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My own experience is that people usually wake because they get cold around the head and shoulders. 3am is when the outside temperature drops right down, and the body finishes digesting dinner – which reduces the heat the body produces. Older bodies produce less heat anyway. Insulating blankets trap heat but don’t produce it. Warming people up often sends them back to sleep.



It’s worst for those who sleep with their head under a window, or next to a not-too-well insulated wall with cold on the other side, or (like me) next to a foot-thick stone wall that never heats up.



Ways to help:
An electric blanket on a timer to come on at 3 am.
A warm bonnet, kerchief or cap (just like in ‘the night before Christmas’).
A comfortable bed jacket that keeps you warm around the shoulders (even a soft pullover).
If you have to get up, a heat pack and an extra blanket.
I‘m considering a quilt hung vertically on the wall behind the bed head, to insulate the wall better.



I hope this helps. It’s taken me a long time to figure out!

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Really interesting and good to know. I'm only 60 and I wake up between 3 and 4, 3 or 4 days a week, and it does seem to be more so in the winter. I never sleep good in the winter, I figured it was more not being busy enough. Ill keep this in mind
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Great tips!!

I dislike the cold too. Everyone has a different body temperature. My husband likes the house cooler than I do.
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Thank you so much for sharing this with us! 🙏
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Interestingly, sleep studies have shown that it is a normal human rhythm to waken at 3 am. for one or two hours for a large percentage of the populace. Go figure. Happens to a large portion of our populace including my partner. This awakening in a normal functioning person often leads to the circular worried thinking that can creep in on us when we aren't actively awake and engaged, and can be problematic.

Normal folk deal with it however. Some get up and read a bit, or listen to radio, and drift back off thusly. But three a.m. wide awake is apparently "a thing".
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For myself, I tend to like it cold to sleep, but there were times when I would wake up in the middle of the night [I think my bladder has its own alarm clock]. I found if I put an afghan over the whole bed, then it is way too warm. What works now for me is the afghan is over only where my feet are :)
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Speaking of temperature and sleep. My husband 70 , all of his life he gets a temperature if it's to cold. Has anyone ever heard of that. We have learned how to advoid them for the most part, but still happens occasionally. Happens in the summer if the ac is on to high. And no, being who he is he never asked a doctor, we have gotten very good at keeping the heat at the right temp to prevent it. Surprised us the other night because it happens so rarely now. But the weather has seriously been so darn bi polar. It's just strange quirk of his.
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