After good sleep, how long before feeling fully awake?

[JMJflyer]

I did a search for this question here but couldn't find anything. Those of you who are successfully getting good sleep night after night, how long does it take you in the mornings, after initially waking up, to feel completely awake? What is normal?

[dave21]

I find after 5 years on CPAP I always nearly always wake up before my alarm which I set at 6:30am. I guess it depends on what you call fully awake. When I realise I'm awake and still on my machine, I tend to lie there for 5-10 mins before deciding to switch off the machine and get out of bed. I feel not quite awake when I get out of bed but by the time I've made a visit to the bathroom and come back within a couple of minutes I'm fully awake.

[Jersey Girl]

Dear JMJflyer,

I woke up fully awake immediately this morning. That said, if I wake up and I had just been dreaming - I do feel a bit groggy and out of it - especially if I remember the dream and it was confusing, or I was in places I have never seen or with people I don't know, etc. Also, I have never really been a "morning person", that way that my husband is - he bounces out of bed gets dressed, he's ready to go. I like to kind of come around to the fact that it is morning and time to face the day.

Regards,

Jersey Girl

[slibhart]

Since starting on CPAP in November, I have been getting more sleep than ever...and I mean deep sleep. I have dreams (don't remember dreaming for years) and wake up pretty groggy in the morning. It takes about an hour and a nice cup of coffee to get me going now and I am a morning person.

[JMJflyer]

Since starting on CPAP in November, I have been getting more sleep than ever...and I mean deep sleep. I have dreams (don't remember dreaming for years) and wake up pretty groggy in the morning. It takes about an hour and a nice cup of coffee to get me going now and I am a morning person.

Great. This is what I was wondering. If the first 30 minutes of waking is any indication of how well I slept.

[roster]

I did a search for this question here but couldn't find anything. Those of you who are successfully getting good sleep night after night, how long does it take you in the mornings, after initially waking up, to feel completely awake? What is normal?

There is some recent science that looked into this. What they found is that the sleep stage you are in when awakened has a big effect on how you feel for the entire morning.

If you are awakened from stages three or four, you will likely feel groggy all morning. This is true for all people but maybe especially so with CPAP patients due to all the other problems we have.

If you are awakened from a lighter stage, you are likely to feel better and avoid the groggy feeling.

There is even an alarm system that attempts to let the user take advantage of this science:

When we sleep, we move in a continuous cycle, from a deep sleep to brief periods when we're almost awake, and then back into a deep sleep again. This pattern repeats itself throughout the night. The average adult experiences four to five full sleep cycles over an eight-hour period. Each cycle lasts about 90 to 110 minutes and is made up of five different stages. During the first stage of your sleep cycle, you sleep lightly. At stage two, your sleep gets progressively deeper, and at stages three and four, also known as "Delta sleep," you sleep most heavily. The fifth stage of sleep, also known as REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, is marked by extensive physiological changes, such as accelerated respiration, increased brain activity, rapid eye movement, and muscle relaxation.

During these stages, there are brief moments when you're nearly awake. The Sleeptracker -- one of Time Magazine's Best Inventions of 2005 -- is designed to find those almost-awake moments within the sleep cycle. When you set an "alarm window" (a period of time within which you want to be awoken) on the Sleeptracker, the monitor will continuously monitor your body for signals that you are nearly awake, and the monitor's customized alarm clock will go off within the time frame that you've set. Instead of waking up groggy and irritable because you were woken up during a deep sleep, you'll wake up feeling refreshed and energetic.

http://www.amazon.com/Sleeptracker-Wake ... B000E8FG20

[ifrimmel]

Since starting on CPAP in November, I have been getting more sleep than ever...and I mean deep sleep. I have dreams (don't remember dreaming for years) and wake up pretty groggy in the morning. It takes about an hour and a nice cup of coffee to get me going now and I am a morning person.

In the beginning I got the wrong machine (APAP).. but went from AHI: 169 to around 8-10 .. I felt better - but it would take me 2 hours to get going - and VERY sleepy in the afternoon. Now that I am on the BiPAP at the proper pressure 21/17 (AHI: 2.5) - I wake up and as slibhart said- about an hour and a good cup of coffee. I'm starting to turn into a morning person ..

THANKS to YOU GUYS and my Doctor and the DME - couldn't have done it alone.

[roster]

In the beginning I got the wrong machine (APAP).. but went from AHI: 169 to around 8-10 .. I felt better - but it would take me 2 hours to get going - and VERY sleepy in the afternoon. Now that I am on the BiPAP at the proper pressure 21/17 (AHI: 2.5) - I wake up and as slibhart said- about an hour and a good cup of coffee. I'm starting to turn into a morning person ..

THANKS to YOU GUYS and my Doctor and the DME - couldn't have done it alone.

So the first questions to JMJflyer are do you have a machine with data-capability and is your CPAP therapy effective? You could feel poorly in the morning because you are still having many apnea. Without data you can't be sure of the effectiveness of your therapy.

JMJ, Can you fill out your equipment profile (choose text not images)?

[BlackSpinner]

I was never a morning person but when I had untreated sleep apnea I would wake up with a jolt and leap out of bed ready to go at 6 am. Now I am back to my non morning person, takes about an hour and a good cup of coffee to get me going.