Study Discovers Why We Wake up in the Morning Before Hearing the Alarm

There are many factors that intervene when it comes to sleeping peacefully at night, and sleep problems affect many individuals for different reasons: work stress, relationship problems, poor sleep hygiene, etc.., Due to the importance of sleeping correctly for our lives, it is not surprising that many researches have been directed in this direction.

An example of this is a study that was interested in understanding Why do we open our eyes in the morning before the alarm goes off? In this article we echo their conclusions.

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Why do we wake up before the alarm clock goes off?

Just a few days ago something happened to me that made me think. I went to bed very sleepy since the day had been very exhausting. The next day I had a meeting in the morning and I had to wake up early to go to the appointment. I thought I had set the alarm on my phone as I do every night before going to bed, but sleep played a trick on me: I had set the time but had not given the option to activate the alarm. Luckily, what actually could have been a problem wasn’t because I woke up at the same time as always without needing the alarm to do its job

Why did this happen to me? Well, the answer lies with scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in the United States, who have discovered a component that controls the biological clock and sleep cycle in mice, and presumably humans.

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The molecular mechanism that controls our sleep-wake state is present an enzyme called JARID1a This particle is known in the field of biology for its role in the modification of histones, proteins that wrap DNA in a protective complex called chromatin. What was not known, and what we now know thanks to this team of researchers, is that it also begins the daily process of waking up.

The researchers also found that the Deficiencies in this protein interrupt and cause irregular periods of sleep The study was published last week in the journal Science.

How this mechanism works

Researchers at the Salk Institute discovered that a protein called PERIOD (PER) is extremely important in the molecular mechanisms in sleep and wakefulness. The cells in our bodies use PER to perceive the time of day and they tell us when and how to wake up.

At night, PER levels decline , which causes our blood pressure, heart rate, and our mental activity to decline. But as we get closer to waking up and, consequently, being awake, the enzyme called JARID1a works as an alarm that tells our body to start working for the new day that awaits us.

Another similar study

A similar study, conducted by the University of Lübeck in Germany, explored the effects of this enzyme. To do this, they had a group of subjects who had to wake up at 6 am and 9 am. The researchers lied to the participants, because those who thought they should wake up at 9 in the morning did so at 6 like the other group.

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The scientists found that in those who had been informed correctly, stress hormones spiked around 4:30 in the morning However, the 9 a.m. group’s hormone levels did not increase and they woke up when the researchers forced them to do so.

The importance of good sleep hygiene

According to Luciano DiTacchio, a researcher at the Salk Institute who led the study with Satchidananda Panda, “these conclusions may be decisive for possible future treatments regarding sleep problems.”

However, these results can not only be useful for those people who have sleep problems and cannot sleep well, but are important to prevent sleep difficulties and to improve its quality. These results tell us that if we have good sleep hygiene, and follow a frequent sleeping schedule, we have a greater chance of our body activating itself before the alarm even goes off.

Therefore, if you are one of those people who goes to bed at a different time every day and you realize that you are in class in the morning but as if you were not there because your concentration is not evident, it is likely that you woke up before your body has adapted to the situation.