The Reason(s) You Always Fall Asleep When You're Watching TV Or A Movie

This common sofa habit could have a deeper meaning.

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If you’re like most people, you’ve probably drifted off to sleep as soon as you put on a movie or show at night.

It’s a common occurrence – you sit down with your partner to finally watch the season finale of the show everyone is talking about, only to fall asleep, jolt awake, pretend you didn’t fall asleep and keep on watching until you fall asleep again.

Sleep experts told HuffPost there are many reasons this happens, and some are more concerning than others. Here’s what to know:

When you’re watching TV or movies at night, you’re often in a good sleep environment.

“There’s a couple of environmental factors to the fact of watching TV, watching a movie that promotes sleepiness,” said Dr. Neal Walia, a sleep specialist at UCLA Health in California. “When you wake up in the morning, you develop something called a sleep drive, which is how much your body wants to sleep.”

As you go about your day, your sleep drive goes up before peaking at bedtime, he explained. “And that drive is what gets you into sleep and carries you to sleep,” Walia noted.

“Usually, people are watching movies and TV in the evening after a long workday. This is when their sleep drive is at the highest,” he said. So your body naturally wants to sleep at this time.

“And then sometimes it’s just a lack of stimulation,” said Dr. Molly Atwood, the director of clinical training in the behavioural sleep medicine program at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore.

If you........

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