Segmented sleep
I’ve long been a natural night owl. Even as a child with an eight o’clock bedtime it just didn’t feel right to me, and as early as grade school I customarily went to bed as late as my parents would allow. When my high school held split sessions for a while, and I was assigned the morning session (I had to be in school around 7:30 AM), I could barely drag myself out of bed and it took hours to shake off the sleepiness.
Later, in college, I took care to avoid 8 and 9 o’clock classes if I possibly could. And as a young mother with an infant (and toddler!) who wasn’t at all keen on sleeping, I would almost start crying myself whenever I was awakened by that morning wail emanating from the crib—or even worse, in the wee hours of the morning.
For the last couple of years an odd pattern has emerged: every now and then I have a run of falling asleep a bit earlier than usual, waking around 2 AM, staying up for a few hours, and then going back to bed for a few more. At least I thought it was an odd pattern until I read this article, which explains that’s apparently the way it used to be:
Chief among Ekirch and Wolf-Meyer’s findings, discerned from meticulous searches through court records, letters, diaries, scientific tracts, and popular maxims, was that a sleep pattern known as segmented sleep was widely present in the United Kingdom and United States prior to the 20th century. Before artificial light was bent to our will, most people would retire shortly after dusk, sleep for four or five hours, awaken for an hour or two, then drift back to sleep again until sunrise. Our sleep patterns have only shifted to the current 8-hour consolidated pattern in the decades since electric light became readily available.
That’s similar to what sometimes happens to me, except for the “retiring shortly after dusk” part. The last time I did that I was either sick, or an infant in a crib myself.
The article goes on to say that people report feeling very good on this regimen, and say they’re especially wide awake during the day.
One of them apparently was Winston Churchill. He slept in segments—and seemed to function pretty darn well:
At his house at Chartwell, his routine was quite regular. He would wake at 8, spend the morning in bed reading papers, dictating letters, etc., take a long nap at tea time, and work till as late as 3 am. He averaged 5-6 hours of sleep per day. Those words are attributed to Churchill himself: “You must sleep sometime between lunch and dinner, and no halfway measures. Take off your clothes and get into bed. That’s what I always do. Don’t think you will be doing less work because you sleep during the day. That’s a foolish notion held by people who have no imaginations. You will be able to accomplish more. You get two days in one — well, at least one and a half.”
So Churchill was a segmented sleep advocate. I don’t think I’d recommend it, nor would I suggest other people become night owls. In fact, I’m always trying to turn things around and become more of a lark. My efforts so far have only lasted for very short periods, and then I revert to my natural proclivities.
When was the last time most people felt really awake?
I tried a quick search for an article I recalled about supposed paleolithic sleep patterns but didn’t find it and have to leave the office, so … Might have been Science News or one of the e-mail available journals …
In any event it reported something like you recount though the length of the overall sleep period was very long.
Here are links to a couple of many articles about sleep in earlier societies, including a comment about how it might have been evolutionarily beneficial:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segmented_sleep
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/14/health/14beha.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
I read something about this a few years ago when I found myself sporadically doing it.
Now when I awake and can’t go back to sleep in the middle of the night, I just get up and read a while. Then retire again. I’ve learned not to panic about it.
I did post something about sleep that seemed to ring a sympathetic vibration with a few. I’m not flogging my blog, but I’d like to widen the sample to see if the phenomenon is more common than I thought.
http://ed-bonderenka.blogspot.com/2013/04/to-sleep-perchance-to-dream.html
The author Jerzy Kosinski slept 4-8 in the morning and 4-8 in the evening. So he went to bed at Churchill’s teatime, woke up for dinner, parties, concerts, etc. then back to bed when things wound down at dawn. Up at 8 a.m. to write.
Of course, he wound up killing himself. So be careful.
I will often wake up at 3-5 in the morning, stay up 1-3 hours and sleep until 9-10. I would rather sleep all night through, but that is what my body does.
“You must sleep sometime between lunch and dinner”
Yet more proof that Churchill was a man of wisdom. I love a good post-lunch snooze.
I always thought I was weird, sleeping for about 4 hours only to waking up around 2 AM, then going back to sleep for two or three more hours. And now you tell me it’s normal?! I don’t know whether to be relieved or annoyed (as this means I’m likely stuck with the pattern).
Sleep has been one of my bugaboos. Life as an airline pillot took me across many time zones often flying the “back of the clock.” Sleeping at differing times for a month then a new schedule the next month. It screwed my internal time clock up so much that my body does not ever seem to completely relax. I sleep for a few hours, awake, toss and turn until I finally fall back to sleep. I don’t get up because it disturbs my wife. However, when I do wake up at 6, 7, 8:30 or 9 (I don’t set an alarm unless absolutely necessary.) I feel like I never was asleep. I feel like I’ve been run over by a Mack truck. Takes me an hour to get going, but then I’m up for the day and never feel sleepy. I have never been able to take a nap, though I’ve tried. I think my system is always in fight or flight mode. As a result, it’s hard for me to get what I would call restful sleep. Doctors have been no help, and believe me, I’ve been to several. I follow all the prescribed activities with meager results. I quit worrying about it a few years ago, but nothing has really changed.
J.J.: have you ever gone to a sleep specialist or sleep clinic? You might look into having a sleep study done if you haven’t already. That’s the only way to diagnose what’s going on, and it could be helpful.
Unless I’m hyper busy, I usually sleep an hour or two in the late afternoon/early evening, am awake until 2-3A, and than sleep until 7A.
…and this gets adjusted all over the place to meet exigent need (so long as I get six daily, life is good …work demands may cut that down to 3-4 per for brief periods, but the crash following is dependable lol).
Heck, I thought this was insomnia. But if Winnie thought it a good idea?
…thanks for sharing.
I had no idea that the pattern was at least semi-normal, and that the very idea of 8-a-night was due to Edison.
Hmm. And doesn’t this cut the legs out of a bunch of specialist’s demanding we remain in some sort of REM 1/3 of the daily cycle?
What a hoot.
Yes, neo, I’ve been to two sleep clinics. I’ve been diagnosed with the standard – sleep apnea. Have used a C-PAP machine for eight years now. It has changed nothing about my sleep patterns. The only thing I have noticed, other than it’s like wearing a fighter pilot’s O2 mask in bed, is an improvement in my dreams. I don’t have nearly as many dreams of impending doom or striving to accomplish something that I can’t quite get done.
Therapy? I’ve done a lot of that too. I know what my issues are. (super conscientiousness, deep seated anger, unresolved grief, co-dependency) I have coping techniques but am not always successful. I believe those issues affect my sleep. Since I have accepted my sleep patterns as being “normal” for me, I’m less stressed about it. Heck, I feel better just writing about it.
Welcome to our siesta, Senora!! A nap in the middle of the day esta muy bueno!!
😀
I hate tiny boxes.