Althouse: Waking up at 3 a.m. — "the quiet interstice of night"....

March 22, 2026

Waking up at 3 a.m. — "the quiet interstice of night"....

24 comments:

RCOCEAN II said...: Ha, that's funny. Personally, i got turn on "Rain noise" or "Waves rolling onto the beach" CD and got right back to sleep.; 3/22/26, 8:29 AM
Caroline said...: OMG, nailed it. I gave up social media for lent so all I can doomscroll is the lefty apple newsfeed. I’m all up on Meghan and Harry news!; 3/22/26, 8:42 AM
Curious George said...: When I wake up wake up in the middle of the night I get and stay up for awhile. I find it easier to do a second sleep than extend the first.; 3/22/26, 8:43 AM
Wince said...: Notice he’s not a passive victim. He’s using his thumb to doom scroll.; 3/22/26, 8:47 AM
Wince said...: Grumpy Old Man: In my day we didn’t have fancy cell phones to look at in the middle of the night. If we woke up, we used to masturbate in the dark without lubrication or pornography until our genitals were raw. And we liked it!; 3/22/26, 9:00 AM
James K said...: I wake up after around 3 hours, fall back asleep easily, and then wake up around every hour after that till I get to around 6 hours. I have a dorky method involving numbers (not counting sheep) to distract myself from anything stressful.

I saw a sleep specialist a few years ago who suggested a 15-minute rule: Once you've had 5 or 6 hours, give yourself 15 minutes to fall asleep again. After that, call it a night. Works for me.; 3/22/26, 9:07 AM
The Vault Dweller said...: hmm... I don't think I've ever heard the word interstice before. I knew its adjective form interstitial but not the noun. I will sometimes leave long videos or podcasts on while I go to sleep but that kind of acts like white noise for me. For me the visual glare is what is more disturbing of the sleep rather than the auditory stuff.; 3/22/26, 9:10 AM
planetgeo said...: Personally, I've come to enjoy waking up in the middle of the night and being up for a couple of hours. Great clarity of mind then, often resulting in some of my best design work. But if I want to get back to sleep, I've come up with a strategy that works really well.

First, I explicitly tell my brain to "disengage". Next, I do a series of medium inhales followed by extended slow exhales. And lastly, I avoid thinking any verbal thoughts or conversation memories and only allow pictures/visuals to float by randomly as though I'm watching silent movies. This works remarkably well for me. Perhaps it might be effective for others too.; 3/22/26, 9:11 AM
Narr said...: Classic, Wince.

Nowadays (nowanights?) when this happens it's accompanied by some bladder pressure, and half the time when I get up I find my wife still up, on her smartphone.

Decades ago I was reading a book by "Suvarov" who mentioned the Spetsnaz method of forcing sleep--roll your eyes up: that's what happens during sleep and you are telling your brain to sleep.

Now I find a lot of videos suggesting the same, with variations involving closed-eye movements. They seem to work better (when they work at all) when I first go to bed than after nature calls at 0300, but I'm still experimenting.; 3/22/26, 9:21 AM
john mosby said...: Gutfeld puts me to sleep. Not because he's boring; because he's comfortable. When I wake up in the middle of the night, I play my DVR'd Gutfeld. I usually fall asleep before the A block is over. if I wake up again, I restart it from the last point I remember. Usually asleep again before that block goes to commercials.

Almost always, when I wake up for good in the morning, I have to watch at least half the show.

Another thing that puts me back to sleep quickly is long-form reading. On the phone/tablet is fine - whatever blue-light effect there might be is overcome by the comfort of reading and the hypnotic effect of my eyes going back and forth. CC, JSM; 3/22/26, 9:22 AM
Narr said...: Of course, I don't have a smartphone to fool with anyway.; 3/22/26, 9:23 AM
Money Manger said...: I'm usually up by 4:30, but sometimes before 4:00.
Which raises the question: when does the new day begin?

Not the technical midnight, but by convention--how we think about it. I feel pretty strongly 2AM is still last night. 5AM is clearly the new day.
I'd vote for something around 3:30.; 3/22/26, 9:35 AM
R C Belaire said...: I think about the Big Bang -- never come to any conclusions one way or the other -- and pretty soon sleep returns.; 3/22/26, 9:46 AM
Yancey Ward said...: Since the move the week before Christmas, I have been going to bed by 10 PM. At first, it started because I was exhausted by all the details and work in moving and setting up but then I just kept doing it because I kind of liked getting up at 6-7 AM.; 3/22/26, 9:47 AM
NKP said...: 3 a.m. is "the middle of the night"? I think of it as, "almost bedtime".

Regardless of personal habits, I agree with JamesK, if you wake-up and find yourself still staring at the ceiling after 15 minutes; get up.; 3/22/26, 9:48 AM
William said...: That 15 minute rule seems helpful. After I wake up, I spend quite a lot of time debating whether or not to get up or wait to go back to sleep......I sometimes do a Duolingo lesson after I get up. That's just enough activity to make you wish to go back to bed. You Tube videos on the cosmos or quantum physics are also helpful. They don't engage the emotions and they're hard to understand. I'm looking for that prenatal experience where you hear voices that you don't understand while you feel safe and warm and enclosed......Once nice thing about being retired is that if you don't get a good night's sleep, it doesn't really matter, You can take a nap later in the day.; 3/22/26, 9:54 AM
Smilin' Jack said...: Spotify has a bunch of podcasts (e.g. “Boring History for Sleep”) where a guy reads a long lecture on history, science, etc. in a quiet relaxing voice. Haven’t tried it but it seems like a good idea.; 3/22/26, 10:06 AM
Aggie said...: I find that autogenic exercises help a lot.; 3/22/26, 10:11 AM
Narr said...: I do some of my best thinking about the Roman Empire in the wee hours.; 3/22/26, 10:52 AM
Nancy said...: @ Vault Dweller I only know the plural form, from Samuel Johnsons definition of a net as "a series of reticulated interstices:.; 3/22/26, 10:59 AM
Anthony said...: That's usually wake-up #3 or 4 for me, followed by 4 a.m.

I've had some form of insomnia since like 1989, except for a few years in the mid-late-1990s. It's not the worst thing in the world, but it sucks.

Ambien/zolpidem has been my savior. Been on it since ca. 2009. I take it sparingly to avoid becoming resistant, and almost always in 1/4 of 5mg doses (yes, I have a pill cutter). Absolute godsend. It doesn't always work, and I figure a chunk of the effect is just knowing I've taken it, but it's still saved me from a lot of nearly-sleepless nights.; 3/22/26, 11:59 AM
boatbuilder said...: Anthony--I suffer from similar insomnia. I found ambien to be profoundly disorienting--wierd nightmares and significant confusion when I wake up. And then my ability to concentrate while awake was screwed up. I found those tales about people hallucinating and doing dangerous and stupid things (think Patrick Kennedy) quite believable.

May I suggest 1/2 of a cannabis gummy a 1/2 hour before bedtime?; 3/22/26, 12:57 PM
Christopher B said...: To the great annoyance of my night owl wife, the dog and I usually crash out pretty fast by 11pm and will generally be able to sleep through to 5am. If I do find myself waking up around 3am and not immediately turning over and going back to sleep I'm usually up for the day.; 3/22/26, 1:34 PM
Narr said...: Ambien gave me bad dreams. It might have been a dosage issue, but I had enough after about six months (twenty or more years ago).

And as already noted, after you retire a poor night's sleep is an annoyance, not a problem,; 3/22/26, 2:38 PM