The Reason Why You Wake Up A Few Minutes Before The Alarm Goes Off

Do you ever wake up a few minutes before the alarm goes off? It happens to me almost every day. It gets a little irritating though, especially if you walk over to your phone to shut off the alert so it doesn't go off. Why does this happen? Today, you get the answer.

According to the Huffington Post, when a study was performed back in 1999 using sleep test subjects, it was found that a hormone, adrenocorticotropin or ACTH, was found in higher levels in the blood when sleepers had an expectation they'd be woken up at a certain time. In the experiment, 15 volunteers who went to sleep at midnight were told they would be woken at 6 a.m. one morning and 9 a.m. on two other mornings. When they knew they'd be up at 6,

There is an additional increase on top of this gradual increase in ACTH within the period before this expected awakening.

The subjects who expected to be woken at nine didn't have the same additional increase in ACTH. So it seems that hormone makes you wake up when the body senses that time of day. We all have this internal function within ourselves that acts just like a clock. If you set your alarm to the same time everyday, your body will be groomed to wake up around that time, in this case, a few minutes before.

However, if you are sleep deprived you'll probably need the alarm, or in my case, an airhorn to wake up. I can be an extremely sound sleeper at times.