As sleep patterns go, it sounds ludicrous. Asleep by 11pm, then awake at 2.43am to do the ironing and online banking. Working at 3am, back to bed at 5.20pm.
Working in the night? Cooking family meals in the early hours? Who does this? And yet these are entries taken from the sleep diaries of women who claim they’ve never felt so rested. They get their six to eight hours’ sleep a night — only it comes in two halves, with an interval of impressive achievement sandwiched in between.
Anne-Marie Senior, 40, who lives in Huddersfield with husband Nigel, 42, a sales manager, and their children aged 12, ten and seven, admits her husband often rolls his eyes in the morning when he finds out how much she’s done during the night.
‘It’s an asset to sleep like this,’ says the former lecturer, who’s a stay-at-home mum. ‘It’s what my body naturally wants to do. And dealing with mundane stuff during the night means I do so much more with my children and husband during the day. Nigel, who sleeps soundly, often jokes it’s like the fairies have been when he wakes up.’
Sadie Nicholas explored the growing trend for biphasic sleep, Lianne Young, 44,(pictured) from Surrey revealed she takes intervals during her night's sleep to contact her clients abroad
In fact, a growing school of thought suggests she — and others — have naturally gravitated towards a sleep pattern more in tune with the way our forebears rested, before electric lights made us believe a good night’s sleep has to come in an eight-hour block. These women are embracing the trend for biphasic (meaning ‘two phase’) sleep, by resting in two shifts with a period of wakefulness in the middle.
The theory evolved in the Nineties, after U.S. psychiatrist Thomas Wehr conducted an experiment in which a group of subjects were deprived of artificial light for a month, with no lightbulbs, TVs or computers. By week four, his guinea pigs had settled into a pattern. They slept for four hours, woke around midnight for two hours, then dropped off again for four.
At the same time a historian named Roger Ekirch was busy collecting references to what seemed like a strange literary quirk: repeated mentions of our ‘first’ and ‘second’ sleep in historical works from Homer via Chaucer to Dickens.
In 2001, he published a paper proposing humans were wont to sleep in two distinct chunks. Later he charted 500 references to biphasic sleep from fiction, diaries, medical tomes, legal records and anthropological accounts, claiming during their wakeful phase people read, smoked, prayed, had sex and paid social visits.
Since then, the idea of adopting a twice-a-night sleep pattern has gradually acquired a certain fashionability. Ever more complex sleep rhythms have developed — with Nigella Lawson remarking she often heads to bed at 7.30pm, then sleeps in two-hour chunks interspersed with periods of wakefulness and cups of tea.
Devotees claim such a regime removes the pressure to sleep through the night, meaning they are no longer distressed by their ‘middle-of-the-night insomnia’. Rather than worrying about it, they use the night to get things done, before lying down for their second sleep when they are tired.
Laura Blacklaws, 35, (pictured) from Hertfordshire began having an unusual sleeping pattern while planning her wedding
‘Biphasic sleep was the most common pre-modern style of sleeping,’ says Professor Kevin Morgan, an expert in sleep and health at Loughborough University. ‘But we have to put this into context because they also slept on mud floors, lived very short lives and were diseased most of the time. By and large, we have designed modern society to suit our circadian rhythm — the internal clock that controls our sleep and wake cycles, which dictates that we sleep more at night and are awake during the day.
‘However, we retain the capacity to sleep in shorter bouts if that suits us. Everyone who’s had a baby knows that’s exactly what newborns do and force us to do.’ So, with an epidemic of insomnia making headlines, should we all try sleeping in shifts?
Professor Morgan explains: ‘The question of whether longer term biphasic sleep is good or bad for us presumes a one-size-fits-all answer. People’s needs and circadian rhythms differ enormously.
‘If you were to ask colleagues how much sleep they need to perform really well, you’re going to get a huge variation in answers — and they’re probably all correct.’
Still, if you’re unhappy with your sleep, embracing biphasic sleep could help you relax, rest — and even increase your productivity. For Lianne Young, 44, trying to sleep ‘properly’ meant she would lie awake for hours, berating herself for not being able to doze off and worrying how she’d cope with a busy day on so little sleep. But now she feels liberated from the eight-hour straitjacket.
Anne-Marie Senior, 40, (pictured) from Huddersfield who is a stay-at-home mum uses an interval during her night's rest to complete mundane tasks
She says: ‘I sleep better now I have a more relaxed attitude, and cumulatively I clock up eight hours of sleep in every 24.
‘It works perfectly. My odd hours allow me to speak to my son in New Zealand, and to work with my clients in Los Angeles. I go to bed around 11pm, wake at 3am, go back to bed at 5am for four hours, then take a couple of short naps. I sleep when I’m tired and eat when I’m hungry. I’m fortunate I work for myself and can nap during the day.’
The relationships expert has been a biphasic sleeper since going into early menopause aged 37, which disrupted her sleep. But being awake at night also means she can function smoothly across various time zones for her international clients and her 24-year-old son.
‘I’ve never been a normal sleeper, but once the menopause started my sleep changed,’ says Lianne, who is single, lives in Surrey and also has a daughter aged 22.
‘It used to drive me nuts. I’d lie awake trying to get back to sleep but all it did was make sleep more elusive. I tried every remedy going from warm baths to melatonin tablets and sleep apps. I even went to a sleep clinic to have my sleep patterns monitored and bloods taken, but they concluded I was perfectly healthy.
Anne-Marie (pictured) says her husband Nigel, jokes it's like the fairies have been when he wakes up and sees all the tasks that she's managed to complete
‘I realised there was no point trying to fight what my body wanted to do. For the past four years I’ve slept in shifts — two at night and a two-hour afternoon siesta.’
Lianne is fortunate that sleeping this way fits in to her job and family life — she has no children who have to be got up for school — although she admits she doesn’t know what she’d do if she started a new relationship with a man who slept through the night.
That’s a sleep dilemma that Laura Blacklaws, 35, and her husband of four weeks Hayden, 36, are negotiating.
Once an eight hours girl like her partner, Laura found herself moving towards a twice a night pattern during the run up to her wedding.
‘I started experiencing weird sleep patterns where some nights I’d sleep normally, others I’d wake up every couple of hours, and then the following night I’d sleep for up to 12 hours and wake feeling dreadful,’ says Laura, who owns a PR company and lives in Hertfordshire.
‘I put it down to the fact I was busy with work and planning my wedding. I didn’t feel stressed but if I woke I couldn’t get back to sleep.
‘Rather than fighting against it I’ve tried to make it work, and it worked so well that since the wedding I’ve kept up my new sleep routine. I go to bed around 11pm and wake between 1.30am-3.30am to do some life admin — such as planning a holiday.
‘I don’t go back to bed until 6am, when Hayden gets up for work, so that I avoid disturbing him twice. Then I go back to bed and sleep for three hours. I’m lucky I run my own business. If I was still in an office in London it would be impossible to manage.’
Laura admits she’s fortunate ‘even a bulldozer tearing through our two-bed terrace’ wouldn’t disturb her husband, which means she can potter downstairs during the early hours, ironing or working while sipping tea.
‘Recently I ordered our costumes for a fancy dress party at 3am,’ she says. Still, there are ‘side-effects’ to biphasic sleep that remain tricky to control.
Lianne (pictured) claims she sleeps better now her attitude towards sleep is more relaxed
Laura admits she ends up eating more than she used to during the day as she feels hungry much earlier — and there’s the problem of dark circles under her eyes.
‘I do worry my body isn’t getting the rest it needs to repair,’ she adds. ‘I’ll have the odd week when my sleep patterns return to normal, but then it’s back to biphasic again.’
Professor Morgan says although not getting enough sleep has been linked to problems, from heart disease and obesity to certain cancers, so long as you rack up enough hours there is nothing unhealthy in biphasic sleep. In terms of sleeping in short bursts, the body’s biological rhythm is incredibly robust and can deal with this,’ he adds.
So, with the benefits including the chance to crack on with your chores , get ahead at work and spend more time with your family, should we all be embracing biphasic sleep?
Anne-Marie and Lianne are converted, but Laura isn’t so sure. ‘Given the choice, I’d still prefer to sleep through the night — although I would have so much more on my to-do list in the day.’
Trying the ‘two sleeps’ trick left me a wreck
By Hannah Betts
A lifelong insomniac, I have deployed everything over the years to try to sleep better. But from acupuncture to antidepressants, hypnosis to giving up booze and caffeine, it was all to no avail.
Suffice to say I am ready to try anything to get some rest — even going to bed when six-year-olds have to. Perhaps knowing I can get up to stuff in the middle of the night will remove the FOMO (fear of missing out) that keeps me counting sheep, desperate to fit more fun into the day.
That said, my insomnia feels more deep-rooted than this — something chemical, fundamental to my personality.
Still, I’m willing to try biphasic sleeping, taking as my model, Nigella’s routine which involves getting your first chunk of sleep in before midnight.
Hannah Betts went to sleep at 8.20pm and set her alarm for midnight to give her verdict on Nigella’s biphasic sleeping routine (file image)
Alas, it turns out there is no greater means of missing out than hitting the sack at 8pm; not least as this means eating dinner at 5pm, then embarking upon a pyjama-clad wind-down.
I am forced to cancel a party, and barely cross paths with my partner given we have both spent long days at work. I go to bed as he arrives home. Then I get up as he crawls between the sheets near midnight. ‘It’s like being shift-workers,’ he sighs.
The first surprise is I am asleep by 8.20pm, although is this because I am so unslept from the night before? I wake at 10.10pm, immediately drifting off again. Still, my disgruntlement when my midnight alarm sounds is colossal.
I drag myself downstairs, blundering into a table and bruising my thigh. A typical sleep cycle lasts 90 minutes. From experience mine are a tad longer. This means I’ve scored two, and am thus in need of another three for a full night’s five.
‘Come on, you’re a night owl. You wrote all your undergraduate essays in the small hours,’ I attempt to spur myself.
Alas, this is a strategy that worked better in my teens than 30 years on.
Hannah began her second sleep shift at 2am, she says a few nights of biphasic sleep left her feeling permanently brain-fogged (file image)
Generations of writers have used this period of the night to think great thoughts. My father used to pass out for a few hours then write books from 3am. Alas, I find myself brain dead, fit only for internet shopping and badly-spelt tweets.
Time flies in a slightly hallucinogenic fashion, until I’m back shivering between the sheets at 2am, the dog so confused by all the to-ing and fro-ing she leaps onto my head once I finally conk out an hour later.
I wake depressed with a savage headache, unable to string a sentence together, with a desire only for sugar. And over the next few nights, the situation worsens. I try writing, to find that thoughts that appeared profound at 1.45am are revealed to be nonsense come morning.
I watch Netflix shows, but find the exercise strangely joyless. I read, but nothing goes in. By the end of the week, I am poorer, plumper and permanently brain-fogged. It may have worked for my forebears, but I’d like my sleep solid rather than segmented.
https://textbacklinkexchanges.com/category/the-sun-world/https://textbacklinkexchanges.com/have-these-women-found-the-cure-for-insomnia-2/
News Photo Have these women found the cure for insomnia?
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