Waking up throughout the night is natural: Experts

(Thinkstock)We've all done it. Unable to get back to sleep after being woken up in the middle of the night by a partner's snoring or anxiety over a big presentation the next day, we watch the minutes tick by, getting more and more stressed as those remaining few hours of rest slip away.

But it turns out that waking up in the dark isn't as bad as you may think. A growing body of evidence suggests that "bi-modal" or two-phase sleep is a more natural way for humans to function, reports the Globe and Mail.