The argument for having two sleeps a day

HISTORY shows humans used to sleep twice a day, and scientific research indicates we’d be more productive with “bi-phasic” sleep patterns.

ARE you ready to head straight back to bed a few hours after getting up each morning?

Well this may not be an indicator that you’re a lazy sloth. You may be harking back to a time where we had two sleeps each day. What a wonderful, wonderful timetable.

*cancels afternoon meetings*

A recent article by two university sleep researchers on The Conversation explains that there’s evidence to say that we used to have two sleeps, with a period of “wakefulness” in between.

During this waking period, people would relax, ponder their dreams or have sex. Some would engage in activities like sewing, chopping wood or reading, relying on the light of the moon or oil lamps.

How utterly charming.

Researcher Roger Ekirch says this 1595 engraving by Jan Saenredam is evidence of activity at night. Image: British Museum

It’s particularly interesting when you consider that almost a third of the population have trouble sleeping, including difficulties maintaining sleep throughout the night. While night time awakenings are distressing for most sufferers these days, back in the 17th century this period of wakefulness was considered normal.

Could it be that we’re not really built to sleep for one long chunk of time each day? Is the eight-hour sleep a myth?

LET’S LOOK AT THE HISTORY BOOKS

Throughout history there have been numerous accounts of segmented sleep, from medical texts to court records and diaries and even in African and South American tribes, with a common reference to “first” and “second” sleep.

In Charles Dickens’ Barnaby Rudge (1840), he writes

“He knew this, even in the horror with which he started from his first sleep, and threw up the window to dispel it by the presence of some object, beyond the room, which had not been, as it were, the witness of his dream.”

Beyond written accounts, anthropologists have found evidence that during pre-industrial Europe, bi-modal sleeping was considered the norm.

Sleep onset was determined not by a set bedtime, but by whether there were things to do.

Historian A. Roger Ekirch’s book At day’s close: night in times past describes how households at this time retired a couple of hours after dusk, woke a few hours later for one to two hours, and then had a second sleep until dawn.

Ekirch found references to the first and second sleep started to disappear during the late 17th century. This is thought to have started in the upper classes in northern Europe and filtered down to the rest of Western society over the next 200 years.

Interestingly, the appearance of sleep maintenance insomnia in the literature in the late 19th century coincides with the period where accounts of split sleep start to disappear. Thus, modern society may place unnecessary pressure on individuals that they must obtain a night of continuous consolidated sleep every night, adding to the anxiety about sleep and perpetuating the problem.

LET’S LOOK AT THE BIOLOGY

Less dramatic forms of bi-phasic sleep are evident in today’s society, for example in cultures that take an afternoon siesta. Our body clock lends itself to such a schedule, having a reduction in alertness in the early afternoon (the so-called “post-lunch dip”).

The Spanish siesta ... a source of envy for those living in other countries.

In the early 1990s, psychiatrist Thomas Wehr conducted a laboratory experiment in which he exposed a group of people to a short photoperiod — that is, they were left in darkness for 14 hours everyday instead of the typical eight hours — for a month.

It took some time for their sleep to regulate but by the fourth week a distinct two-phase sleep pattern emerged. They slept first for four hours, then woke for one to three hours before falling into a second four-hour sleep. This finding suggests bi-phasic sleep is a natural process with a biological basis.

PROS AND CONS

To successfully maintain a split sleep schedule, you have to get the timing right.

Today’s society often doesn’t allow for this type of flexibility, and so we have to conform to today’s sleep/wake schedules. It is generally thought a continuous seven to nine-hour unbroken sleep is probably best for feeling refreshed. Such a schedule may not suit our circadian rhythms however, as we desynchronise with the external 24-hour light/dark cycle.

To successfully maintain a split sleep schedule, you have to get the timing right — that is commencing sleep when there is a strong drive for sleep and during a low circadian point in order to fall asleep quickly and maintain sleep.

Some of the key advantages of a split sleep schedule include the flexibility it allows with work and family time (where this flexibility is afforded). Some individuals in modern society have adopted this type of schedule as it provides two periods of increased activity, creativity and alertness across the day, rather than having a long wake period where sleepiness builds up across the day and productivity wanes.

In support of this, there is growing evidence suggesting naps can have important benefits for memory and learning, increasing our alertness and improving mood states. Some believe sleep disorders, like sleep maintenance insomnia, are rooted in the body’s natural preference for split sleep. Therefore, split sleep schedules may be a more natural rhythm for some people.

Written in conjunction with The Conversation.

Originally published as The argument for having two sleeps a day