When you lay awake at night, why do things seems so much worse?

Question

When you wake up in the morning you feel different about it, but when you wake up in the night you feel more depressed about matters, more doom and gloom. Why would that be?

Answer 1

Maybe because once you wake up your mind is fresh and can think rationally, whereas if you think about something when you go to sleep or when you wake up in the night, then your mind is still tired and will not think properly. It is hard to explain why things seem much worse in the middle of the night.

Answer 2

I think this is simply because the mind wants to 'hibernate' at night along with your body. The mind needs rest as well and I think nature simply intended the mind to cease functioning at a higher level at bedtime. Such an event would also promote the ability to sleep. The problem arises when people's problems overtake the ability to let the mind drift at bedtime and their mental capacity doesn't cope because nature won't allow that. That's why we popularly state 'sleep on it' ..... the cold light of day always creates a better and bigger picture, usually brighter as well!

Answer 3

Actually I'm the complete opposite. I think of problems at night and come up with solutions. Then when I wake up in the day, I feel too scared/proud/angry/out of character to do what I thought of last night. It's really weird.

Answer 4

I know exactly what you mean. I feel the same as I'm sure most do. I tend to wake up worrying at night but in morning it often seems not as bad.
It is said that you reach your lowest in early hours of morning so I've been told.

Answer 5

i am not sure but i have the same problem and i think that it is that you are getting tired and it is dark and there is no one that you can call that late and you really feel lonely at that time and you don't know what to do and it just adds up. i take klonopin and lexapro and ambien at night to help me sleep. that way i can just fall asleep and not have that problem and it does help. when you are not getting enough sleep that just adds to the problem in itself. i always started to feel my worst at about 8 pm and it would finally end at like 2 or 3 am. i think that is was when i felt the lonliest. i hope this helps

Answer 6

because the night just seems so long when you are laying awake during the day you can be doing things to stop yourself from thinking what can you do at night not alot unless youwant to keep the whole house awake

Answer 7

i think its because there is nothing you can do about it while you are lying there and because you are just thinking about it when you should be trying to get to sleep it jut makes it seem worse. When you wake up you have the oppertunity to do something about it and are able to think more clearly

Answer 8

At night when we're supposed to sleep, your mind is also tired. That would be summed up to your problem and make it seems worse.

Answer 9

I think it's because insomnia causes increased awareness and humans aren't capable of being too aware of reality without getting so stressed out they can't function. Good sleep dumbs us down so we can focus on what we can handle

Answer 10

i totally feel you on that one (as you can see, its 2:10am right now and im awake worrying about a job interview.... fabulous...). I dont know why it is but youre definately not alone. One possability is the hormones that your body produces when its dark out (such as melatonin, etc) which can have an effect on our thought patterns and emotional responses.