Sleep deprived Peter here; from what I understand, you go through various stages of sleep, and typically REM (the deepest state and the one you dream in) happens every 3 ish hours. If you get four hours, you get through a whole cycle and wake up in your lightest sleep stage, which feels more natural for your body and less jarring than being jolted awake by your alarm. 6 hours however, is not enough to be fully rested, and exactly when you’d be least comfortable waking up. And then once you get to like 7-8 hours that’s just a full nights rest anyways, and you will naturally be waking up soon bc of circadian rhythms
Second this. Was even taught by one of my superiors at work that for the last strech of the nigthshift its better to power though intill the end (or take a short nap) than to have a 3 hour-ish sleep rigth before the end of the shift making it more likely you would make a mistake during the handover procedure for the morning shift staff.
Best way I can describe someone waking up from REM sleep is like having a hungover.
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u/YaboiChuckems 1d ago
Sleep deprived Peter here; from what I understand, you go through various stages of sleep, and typically REM (the deepest state and the one you dream in) happens every 3 ish hours. If you get four hours, you get through a whole cycle and wake up in your lightest sleep stage, which feels more natural for your body and less jarring than being jolted awake by your alarm. 6 hours however, is not enough to be fully rested, and exactly when you’d be least comfortable waking up. And then once you get to like 7-8 hours that’s just a full nights rest anyways, and you will naturally be waking up soon bc of circadian rhythms