The present invention relates to an energy efficient mechanism for establishing and maintaining a communication between nodes (A . . . F) in a wireless communication system. In particular, it relates to a distributed low power medium access control (MAC) mechanism for sharing the communication means in a wireless communication system. According to the present invention a destination node (A) listens to a communication channel periodically. For requesting services from the destination node (A), a wake-up signal (WU) is transmitted from a source node (B) to the destination node (A) via the communication channel, wherein the wake-up signal (WU) is formed by a preamble (WP) and an information for controlling the communication between nodes (A . . . F). The WU signal duration and content is adapted depending on the system operation context to reduce either idle times, power consumption, latency or network blocking (collision avoidance).