January 2026
Written by Caroline Novack, LCSW, PRYT-P, Co Founder
Waking up in the middle of the night is incredibly common, and often more unsettling than difficulty falling asleep. Many people drift off without much trouble, only to wake at 2 or 3 a.m. with a suddenly alert mind. For some, particularly during hormonal transitions like perimenopause or menopause, these awakenings may be more frequent or harder to ignore.
Here’s the most important thing to know: waking during the night is normal. We naturally move into lighter sleep or brief wakefulness between sleep cycles, and most of the time we don’t remember these moments at all. Sleep tends to become a problem when waking up starts to feel like something is wrong, or when we unintentionally use approaches that seem helpful but actually wake us up more.
Once that happens, the nervous system shifts into alert mode. The brain begins to treat wakefulness as a threat, and sleep becomes something to achieve rather than something that happens on its own. This is one reason middle-of-the-night awakenings can feel so persistent and distressing.
Research-based approaches like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I) are helpful here because they don’t focus on eliminating awakenings altogether. Instead, they focus on changing how we respond—reducing struggle, effort, and fear so the body can relearn that nighttime is safe.
Here are a few principles shaped by research, years of clinical work, and personal experience that tend to make the biggest difference.
• Let go of the goal of falling back asleep.
Sleep is a passive biological process. You can’t force it. When you wake, see if you can soften the intention from “I need to sleep” to “I can rest.” Paradoxically, reducing pressure often lowers the very arousal that keeps people awake.
• Resist checking the clock.
Clock-watching trains the brain to associate nighttime wakefulness with urgency and performance. Turning the clock away, when possible, helps send a different message: there’s nothing to monitor or fix right now.
• Gently reframe unhelpful sleep thoughts.
Middle-of-the-night thinking often becomes more catastrophic than it needs to be, such as, “I’ll be exhausted tomorrow,” or “This will never get better.” The waking itself isn’t the problem; it’s how the mind reacts that keeps sleep from returning. When these thoughts show up, try offering something more neutral and kind, such as “I’ve managed on less sleep before,” or “Rest still counts.” This helps because the brain treats threat-based thoughts as a signal to stay alert; softening the story reduces mental alarm and makes it easier for the nervous system to settle again.
• Use gentle focus if your mind is busy.
Silence isn’t always soothing at 3 a.m. A guided meditation, a (non-suspenseful) audiobook, or a calm, predictable podcast can give the mind something neutral to rest on. Choose something steady and non-engaging—nothing suspenseful or emotionally charged. The intention isn’t to make sleep happen, but to make wakefulness feel less activating.
If it’s helpful, you’ll find a one-minute nighttime compassion meditation embedded below, designed for moments of wakefulness, not to force sleep, but to support rest.
• Try a simple compassion practice.
You might quietly repeat:
May I be calm. May I be safe. May I be peaceful.
Let the phrases move at the pace of your breath. If it feels natural, you can imagine others who are awake right now and offer the same words to them. Many people find this softens the sense of isolation that often shows up in the middle of the night. You can continue cycling through these phrases for as long as they feel supportive.
• If frustration builds, change the setting briefly.
If your mind feels stuck in overdrive, it can help to step out of bed for a short time and do something low-key in dim light, such as reading a few pages of a familiar book, gentle stretching, or simply sitting quietly. Return to bed when sleepiness comes back, rather than waiting for exhaustion. Over time, this helps retrain the brain to associate the bed with sleep instead of struggle.
One thing many people are relieved to learn is that rest still matters. Calm, low-stimulation states support the nervous system even when sleep doesn’t come right away. Most people function better the next day than they expect, even after a disrupted night.
If middle-of-the-night wakefulness is happening often, lasting a long time, or creating anxiety around sleep, evidence-based support like CBT-I can be very effective. With the right guidance, the brain can relearn that being awake at night isn’t dangerous; and when that fear softens, sleep often returns more naturally.
For now, if you wake tonight, see if you can meet the moment with a little less urgency and a little more kindness. Sometimes that gentle shift is exactly what sleep has been waiting for.
One-Minute Nighttime Compassion Meditation
https://artofwb.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/1-Minute-Nighttime-Compassion-Meditation.m4a
