# Biphasic sleeping



## anothersam (26 Mar 2020)

Any other biphasic (or even triphasic!) sleepers around? Do you find you seem to operate best with at least two sleep periods, rather than the traditional one? 

I’m just starting my night shift…


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## irw (26 Mar 2020)

Not so much 'operate best', but I do find that if I go to bed early (say around 10/11), I can pretty much predict that I'll wake up again at about 1/2am, and have to get up for a few hours before going back to bed again. If I go to be around now though, I'll sleep through until mid-late morning!


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## PK99 (26 Mar 2020)

anothersam said:


> Any other biphasic (or even triphasic!) sleepers around? Do you find you seem to operate best with at least two sleep periods, rather than the traditional one?
> 
> I’m just starting my night shift…



The traditional is biphasic, one phase is a modern invention. 

See pepys about sleeping patterns


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## Edwardoka (26 Mar 2020)

If allowed to free-run, I tend towards biphasic but occasionally my brain will say "sleep, now" without any kind of meaningful pattern.

I'm not narcoleptic, and I've never had a long-term sleep study done, but I definitely have some form of circadian disorder, every night I sleep later and every morning I wake later, over the course of a month I tend to have gone full circle, which as you can imagine is non-optimal for anyone trying to get their shoot together.

Working shifts was hell for me, not the 6pm-6am itself, but having to flip from one shift to another turned me into a zombie.


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## Shut Up Legs (26 Mar 2020)

I sleep like a cat, with frequent catnaps interrupted by brief waking periods, but overall it seems to work OK, because I still feel rested after most nights.


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## Mo1959 (26 Mar 2020)

I struggle to sleep at all these days but if I go to bed too early I just toss and turn all night. Lucky if I get more than 2 or 3 hours most nights.


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## raleighnut (26 Mar 2020)

I need a stretch and a bit of a kip most afternoons since I did my leg in.


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## Drago (26 Mar 2020)

I can sleep anytime, anywhere, in the middle of anything. A skill one learns quickly in the army.

Maybe once a week or so I have an afternoon inspection of my eyelids while "watching" tv.


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## raleighnut (26 Mar 2020)

Drago said:


> I can sleep anytime, anywhere, in the middle of anything. A skill one learns quickly in the army.
> 
> Maybe once a week or so I have an afternoon inspection of my eyelids while "watching" tv.


Aye one of the essential 'skills' in the forces along with being able to 'brew up' virtually anywhere, scrounge food and nick anything that's not nailed down (plus a few things that were) *

*SIL was in the Royal Engineers, better known as the 'hydraulics' cos they could lift anything.


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## Randomnerd (26 Mar 2020)

I’m a triphasic sleeper when allowed. Work fine with 0100-0600 so long as I get another hour before 1600, and, depending on other variables like work and domestics, a late evening power nap (@Drago like “ eyelid examination” 😄). I can sleep anywhere at will.


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## ColinJ (26 Mar 2020)

Now that I am in my mid-60s and not going out to work any longer, I find that my sleep pattern is becoming increasingly odd!

Typically, I go to bed between 02:30 and 04:00 and get to sleep between 03:30 and 05:00. If I didn't have anything planned the next day I would wake up between 10:00 and 10:30 so that would be five to seven hours sleep. (If I have guests, it would be more like 09:00 to 09:30.)

If I have a blood test (usually at 08:45) I would get up at about 08:00 no matter what time I went to sleep. 

If I had to leave home at 09:00 for a long bike ride, I'd get up at 07:00 (even if I'd only had three or four hours sleep) because I like to eat a big breakfast two hours before setting off.

If I am out doing things all day then I don't feel too bad from lack of sleep, but if I am working on my laptop at home then I always doze off a couple of times in the afternoon. If I didn't have a nap in the afternoon then I would have one in the evening after eating.

If I went to bed very late, got up for an early breakfast, went out early for an all-day ride, got home at (say) 23:00 without having had the chance to have a nap at any point in the day then I'd have a quick shower, something to eat, and probably start to flag a little by midnight so I'd be in bed by 00:30 and probably asleep by 01:00. But then I might wake up after five or six hours, play a couple of games of Sudoku/Spider Solitaire/(whatever) on my tablet and go back to sleep again when I could no longer concentrate.

Hmm, here's a coincidence... I was drawn to this thread by the title, not being aware of what biphasic sleeping is, then I went off to check the news on the BBC website and found THIS!


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## anothersam (27 Mar 2020)

ColinJ said:


> I was drawn to this thread by the title, not being aware of what biphasic sleeping is


I’d never heard the term either, until I started rifling through Google after more than a few conversations with my wife about my eccentric sleep patterns. Biphasic or even triphasic don’t quite do it justice, though generally, I’m happiest keeping busy in the post-midnight hours, bookended with some kip.






_From my 3-5 collection. Oh to be a milkman in these times._



PK99 said:


> See pepys about sleeping patterns


And nocturnal omissions:
_I went to lie down in a chamber in the house, where in another bed there was a pretty Dutch woman in bed alone, but though I had a month’s-mind I had not the boldness to go to her. So there I slept an hour or two. At last she rose, and then I rose and walked up and down the chamber, and saw her dress herself after the Dutch dress, and talked to her as much as I could, and took occasion, from her ring which she wore on her first finger, to kiss her hand, but had not the face to offer anything more. So at last I left her there and went to my company._


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## Globalti (1 Apr 2020)

Poor old Pepys....

Two sleeps is nothing new, most of the Mediterranean countries eat late, go to bed late, rise early for work then return home for lunch and a siesta. The Tiv people of Nigeria have two distinct sleeps and talk about first and second sleep. Westerners who have stayed with communities in remote parts of the world report that people in big communal houses will get up, wander outside for a smoke and a quiet chat then go back to bed. 

32 years of export travel, trying to sleep on long flights have taught me that you do sleep more than you realise so even if you think you're tossing and turning all night, quite a lot of the time you are in light sleep. I have also perfected the cat-nap.


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## newfhouse (1 Apr 2020)

raleighnut said:


> Aye one of the essential 'skills' in the forces along with being able to 'brew up' virtually anywhere, scrounge food and nick anything that's not nailed down (plus a few things that were) *
> 
> *SIL was in the Royal Engineers, better known as the 'hydraulics' cos they could lift anything.


My career soldier father in law used to sat to me “Listen boy, never pass up the chance for a kip, a brew, or a comfortable shoot.”


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## Blue Hills (1 Apr 2020)

Globalti said:


> Two sleeps is nothing new, most of the Mediterranean countries eat late, go to bed late, rise early for work then return home for lunch and a siesta.


Spent a fair bit of time in the med. It's true, partly to avoid heat of course, but not universally wise. Eating late and then trying to sleep a bad idea in my opinion and experience. Doesn't make for deep quality sleep.


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## Blue Hills (1 Apr 2020)

newfhouse said:


> My career soldier father in law used to sat to me “Listen boy, never pass up the chance for a kip, a brew, or a comfortable shoot.”


Wasn't that a val doonican song?


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## newfhouse (1 Apr 2020)

Blue Hills said:


> Wasn't that a val doonican song?


Haha.

“Dear Mary Whitehouse, I was watching so-called family entertainer Val Doonican on Saturday evening when...”


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