Why do we stop feeling tired once we lie on the bed

We’ve all been there. You’ve been struggling to stay awake all day but, the second you cosy down to catch forty winks, you’re wide-awake. It turns out, that lying in bed unable to fall asleep is actually a disorder called conditioned or learned arousal and is considered one of the most common sleep problems.

According to sleep-medicine specialist Philip Gehrman, it’s because something in your sleep environment has signaled to your brain that getting into bed should “arouse“ you rather than send you to sleep.

“If someone is a good sleeper, then each night they proba er, then each night they probably get in bed and fall asleep. So when they get into bed it triggers this auto response of sleepiness,“ Gehrman told TIME.“But if you spend night after night tossing and turning not being able to fall asleep, then your body associates that with your bed instead.“

Thanks to the domination of smartphones, tablets and laptops in our lives, tossing and turning in bed has become common. The most obvious way to treat the condition is to not have any screen time or bright lights in the hour before bed. This is because light suppresses the production of melatonin, a chemical that helps your body to sleep. Similarly , experts say taking regular exercise during the daytime and avoiding caffeine, alcohol and tobacco in the evening.