The second sleep

Do you often wake in the night and find it difficult to go back to sleep straight away?
Maybe it's not because you're a freak or different but because we are genetically programmed to do this!

There has been a lot of interest recently (with articles by the BBC, the Times and The Guardian amongst others) about 'the second sleep' and it seems that the human brain is actually programmed to sleep in two four hour chunks.

Research in the 1990's took volunteers and put them in 14 hours of darkness each day. After a few weeks the volunteers had started to sleep in two 4 hour blocks with a one to two hour period of being awake in the middle. despite being of great interest to sleep scientists, the belief that an eight hour block of sleep being the norm has persisted.

Then 2005, historian Roger Ekirch published a book called At Day's Close: Night in Times Past, where he draws on his research where he found over 500 references to segmented sleep in books, in diaries, court records, medical books and literature. what he found interesting was the way in which the references to this sleep pattern were made - as if it was totally normal and that everyone did it.

It seems that the labourers would come home from the work, have something to eat then go to bed - usually because they were really tired! Then approx 4 hours later they would wake up and do things! It was a time for conversation, for prayer, visiting the neighbours, having sex etc. Then they would go to bed and have a second sleep, and wake at dawn ready for another days work.
A doctor's manual from 16th Century France even advised couples that the best time to conceive was not at the end of a long day's labour but "after the first sleep", when "they have more enjoyment" and "do it better".

Ekirch found that references to the segmented sleep dwindle from the 17th Century onwards and links this to social change, the shift to living in cities and eventually the increase in street and domestic lighting, which helped develop a leaning towards socialising in the evening and pushed sleep into one later block of up to 8 hours.

Though the majority of people have adapted to sleeping in one 8 hour block, sleep researchers now think that this could be the root cause of sleep maintenance insomnia, where sufferers wake during the night. It is helpful to realise that most people do wake in the night but that most do not remember it, whereas an insomnia suffer, who is already stressed about lack of sleep, may become more anxious at waking and take longer to fall back asleep. For these people it the realisation that it is not some abnormality but in fact genetic programming may help them and their anxieties around sleep.

In fact, if we look there is still evidence of this segmented sleep around us. Babies who need to wake in the night for feeding, toddlers who still need an afternoon nap, and in hotter climates - an afternoon siesta during the heat of the day, followed by working later in the cool of the evening. The modern world with 24 hour electricity and an unbroken day work ethic actually is encroaching on our sleep patterns even more.

So maybe for those of us who do wake in the night, we need to be celebrating this fact - that we are more in tune with nature and our bodies, that we can use this period of wakefulness for contemplation, meditation and destress (just like our forefathers used the time for prayer and relaxation). Since I found out about segmented sleep a few months ago, I am more relaxed about waking in the night and call it my 'throwback'. Ironically, since being more relaxed about night time waking, I sleep better!

Please comment below if you are a segmented sleeper or have issues around night time waking, I'd love to know your thoughts.

Sweet dreams!