Sleep Disruptions

[kevin_standlee]

For the past few weeks, most of my days and nights have consisted of two stretches of sleep rather than one long period. Last night was especially difficult, as I only got around 3 hours of sleep. I thus "crashed" relatively early today, slept around four hours, and now am on a course for another short night of sleep.

Aside from last night (which left me sleepwalking through my Day Jobbe), I seem to be doing okay with this "split shift," but it does seem a little odd to me.

Comments

[jonesnori]

I have read that this sort of split sleep was once the norm for humans, especially in the winter. People would go to bed when it got dark, then wake up for a time in the middle of the night and putter around or cuddle or whatever, then go back to sleep.

[kevin_standlee]

I've heard about that too. Maybe it's what my body currently wants.

[a_cubed]

Bi-phasic sleep patterns (as jonesnori reports) were reportedly common historically. There's a lot of research on bi-phasic and multi-phasic sleeping. Few animals seem to sleep the way modern humans try to do it.

[kevin_standlee]

It's not an issue at the moment for me because I don't have much happening in the afternoon. It will get more challenging when I'm at a convention. Mind you, during Westercon 74 there was at least one day of the convention where I went back to my room and took a nap for a couple of hours, even though I hated missing any part of the convention.