Split Sleep

Thanks for the article, Cristin. I do find it interesting and it's now in my you-never-know-what-you're-gonna-need clips folder.

I love my long afternoon siestas so I can stay up later at night and rise early without too much pain.

This was interesting.

Ditto...

Don, I love my postprandial nap and it really sets me up for a lot more work until quite late!

Fascinating article. Fits in what some researchers have been claiming about early man. I'm chasing down the new info on the new species of pre-hominid man. Anyone got resources I can add to Resources by Era?

That's so interesting! It'd fit me very well, if social structures followed suit.

I'm both a (creative) night owl and an active morning person. I used to split my sleep like this when I was younger and my schedule allowed it (around class and pt-time jobs). It worked really well for my body and mind! I think I remembered things better for tests, too.

My wife has told me that she needs her 8 hours and I will regret it I wake her up for sex in the middle of the night. I am apparenty in even more trouble if I wake her for just prayer or meditation

I discovered my true sleep rhythm when I entered upper division at the U and had more control over my schedule.

I retry much follow this pattern actually. Didn't mean to it just happened that way. It started with getting a cat...

I find that the dreams I have the second time I go to sleep are more vivid and I have more of a tendency to become lucid during those dreams so I encourage the beasty to wake me up around 1-2 am or so

It's only when I read that article that I realised maybe I wasn't as weird as I thought and that I should incorporate that into my novel. It's set in a steampunky past but my MC is living in a cottage without gas or electric lights so they might fall into this pattern quite naturally... Hmm... I'm seeing some good plot potential in those hours of the night...

I read about this last week, and then over the weekend I did it, quite by accident. Found myself wide awake at 4am and sat up reading for an hour, before going back to sleep.
Not done it before or since. Weird.

I fell into a split-sleep schedule for some time. I don't recommend it, as the long-term results were negative. At first I'd feel fine, but then I'd start to wear down, and eventually got where I was exhausted and accomplishing next to nothing with my writing.

And I was absolutely amazed by how much better I felt the first night I actually slept eight hours.

I don't want to do that split thing again. Ever.

I worked nights for most of my working life. Not planned, it just happened. For one thing, I've never married and most married co-workers preferred day shifts. For myself, I like the way I can easily make appointments and everything is open in the daytime. But it takes getting used to.

I don't think the hours matter as much as the changes some shift-workers have. Changing sleeping hours every week or two simply isn't natural. I've spent a couple of short periods as a police officer, along with constant shift changes and unexpected overtimes. It drove me nuts, sleepwise. Finally, I made arrangements to work only nights and was much happier.

Now that I'm old and retired, I've reverted to sleeping at night with at least two naps during the day. That must be the natural rhythm, though I'm still most creative early in the morning. That's when I do most of my writing.

Charlie