The presidential race and election night were anxiety-inducing for voters across the country — and for many reasons. But since former President Donald Trump was declared the winner over Vice President Kamala Harris, many people on social media have since described experiencing the same interesting phenomenon on election night: They went to sleep, and suddenly woke up around 3 a.m. with a bad feeling.
One social media user on X, formerly Twitter, said they were suddenly “jolted awake” at 3 a.m. and that they just “knew” Trump had won.
Another X user wrote: “Dare I say…. Our ancestors all woke us up around 3 am election night.”
They are not alone. Many other social media users across different platforms — who all presumably hoped Harris would win the election — shared similar stories about waking up around 3 in the morning in their respective time zones on that Tuesday night.
Ana, who asked to withhold her last name for her privacy, told HuffPost that she went to bed around 10 p.m. feeling “really anxious” about the election before suddenly waking up at 3:30 a.m.
She said she was getting regular updates on the Electoral College votes prior to going to bed, and that she woke up with “this sense of dread and feeling in the pit of my stomach that something was wrong.”
“My fiancé had woken up as well and I looked at him and asked the results and he just shook his head and said ‘Trump won.’” she recalled. “I immediately started crying.”
Ana said that she had previously experienced waking up suddenly in the middle of the night before, but that it was not a regular occurrence.
With so many people reporting this shared experience on election night, it’s important to understand the effects stress has on sleep, and how our internal clocks and sleep cycles work.
Dr. Rafael Pelayo, a clinical professor at Stanford University’s Sleep Medicine division and author of “How to Sleep: The New Science-Based Solutions for Sleeping Through the Night,” shared some insight on why this sleep disruption might’ve happened to so many people. (Plus, some advice to improve sleep moving forward.)
What causes nighttime wakings like this?
Everyone has a circadian biological clock. As part of this, people sleep in cycles, in which they briefly and naturally wake up every 90 minutes to two hours throughout the night before they fall back asleep — oftentimes without realizing it. These wakings during cycles of sleep, triggered by chemicals in the brain, keep us “safe,” Pelayo explained.
“Sleep is inherently a dangerous thing for animals to do. Animals are vulnerable of being attacked,” he said. “So it’s not surprising that we protect ourselves while we’re sleeping.”
“When you pop awake and can’t get back to sleep, it’s usually with unfinished or unresolved things in the back of the mind. Or a state of uncertainty,” he continued. “Whenever you go to sleep [in a state] of uncertainty, your brain is going to sleep lighter. Or jolt awake.”
Pelayo said he’s not surprised that so many people reported that they were unable to fall back asleep after waking in middle of the night with “dread,” considering the “polarizing” political times we’re living in.
Similarly, he said he wouldn’t be surprised to hear that other people, who were excited about Trump returning to the White House, say they were too excited about his then-impending win to fall asleep on election night. (The Associated Press declared Trump the winner around 5:30 a.m. ET on Wednesday, Nov. 6. Trump had won battleground states Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina before 3:00 a.m. ET.)
Why did so many people wake up at 3 a.m. specifically? Is that time significant?
People online have shared their own theories — some of them spiritual — about why they believe so many people woke up at between 3 and 4 a.m. on election night. But the explanation could have to do with people collectively getting the same bare minimum hours of sleep to function — enough to turn their attention to the election.
Pelayo said that 3 in the morning is a common time for people to wake up, partly because by that time they would’ve gotten enough sleep — which is commonly five hours — to recharge their brains, and to then decide what their priority should be at that moment.
For people like Ana, who went to sleep around 10 that night, the timing of waking up at 3 to look up the election results checks out.
“If someone went to bed at 10 o’clock at night, and they got the bare minimum amount of sleep, five hours, the brain must now decide what’s more important: Continuing to get sleep for later? Or immediately take care of a problem?” he said.
“In this case, for these people who were personally focused on the election, it was finding out the election results,” he later continued.
Pelayo said that “the number 5 comes up a lot,” when people, particularly those who deal with chronic insomnia, report the “bare minimum” number of hours they need at night “to get by.” As for what’s considered a healthy amount of sleep, however, studies suggest that adults need more than five hours of sleep at night for optimal health benefits.
What can you do to improve sleep when you’re stressed about something?
There are a few practices you can implement to help you sleep better throughout the night. Pelayo pointed to two techniques: scheduled thinking time and sleep restriction. Scheduled thinking time is when you write down things you want to work on for the next day before you go to bed. Sleep restriction means you limit the amount of time you spend in bed.
“The less time you spend in bed, the deeper you will sleep,” he said.
Pelayo recommends that people who are dealing with ongoing sleep issues speak to their provider for treatment.
It’s not surprising people are discussing their experiences on election night. People across the U.S. will likely continue to process the outcome of the 2024 presidential election, and what that means for them before Trump is slated to take office in January.