Getting Reacquainted With My Old Friend, 3 a.m.

I've been waking up consistently for the past week around 3 a.m. Not just the roll-over-in-bed-and-check-the-time type waking up, but wide-awake-I-think-I'll-check-email-and-play-Scrabble kind of awake. So, it got me wondering why. 

In college I had a professor who, for whatever reason, decided to share with us that 3 a.m., should you be awake, is the loneliest hour of the day and also the most depressed you will be all day. I've tried to Google this fact several times and never found it put in exactly those terms, but I have found other interesting theories. And while I have been feeling a little lonely lately, when I wake up at 3 a.m., I am mostly irritated that I am, in fact, awake at 3 a.m.

The most common theory is that 3 a.m. is the witching hour, when paranormal activity is most active. Waking up at this time may suggest that you are picking up on information from another source, i.e. a spirit. I've read that 3 a.m. is the time that Jesus died. So perhaps it's Jesus, taunting me. But, likely no.

From a slightly more "scientific" perspective, waking up in the middle of the night, at any time, increases the statistical likelihood that you will wake up again the next night at the same time. Your body begins to build a rhythm. It could possibly even be early onset insomnia or a sleep disorder. I've struggled with insomnia, so this may very well be the case. There have been times, that even on sleeping pills, I have not been able to fall asleep for more than an hour or so for days at a time. I'd be useless at work, or really at life in general, since I was completely unable to think. This happens to me maybe once every two years. I guess I'm due, but I certainly hope not.  

Spiritually, it's said to be the time of night when things are most still in the world, and waking up at this time may just be your intuition is waking you to connect with yourself, or in my case, play Scrabble and read emails. 

So maybe I'm being haunted, maybe my body likes taunting me, maybe my mind is trying to find peace when the world is still, or maybe the garbage men have changed their schedule. I don't know. What I do know is that I am tired.