy to try before getting up.
• If you do get up, use a dim night light and keep your eyes half closed. Don’t turn on the main light or check your phone.

See your doctor if you regularly get up two or more times a night, or if there’s pain, burning, blood, unusual thirst or swelling. Frequent night-time urination can be a sign of other conditions, including prostate problems, diabetes and sleep apnoea: repeated breathing pauses during sleep trigger hormones that make the kidneys produce more urine. Treating the apnoea often reduces the toilet trips.

Early waking

If you regularly wake 1 to 2 hours before you need to and can’t get back to sleep:

• Cut alcohol in the evening; it’s a common cause of early waking (Lesson 5).
• Keep the bedroom dark; early summer light is a common trigger (Lesson 6).
• Low mood often shows up as early waking. If that sounds familiar, talk to your doctor.

Watch

• Cognitive shuffling (Reconnect to Self, short): the random-objects technique in under a minute
• Calm your vagus nerve with your eyes (Dr Michael Cuthbertson): a quick eye-movement calming exercise, similar in spirit to Huberman’s tip above
• The 5-4-3-2-1 grounding exercise (The Partnership in Education): notice 5 things you can see, 4 you can feel, 3 you can hear, 2 you can smell and 1 you can taste. Useful if you wake anxious; in the dark, swap “see” for things you can feel or hear

More techniques for getting back to sleep, each with an evidence rating, are in the toolkit in Lesson 15.

Exercise 9

Turn your clock away from the bed tonight. Then decide in advance where you’ll go and what boring thing you’ll do if you can’t get back to sleep, and leave it ready (a book and a lamp in the lounge room).

Sources

• Sleep Health Foundation, CBT for insomnia (get up after 15 to 20 minutes)
• European Association of Urology, Self-management of nocturia symptoms
• American Sleep Apnea Association, Nighttime urination and sleep apnea
• The Diary of a CEO, Andrew Huberman: My Exact Routine To Optimize Brain & Body (podcast, September 2026)

This course is general information, not medical advice. If you have ongoing sleep problems, loud snoring with pauses or gasping, or sleepiness that affects driving or work, see your doctor. In Australia, if you are struggling or feel unsafe, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.