When you wake up in the morning, it might feel like your brain just switched on at the ring of an alarm, although you still might feel groggy for a while. But the actual process the brain goes through to wake up is a gradual, coordinated event. So exactly how does it happen?
First, let's define what it means to be awake. "Being awake means the brain is in a state that supports awareness, movement and thinking," Rachel Rowe, a professor of integrative physiology at the University of Colorado Boulder, told Live Science in an email. "Unlike sleep, where brain waves are slow and synchronized, wakefulness is marked by faster, more flexible activity that lets us respond to the world around us."
