In "Rethinking Sleep", David K. Randall talks about the mounting evidence that the long held belief that we should get about eight hours of sleep in one session at night is a common but false belief (2012). Randall says that historical literature through to academic research suggest that splitting up sleep, even into the midday naps traditional in some cultures, can be a very good thing, and that waking up and doing a bit of work in the middle of the night is probably nothing to worry about, but is more likely a benefit to enjoy.
I wish I'd known this when I was around 13 - 14 years of age. I used to go to bed at a reasonable hour according to my well meaning parents' idea of what that meant. Unfortunately, I would wake up a few hours later. And it was very painful. I would read, or try to read, hoping to get tired and go back to sleep, but always worrying that I should be asleep, and thinking that there was something wrong. And this quickly became a vicious cycle. It sort of corrected itself later in high school. My indulgent mother decided that I could set my own sleep times, and other than popping her head in to tell me I should put my books away and go to sleep, she didn't worry too much. I guess she was taking the sensible and practical approach that I was going well at school and had no obvious health or other problems. But I continued to worry about my "abnormality", even though it wasn't doing me any harm apart from my worrying about it.
There was a problem because I had to wake up at 6:00 AM to get a bus for a 45 minute trip to school, and since I was regularly going to bed after midnight, when I always felt amazingly fresh and bright, I definitely wasn't getting enough sleep at night. Thankfully, I found a happy and obvious solution to this: I slept on the bus. The afternoon naps on the bus back home were especially useful, and perhaps primed me for my midnight study sessions, when everyone else had gone to bed and all was still and quiet, apart from frogs croaking, owls hooting and the occasional dog barking. This solution was not so happy in my last year of high school. My parents had given me the use of a car to make the trip more convenient, and after almost doing it several times, I did fall asleep driving home one afternoon. Thankfully, it was on a country road and there were no cars coming toward us, so when we ran off the road and spun around a few times it just gave myself, sisters and brother a sharp shock. I decided to go back to the bus and let someone else worry about the tedious business of driving, which I've not done since I was 18 years old. I've never owned a car, and it's never been a problem.
And since I had my usual afternoon nap today, I'm starting to feel more awake and inclined to keep writing. But I think I've done enough here. My Kindle has just been getting its monthly charge, and I've downloaded a few new books, so I think I'll settle down now to read Thomas Nagel's latest - I already know the claim he's making and I'm inclined to disagree with him, but I also know he will present very strong arguments to support his ideas (he's one of the most brilliant philosophers writing today), so it will be a good workout for my brain. I'll let you know if he persuades me to change my mind.
Unlike last night, I do have to wake up early tomorrow - really early at 6:00 AM for my 8:00 AM class at AUA. But I get back home by 11:00 AM and ... go back to bed for an hour or so.
__________
Reference
But when I visited Amazon to get the link for Nagel's Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False, I was reminded that a few days ago I had looked at but not purchased Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials, so I might put Nagel off until tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteNagel's full title, which pretty much tells us his thesis, is the longest I've seen for a while. It's a good thing he at least split it into a main title, which we can conveniently cite, and a subtitle.
Finally, I discovered the answer for my doubt. my parent told me that you should sleep enough at least 8 hours a day. Since I studied in the university, during the mid-trem or final examination, I slept before midnight then I woke at 3 AM. to revised and reviewed the lessons for 3 hours then slept again for 2 hours before went to the university. I did it everyday, during examination season. I felt more fresh than sleep 8 hours a day on my holiday. For now, this is time to do something during first sleep and second sleep.
ReplyDeleteI recommend some reading and writing in English. Perhaps some response blogging might be a productive way to fill in some of that time between the first and second sleeps?
DeleteI used to do as Mo said; I used to wake up during the night time in order to review a book for an exam in the incoming day and I think that it's more efficient than a long reading and then going to bed. However, after I finished school, I couldn't do the same like that. Perhaps I was too worried about what I was doing and I wanted to get it done right away. I found that it usually took longer time to complete it when I was so sleepy doing it. Sometimes, it took me an entire night to get it done. Then I was not energetic in the morning.
DeleteMy experience is the same as Peace's. If I'm trying to do something, such as check student work, when I'm very tired, I make a mess of it and end up having to do it again. It's a much more efficient use of my time to take a break, have a short nap, and come back refreshed. I can then do a much better job more quickly.
DeleteBut I missed my afternoon nap today, so now that I've done my first review of the paragraphs already sent on one thing that multinationals should know about your culture, I might go to bed. I'm sure there will be a few more paragraphs waiting for me when I wake up fresh tomorrow morning.
Or perhaps I'll just relax with an old murder mystery for a bit.
Your post reminds me of my sleeping habit in my young days: I often stayed up late into midnight reading books or listening to the radio. I had to be careful, because my mother wasn’t as generous as your mother, and she believed firmly that it was good to sleep as long as possible for children or young adults in their growth period. I often slipped out of bed quietly after my parents went to sleep, opened windows, enjoyed the fresh night breeze and watched the shining stars, until my pet cat came back from his nightly patrol around his territory, jumped into my room through the window and forced me to sleep together by meowing. My mother always told me that if I didn’t sleep longer, I wouldn’t become as tall as my sister. I’m 6 cm shorter than my sister, so, my mother’s belief could be partly true.
ReplyDeleteMy mother also believed firmly that drinking milk every day made our body strong and eating much spinach as well. Unfortunately, I wasn’t much either of them, so there was a subtle conflict again. Nowadays, experts say that drinking too much milk is not always good for the people, who lack of a certain kind of digestive enzyme, and eating spinach don’t increase hemoglobin in blood as much as they had thought. Nobody knows what scientists will say next time. So far, I think to do what my body and mind want to do is the best way to be healthy.
Ugh, milk!
DeleteFor the first few years of my life, my parents also kept a large herd of dairy cows, so we had super fresh milk daily. Somehow, I never learned to love it. I loved cream, and would eagerly slurp that down with everything, or stick my finger into the milk, which was not homogenised, for the cream at the top, but milk never really appealed to me that much, except on cereal with a highish sugar content.
It must be at least thirty years since I've drunk milk. I'm sure I get enough calcium from cream and cheese, which I love. And butter: "Mmm, butter", as Homer Simpson often says.
I do like soy milk though, and for the past 20 years or so have poured that on my now non-sugared breakfast cereal. I even drink soy milk straight sometimes.
And I more often have my breakfast cereal as a quick and easy snack before bed. I prefer buttery cheese omelettes for breakfast, perhaps with a good dash of virgin olive oil thrown in.
DeleteHave a long time that sleep is a problem for me. At night is so hard fall asleep and during the day I feel very sleepy, so this often disrupts my studies and my social life. I used to think that I will lost time if I go to sleep, and usually I sleep only 5 hours per night.
ReplyDeleteTwo years ago, I slept while driving and slammed the car into a pole. It was a very big hit, the car was total loss and I had to stay in bed for 45 days. After that, I started trying to get more sleep at night.