A different take on sleep structure

[WiseOne]

I've wrestled with "sleep maintenance insomnia" for years, and it seems to be very common. That is, I have no trouble falling asleep but I wake up after 3-4 hours and most of the time can't get back to sleep. The usual treatment is long-acting sleep aids but I'm not a fan of that.

I started wondering, if this is so common is there something about basic sleep biology we are overlooking? Turns out, there is! It appears that humans aren't actually designed to sleep for an uninterrupted 8 hours. Here's a good article with some background info. I'm still researching.

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-16964783

QUOTE:
Much like the experience of Wehr's subjects, these references describe a first sleep which began about two hours after dusk, followed by waking period of one or two hours and then a second sleep.

"It's not just the number of references - it is the way they refer to it, as if it was common knowledge," Ekirch says.

During this waking period people were quite active. They often got up, went to the toilet or smoked tobacco and some even visited neighbours. Most people stayed in bed, read, wrote and often prayed. Countless prayer manuals from the late 15th Century offered special prayers for the hours in between sleeps.
...
Today, most people seem to have adapted quite well to the eight-hour sleep, but Ekirch believes many sleeping problems may have roots in the human body's natural preference for segmented sleep as well as the ubiquity of artificial light.

This could be the root of a condition called sleep maintenance insomnia, where people wake during the night and have trouble getting back to sleep, he suggests.

The condition first appears in literature at the end of the 19th Century, at the same time as accounts of segmented sleep disappear.

"For most of evolution we slept a certain way," says sleep psychologist Gregg Jacobs. "Waking up during the night is part of normal human physiology."

The idea that we must sleep in a consolidated block could be damaging, he says, if it makes people who wake up at night anxious, as this anxiety can itself prohibit sleeps and is likely to seep into waking life too.
QUOTE

It would be super interesting if the solution to sleep maintenance insomnia is changing sleep schedule. That would involve going to bed a couple hours earlier, shifting some of the stuff I usually do before going to bed to the wakeful period between first and second sleep, and being careful about artificial light and computer screens.

[doodle]

I had a girlfriend who used to have a crazy sleep schedule...up till 5am sleep til 2 or 3....so did a lot of reading on this years ago. The artificial blue light seemed to be key in suppressing melatonin. We switched half the lights in house to orange and red bulbs....the neighbors must have had some wild theories. Also changed phone settings to night mode and attempted to stay off devices and TV after 8pm. I have a hyperactive brain however and had trouble disconnecting. Right now I use phone right before sleep and get a solid 6-7 hours before waking which is enough for me so it doesn't seem to affect me that much....but my days are usually 8-10 hours of physical exertion so I'm pretty beat by the end.

[WiseOne]

A different article from the one I posted above. This one is much better:

https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/a ... ysfunction

The source material is a book by a historian who uncovered the segmented sleep schedule. It really looks like sleep medicine has missed the boat on this one. Incredibly interesting stuff, and incidentally a very good explanation for why such a large slice of the population struggles with insomnia, compared to the usual attitude that one you've taken care of the main culprits of caffeine, too much exercise etc, the main cause of insomnia is an Ambien deficiency.

https://www.amazon.com/At-Days-Close-Ni ... 0393329011

I think I might be reading this tomorrow morning between 1 and 3 AM or so!

[ahhrunforthehills]

YES! Best Topic Ever! I know a lot about polyphasic sleeping. I did it for over a year (and still go back to it whenever I can).

I also did a TON of research on it to make sure I wasn't decimating my body. For several months I slept with an EEG on my head to track my different sleep phases to be sure I was getting enough Deep Sleep and REM.

I felt like I functioned better on just a few hours of sleep than when I would normally sleep 8 hours.

However, my wife got mad that I was never sleeping in our bed anymore. In fact, Buckminster Fuller, despite loving polyphasic sleep, basically had to stop for the same reason.

So my "settlement" sleep schedule is to sleep for 3 hours and 23 minutes as close to dusk as possible (that way my wife can fall asleep when I am in the bed).

I then work all through the night (after-all, I am sometimes waking up around midnight) wearing orange glasses to block out blue-light.

I then sleep for 1 hour and 23 minutes just before dawn.

I try to take a 20 minute "nap" around 2pm (I actually use a self-hypnosis mp3 because hypnosis basically shows the same brain activity as REM sleep and is easier to wake up from).

The reason why my sleep revolved around dusk/dawn is because your deep sleep is more intense the closer to dusk you are sleeping. Likewise, your REM is more concentrated into the dawn period.

Some people have a mutated gene that allows them to naturally sleep less a lot less than others. That gene basically allows them to optimize their sleep stages. Basically, by playing with your sleep schedule you are attempting to force your body to do the same thing.

The big unknown is what benefits stage 2 sleep brings to the picture (because that is what you are basically losing out on). What is the purpose of our sleep that is not Deep Sleep (repairs body) and REM (the mind). What is the true purpose of what they call sleep "spindles"? Nobody is 100% sure. But people that naturally only sleep 4 hours operate just fine with the reduction of that sleep phase.

Anyways, I literally feel like I developed super-powers when I am on my sleep schedule. The only thing keeping me off of it is covid.

Normally, lowering the amount of sleep has a really negative impact on your hunter-kill cells. However, those studies are obviously for people with normal sleeping habits... not for those on a polyphonic sleep schedule.

There is very limited data for those that are really doing polyphasic sleep. The reason why is simple. Almost all of the sleep studies that have been conducted have been very short in duration. However, your brain takes a long time to adapt (my first schedule was less than 3 hours/day and took about 6 weeks to adapt to). They simply won't do sleep studies that long on people for multiple reasons.

I should also mention that everybody is different. Your age, sex, activity level, etc. all determine how much deep sleep you require.

The craziest thing about sleep schedules is you REALLY start losing track of the days. Days feel like weeks. My young kid was telling people at her school that her daddy didn't actually sleep (she was young and never saw me do it). Even if she had a nightmare, I was always in my office working.

You also have VERY vivid dreams. Notice the ball bearings in Thomas Edison's hand in the following picture:

https://c8.alamy.com/comp/GXT10T/thomas ... GXT10T.jpg

He would put some pie pans on the ground and nap with them in his hand. The moment he would drift towards Phase 2 sleep, he would drop the ball bearings onto the pans and immediately wake up. He credited a lot of his ideas to the state his brain was in at that time.

Einstein did the same thing (but I think he used a spoon).

If you have any questions, let me know. I could write a book. It definitely requires a life-shift though. Definitely no caffeine or stimulants in your life.

I am also familiar with the webpage (and book) you cited. The "2nd sleep" does not seem as common in history as some of these authors would have you believe. The vast majority of society historically does not appear to have waken up naturally in the middle of the night.

However, Sleep Schedules are wickedly awesome (but you will require a good alarm)!

[Mark Leavy]

Great discussion. Fantastic information from both WiseOne and Ahhrunforthehills.

I've experimented with all of it. Polyphasic and biphasic and "do some work in the middle of the night".

I've somewhat settled on some form of bi-phasic. If I'm in a hot sweaty country, the afternoon siesta is the way to go. Otherwise, I will usually go to bed around 10 or 11 and then wake up around 3 or 4, take my shower, brush my teeth, run my accounts, read up on the news, digest whatever is in my inbox and then go back to bad for a few hours.

When the Überman polyphasic schedule was all the thing, I gave it a good try. Almost lost my girlfriend at the time - for the aforementioned reasons. I could never make it work.

The closest I came was during the initial stages of Bush the Second's Iraq war. It was cowboy country at that time and I had 10 planes to take care of on a 24 hour schedule by myself. I worked 6 hours on, a quick meal at the DCAF and an hour and a half of sleep. Round the clock for 2 months. It's doable if you have a real reason to do it, but not in any secular situation.

The other thing that hasn't been fully examined in these sleep experiments is the effect on tissue regeneration and deep memory. I have lots of friends that can survive on 4 to 6 hours a night forever. But I need my 8 hours on average, and if I'm really working out, I can sleep 10 hours easily.

Good stuff. At the end of the day, I agree with the article WiseOne put in the OP. Wake up in the middle of the night, handle some early morning business and then go back to bed with a carefree mind.

[ahhrunforthehills]

I have the same problem. I sleep like the dead for 3.5-4 hours and then have trouble getting back to sleep, waking every 45 mins or so and flipping from side to side. Unfortunately, if I get out of bed after the first run to do anything beyond using the bathroom, I will never get back to sleep. And no matter how exhausted I am, I can't nap. I can't fall asleep during the day. Ugh.

How old are you? How late do you go to bed? The amount of deep-sleep we get decreases drastically with age. My mother-in-law had the same problem, she used a sleep breathing technique I taught my daughter to go back to sleep. While laying with your eyes close... breathe in through the nose for 4 seconds, hold breath for 7 seconds, exhale slowly through mouth over 8 seconds. Repeat 4 times (or 8 times if needed). Not more than 8 times.

You might also want to make sure that you sleep with socks on, removed any blue or white lights (no matter how small) in your room. Cool temperature is also important. Also, doing a prolonged stretch in your bed (several seconds), then relaxing helps. Your muscles will feel VERY tired for a few minutes afterwards. It sounds like the stress of falling back asleep is keeping you awake longer. Instead of trying to "clear your mind" (which you are probably trying to do), instead don't even worry about falling back asleep. Instead, you want to simply think about your favorite destination and happy thoughts

Using glasses like these after the sun goes down can help build up sleep pressure as well: https://www.amazon.com/Uvex-Blocking-Co ... ge-S1933X/

If you still end up waking up, the best thing to do is keep those orange glasses on from the moment you wake up so you increase the chance of falling back asleep before the sun comes up.

For daytime napping, I recommend seeing if you can be hypnotized. Falling asleep on command during the day is pretty hard for most people. But hypnosis doesn't put that pressure on you. You can get tracks off of youtube. Paul McKenna and Thomas Hall are pretty good. You just don't want anything over 30 minutes. Otherwise, you will feel groggy instead of refreshed.

There is also some apps that you can download on your phone that might help. A lot of people use Pzizz.

For sleep or napping, I pull a beanie down over my eyes (like this: https://www.amazon.com/Headcovers-Unlim ... ps-Cancer/) and use noise cancelling headphones (https://www.amazon.com/Bose-Quietcontro ... ancelling/).

This is also a good routine for sleeping. The more "routines" you have around your sleep, the more routinely your body will sleep when asked. In fact, a consistent sleep time is probably the single most important thing you can do for your sleep.

FYI, what you are eating and when you eat it can also affect your tossing and turning.

[ahhrunforthehills]

I have the same problem. I sleep like the dead for 3.5-4 hours and then have trouble getting back to sleep, waking every 45 mins or so and flipping from side to side. Unfortunately, if I get out of bed after the first run to do anything beyond using the bathroom, I will never get back to sleep. And no matter how exhausted I am, I can't nap. I can't fall asleep during the day. Ugh.

How old are you? How late do you go to bed? The amount of deep-sleep we get decreases drastically with age. My mother-in-law had the same problem, she used a sleep breathing technique I taught my daughter to go back to sleep. While laying with your eyes close... breathe in through the nose for 4 seconds, hold breath for 7 seconds, exhale slowly through mouth over 8 seconds. Repeat 4 times (or 8 times if needed). Not more than 8 times.

You might also want to make sure that you sleep with socks on, removed any blue or white lights (no matter how small) in your room. Cool temperature is also important. Also, doing a prolonged stretch in your bed (several seconds), then relaxing helps. Your muscles will feel VERY tired for a few minutes afterwards. It sounds like the stress of falling back asleep is keeping you awake longer. Instead of trying to "clear your mind" (which you are probably trying to do), instead don't even worry about falling back asleep. Instead, you want to simply think about your favorite destination and happy thoughts

Using glasses like these after the sun goes down can help build up sleep pressure as well: https://www.amazon.com/Uvex-Blocking-Co ... ge-S1933X/

If you still end up waking up, the best thing to do is keep those orange glasses on from the moment you wake up so you increase the chance of falling back asleep before the sun comes up.

For daytime napping, I recommend seeing if you can be hypnotized. Falling asleep on command during the day is pretty hard for most people. But hypnosis doesn't put that pressure on you. You can get tracks off of youtube. Paul McKenna and Thomas Hall are pretty good. You just don't want anything over 30 minutes. Otherwise, you will feel groggy instead of refreshed.

There is also some apps that you can download on your phone that might help. A lot of people use Pzizz.

For sleep or napping, I pull a beanie down over my eyes (like this: https://www.amazon.com/Headcovers-Unlim ... ps-Cancer/) and use noise cancelling headphones (https://www.amazon.com/Bose-Quietcontro ... ancelling/).

This is also a good routine for sleeping. The more "routines" you have around your sleep, the more routinely your body will sleep when asked. In fact, a consistent sleep time is probably the single most important thing you can do for your sleep.

FYI, what you are eating and when you eat it can also affect your tossing and turning.

I'm 60 and usually go to bed around 10:30p. I don't have a TV in the bedroom. I do snack around 9:00. Usually something carby. But even if I don't, the same sleep pattern persists.

The reality is that older people tend to wake up more often because they spend less time deep sleep. How long have you had the problem?

Do you have the same issue when you had a physically demanding day? Mark is 100% right. Physical activity definitely impacts your sleep. That's how you know People like Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson who claim they sleep 3 hours a night while packing on tons of natural muscle are making impossible claims.

If you want to stay asleep longer, you want to build up "sleep pressure". You would want to exercise daily, definitely no napping, no stimulants if possible, go to sleep at the same time every night as close to sunset as possible (I seem to recall that historically humans slept approximately 2 hours after sunset). Put on orange glasses as soon as the sun goes down.

[WiseOne]

I have the same problem. I sleep like the dead for 3.5-4 hours and then have trouble getting back to sleep, waking every 45 mins or so and flipping from side to side. Unfortunately, if I get out of bed after the first run to do anything beyond using the bathroom, I will never get back to sleep.

Pugchief, this is exactly my situation!

There are two factors I'm very much interested in right now. One is simple anxiety: you wake up and start getting anxious thinking you won't be able to get back to sleep. The last few nights, I started getting out of bed, like Mark said, and did things like read or clean the cat box. Somehow just the thought that this is normal and that there's nothing wrong with my sleep pattern did the trick.

The other factor is that I'm convinced that this has a lot to do with hormones. The problem got much worse when I got off HRT. I read that second sleep is normally brought on by a surge of progesterone. This is a hormone that is deficient in post-menopausal women, and I think older men too. I still had some progesterone pills from my HRT days, so I tried taking one when I was awake in the middle of the night. Boom, went straight to sleep. I'm trying a progesterone cream (got it on Amazon) now. It seems to help too, but I'm still experimenting here.

The downside: I won't be staying up for the election results tonight! In order to make this work, you have to go to bed soon after it gets dark. I guess we'll see what happens. I doubt the election will be called tonight in any case (or if it is it'll be wrong).

[Maddy]

Wow, I can totally relate. These days my pattern is to hit the sack at 7 p.m. or so (not so surprising, considering that my day begins at 3 a.m.), and then I'm wide awake four or five hours later. If I don't get back to sleep, I'm shot for the entire next day. However, I'm learning that if I get up and do something productive for an hour or two, I can often return to bed for a second session and feel fine the next day. So what you're saying, WiseOne, is confirmed by my own experience. It's actually great to hear that I'm not so abnormal a case after all.

Oh, and I ditto the comment about hormones. All of my sleep problems began when I hit the Big M. On the upside, I'm no longer a raging maniac. I guess you pick your poison.

[WiseOne]

All these testimonials are super helpful for me too. Isn't it great to realize that your sleep "problem" isn't an abnormality after all?

Bedtime soon and then I can tune into the news again around 1 am! Too early for any real election results right now.

[Kriegsspiel]

If I set an alarm and wake up at the same time every morning, eventually I just get tired when I need to get tired. Every once in a while my body fucks with me, but that generally works.

[doodle]

One of the nice things about my winter schedule is i wake up when my body tells me too....like nature intended.

Previously it was 430 am...that didn't feel right.

[WiseOne]

Wow, I can totally relate. These days my pattern is to hit the sack at 7 p.m. or so (not so surprising, considering that my day begins at 3 a.m.), and then I'm wide awake four or five hours later. If I don't get back to sleep, I'm shot for the entire next day. However, I'm learning that if I get up and do something productive for an hour or two, I can often return to bed for a second session and feel fine the next day. So what you're saying, WiseOne, is confirmed by my own experience. It's actually great to hear that I'm not so abnormal a case after all.

Oh, and I ditto the comment about hormones. All of my sleep problems began when I hit the Big M. On the upside, I'm no longer a raging maniac. I guess you pick your poison.

Yup, that's when it started for me too. If I can deal with it by going to be a bit early and getting up in the middle of the night for an hour or two, it's a good trade compared no longer getting visits from Aunt Flo!

[Maddy]

The problem with biphasic sleep--at least for those of us who spend the first few hours in bed with the day's problems rattling around in our heads--is that we now get to go through this twice in a night. Witness the fact that it's 2:58 p.m. at this moment, and after being up for several hours at the computer, I can't manage to get back to sleep. Never mind the fact that I'm going to be wiped out and unable to keep my eyes open when daylight arrives.

[jalanlong]

I try to take a 20 minute "nap" around 2pm (I actually use a self-hypnosis mp3 because hypnosis basically shows the same brain activity as REM sleep and is easier to wake up from).

What is the self-hypnosis MP3 you use? I would be interested in trying it although I am skeptical that I could ever be hypnotized!

[WiseOne]

The problem with biphasic sleep--at least for those of us who spend the first few hours in bed with the day's problems rattling around in our heads--is that we now get to go through this twice in a night. Witness the fact that it's 2:58 p.m. at this moment, and after being up for several hours at the computer, I can't manage to get back to sleep. Never mind the fact that I'm going to be wiped out and unable to keep my eyes open when daylight arrives.

Ah ha. Don't work on the computer during the nocturnal interlude time. I do simple household chores like watering plants or cleaning the catbox. Something involving no significant mental energy, only well-rehearsed physical movements. It's working out well actually...I've started saving those up for nighttime.

Lots of solutions out there for the racing thoughts while trying to sleep issue. What I do is get out of bed and write down those thoughts. Going through a meditation afterwards helps too.

[Mark Leavy]

hunter_s_thompson_daily_routine.jpg (89.79 KiB) Viewed 3441 times

[ahhrunforthehills]

I try to take a 20 minute "nap" around 2pm (I actually use a self-hypnosis mp3 because hypnosis basically shows the same brain activity as REM sleep and is easier to wake up from).

What is the self-hypnosis MP3 you use? I would be interested in trying it although I am skeptical that I could ever be hypnotized!

As I mentioned before...

For daytime napping, I recommend seeing if you can be hypnotized. Falling asleep on command during the day is pretty hard for most people. But hypnosis doesn't put that pressure on you. You can get tracks off of youtube. Paul McKenna and Thomas Hall are pretty good. You just don't want anything over 30 minutes. Otherwise, you will feel groggy instead of refreshed.

I don’t know if I am really hypnotizable either. For example, if it is a hypnosis track to be “more happy”... I am still very much my regular mood. However, it certainly gets me in and out of a REM-like state really well. 23 minutes and I feel like I slept 8 hours.

Some tracks are meant to transition you into sleep... some are meant to wake you up at the end. So always check it.

Here is one for a quick nap:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MIpmZez4WHw

I think the reason it is so effective is because it is hard to have a racing mind because the narration is keeping your mind busy.

[boglerdude]

People without electricity get a solid 7 a night. Exhausted from moving all day. When I get a solid 8, I cant get tired again by bed time. So I have a few drinks to pass out, wake up after 6 hours of bad sleep, have a couple more to get back to sleep or stay up and be miserable.

I might try not keeping a schedule, ie stay up late enough to get exhausted and oversleep everyday. But there is something to be said for circadian rhythms - its hard to stay in bed much longer than what Im used to. I average being in bed 8am-6pm with an hour or two in the middle.

Think I need to take an hour to fall asleep to unwind mentally rather than the drinking shortcut. And might try Ambien

[ahhrunforthehills]

People without electricity get a solid 7 a night. Exhausted from moving all day. When I get a solid 8, I cant get tired again by bed time. So I have a few drinks to pass out, wake up after 6 hours of bad sleep, have a couple more to get back to sleep or stay up and be miserable.

I might try not keeping a schedule, ie stay up late enough to get exhausted and oversleep everyday. But there is something to be said for circadian rhythms - its hard to stay in bed much longer than what Im used to. I average being in bed 8am-6pm with an hour or two in the middle.

Think I need to take an hour to fall asleep to unwind mentally rather than the drinking shortcut. And might try Ambien

In case you were unaware, booze messes with your sleep cycles really bad. It makes you fall asleep and increases your deep sleep but reduces your REM. This problem is going to be compounded even more if you wake up after 6 hours because your later phases of sleep (that you are missing) are comprised primarily of REM (your first 2-3 phases are heavily comprised of deep sleep).

Having “good sleep” means getting enough hours of deep sleep and enough hours of REM. However, just because you are sleeping for a total of X hours... doesn’t mean you are getting them. That is why sometimes you can sleep a little and feel great or sleep a lot and feel like crap.

[ahhrunforthehills]

For anyone really interested, there is a discontinued product that you can sometimes get on ebay called a Zeo alarm clock.

It is really the only consumer-grade device I have ever seen for tracking sleep cycles. Watches, phone apps, mattress monitors, etc are all insanely inaccurate.

Anyways, the Zeo basically has a head band with sensors that can monitor what stages of sleep you are in. It can then write that data to an SD card and be logged into your computer with some sleep tracking software. You can then analyze your sleep pattern (REM, deep sleep, etc) and then optimize your sleep schedule and see the impact it has.

I recommend getting one new (albeit discontinued) if you can as the headband sensors get worn out pretty quick... but they can also be repaired and replaced DIY if you are handy. I think I even have some DIY guides lying around somewhere.

[Kriegsspiel]

Maybe that's why those medieval sources talk about second sleep so much. Those people drank wine and ale all day and were wasted pretty much all the time.

[ahhrunforthehills]

Maybe that's why those medieval sources talk about second sleep so much. Those people drank wine and ale all day and were wasted pretty much all the time.

lol. Good point.

[WiseOne]

Maybe that's why those medieval sources talk about second sleep so much. Those people drank wine and ale all day and were wasted pretty much all the time.

Actually no, it's not about booze. It's about what is natural for humans. Biphasic sleep, with a first sleep that's deep and a second sleep with a lot of REM/dreaming, with a waking period in between appears to be normal. Sleeping straight through for 8 hours may actually be ABNORMAL - quite the revelation! That would be due to chronic sleep deprivation.

I've found that it's now a lot easier to get back to sleep after I wake up in the middle of the night, simply because I'm no longer anxious about waking up being abnormal. Also, I'm careful not to do anything involving computers or intense light during that waking interlude. I pet or play with my cats, do menial, simple chores, or sometimes read. It's kind of nice. I am starting to plan things to do during that middle of the night interlude, so I don't have to deal with them in the evenings. Going to bed earlier instead. It is infinitely better!

btw this was the whole point of the thread. I said in my first post that insomnia may be due to a misunderstanding about normal human sleep rhythms, and that it's not due to a deficiency of Ambien.

[ahhrunforthehills]

Maybe that's why those medieval sources talk about second sleep so much. Those people drank wine and ale all day and were wasted pretty much all the time.

Actually no, it's not about booze. It's about what is natural for humans. Biphasic sleep, with a first sleep that's deep and a second sleep with a lot of REM/dreaming, with a waking period in between appears to be normal. Sleeping straight through for 8 hours may actually be ABNORMAL - quite the revelation!

I remember being just as excited when I discovered this years ago. I was equally disappointed when I discovered evidence that indicated it wasn't really true. I will try to dig through my notes and see what I can find.

I seem to recall that the behavior of a 2nd sleep WAS COMMON in only COLD regions of the world... and not because of a natural biological function.

The answer was actually pretty simple... in cold climates they would have had to keep the fire going. I also seem to recall they would generally have to set a primitive "alarm" to wake up (i.e. burning candle eventually drops something to wake you up) assuming the cold didn't wake them up first.