A complete REM cycle is usually around 90mins, and it takes about 30mins to start falling asleep deeply. For me personally, 7.5hrs is the perfect amount of sleep, which equates to 5 REM cycles.

Now, if you wake up in the middle of a cycle, you will usually feel groggy as your brain gets to grip with reality. Therefore, you want to aim to wake up just at the end of a cycle, ideally.

Try sleeping without an alarm, and make note of when you went to bed, and when you woke up. Hopefully, that time should be roughly divisible by 90mins, assuming nothing woke you up.

Knowing the above info, you can time your sleep better to ensure you don't set an alarm for mid-cycle. As the other commenter mentioned, there are also apps & devices that can help detect when you're coming out of REM and time the alarm based on that.

Lastly, if you do snooze after waking up, try "snoozing" for a full REM cycle (90mins), or try a power nap (<25mins). That might help "catch up" on sleep after you wake up.

I used to purposefully set my alarm 90mins before my actual wake up time, and then "snooze" for 90. That was mainly to induce lucid dreams though.

My most pleasant waking up experiences (in terms of my own body, not who was with me) were when I worked nights, and woke up around 4-4:30 pm.

On a day shift schedule I often feel too warm when I go to bed, and too cold when I wake up. When I worked nights, the cool mornings and the warm afternoons canceled both of those out and felt great.

As such, I only needed 6 hrs sleep when I worked nights. Now I feel groggy unless I get 8.

Use smart lights. Have the light gradually ramp up intensity until it peaks a few minutes before your alarm goes off.

Also make sure you're going to bed with enough time to fall asleep and get a full night's sleep consistently.

Do you have a sleep cycle alarm clock? It might wake you up a little earlier to make waking easier.

Do you know about the rerack? Wake up early, read a bit or check the news or whatever, then go back to sleep for an hour or two. Best sleep ever! Feels like you're cheating the sleep rations.

As others have explained, waking up at the wrong point in a sleep cycle feels crappy. But also as the night turns to morning, your sleep cycles change and sleep becomes lighter - waking up is a process, not a moment. So get up when you wake up naturally and you should be good, but also keeping to a schedule helps, so if you are naturally waking up at 7am or whatever, going past that time can interfere with, well, falling awake.

I get you though - so often I feel like sleep is so close by I just want to go back.

My husband handles this with coffee, he gets up, makes coffee, drinks it in bed (while I sleep through all this) and then either feels awake, or, if he does go back to sleep the caffeine helps him wake back up, like a coffee nap. I can't do that, prefer to wake up then coffee a few hours later, but it works for him.

Everyone else has good suggestions, but for me, it turned out to be sleep apnea. See if you can talk to a sleep doctor.

my sleep routine has become one of if not the most important routine. i dealt with insomnia for years, which always spirals into poor appetite, ever-decreasing functioning and bad decisions. i understand now that maintaining a routine is critical for me, and i have added tools for falling asleep, staying asleep, and waking well-rested.

• i picked up a good sleep mask, one that blocks absolutely all light and allows unobstructed blinking. even more so than the functional aspect of blocking light, the sensation of wearing the sleep mask has helped program my brain into quickly recognizing sleeptime on-demand.

• a minimally-intrusive sleep aid. i started with melatonin but eventually switched to D8/D9 gummies and never looked back. within 45m of taking a gummy i feel the heaviness in my limbs and easily succumb to sleep. this is likely not necessary for everyone but i consider the reliable effectiveness to be an effective insurance.

• ensuring proper sleep posture. i overlooked this one for a long time, thinking that stacking pillows under my head and around my body was as good as it could get. but i would wake up every morning with neck and back pain, grumpy and frustrated. after learning about traditional asian pillows it clicked together that the intent of a head rest is neck support. on a whim i picked up a buckwheat hull neck roll and it has absolutely changed my life. first time i used it, flat on my back with it under my neck, my legs tingled from the relief of tension in my body. the moral here is to assess for sources of discomfort in your sleeping posture and find ways to improve it so you are not wasting time and effort trying to get comfortable.

• consider breaking up your sleep hours. I started an unconventional routine last year and it has been very helpful for me in waking refreshed. i set my first alarm for 2.5-3 hours before i want to be fully awake. when that goes off i manage to drag myself out of bed, have a light breakfast and move myself to a recliner in the living room where i gently doze off for another hour/hour and a half, with a few extra minutes on both sides. initially it was not super easy to fall back asleep quickly, but now that it’s routine and with the help of the weighted sleep mask, it happens in minutes. by the time my second alarm goes off, if i’m not already beginning to stir, i open my eyes and am absolutely ready to go. knowing that i can doze off again makes getting up and relocating on that first alarm much much easier, and i have come to deeply enjoy the dedicated peace and quiet of that early morning nap; no expectations weighing on me first thing, just focusing on my breathing and relaxing my body. the downside is now that i’m used to this pattern, my body expects that morning nap and i absolutely have to be up early enough to allow time for it.

i’m certain that a persons ideal sleep routine is extremely subjective and unique to that individual, so these tips may not all be helpful for you, but hopefully they give you some ideas of new strategies to try.

You been checked for sleep apnea?

Depression?

Maybe you have a vitamin deficiency. You can get tested at your doctor.

It might not help you, but it helped me to recognize when laying in bed trying to "sleep in" wasn't going to happen. If I'm not asleep again in 5 minutes and it's past a certain time (6:30 for me), fuck it. My body just aches if I lay in bed awake trying to sleep. I get up and enjoy the quiet morning.

If you want to know how to fix this problem, the term to search for is sleep hygiene. You've been waking up at the wrong times in your sleep cycle. Quality sleep is a matter of habits, every person is a bit different. Research and apply what fits best with your lifestyle. Also, invest in quality beds and pillows, as well as temperature regulation. It's far more important than most people give it credit.

Idk if part of the unpleasantness is due to waking suddenly, but if it is consider different alarms like maybe music, an alarm that gradually gets louder, a quiet alarm, or a vibrating alarm. Some have also mentioned alarms with lights that gradually get brighter.

I grew up with one of those cheap ass, plug in, buzzing alarms with the little peg you push in on the back and I still jump and freak out when I hear that sound.

This Nedroid comic explains it:

https://nedroid.com/?452