Exact Number of times you might wake up without realising it every night
22nd January 2026
We’ve all experienced being greeted by our loud alarm clock what feels like 20 minutes after we’ve shut our eyes. But whilst it’s normal for us to wake up every now and again during the night, many of us do not know what’s normal and what’s not.
Research published in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research discovered that we’re more nocturnal than we might imagine, with a third of people fully waking during the night at least three times weekly. Meanwhile, separate research indicated that nearly a quarter of people wake at least once nightly.
However, our internal body clock naturally shifts as we age – resulting in more frequent night-time awakenings. Typically, we experience brief micro-awakenings approximately 20 times each night, though these are usually so fleeting that we don’t recall them.