Your body is so skilled at regulating when you’re supposed to be awake that, if you follow a consistent schedule, it gets pretty good at beating your alarm and letting you wake up more gradually.Certain stress hormones in your brain increase during the day and decrease at night. As the cruel alarm approaches, those hormones increase steadily from their nighttime levels to their daytime ones, waking you up slowly and naturally. If your alarm interrupts this process, the body learns to start increasing those hormones earlier so it doesn’t get jarred awake.Waking up a few minutes before your alarm goes off typically means you’re getting a good amount of sleep, and your circadian rhythm is doing a good job.