This is from a while ago but I know that sleep is a frequent topic here in the Cafe.
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Sleeping in Pieces - The New York Times link.
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My H falls asleep fine, but he wakes up in the middle of the night & is unable to fall back asleep. He tried to do things then return to sleep, but it just doesn’t work for him. I wonder if it’s easier to segment sleep when you’re younger? Or maybe some people can, some can’t.
I have adopted this philosophy of sleep and have a lot less anxiety about getting back to sleep at 3 am. One consequence is that I do actually fall back to sleep, sometimes after a break!
Problem is if I do this, I feel out of it the entire next day.
As a person that falls asleep almost immediately, and stays asleep until my alarm, the concept of segmented sleep isn’t something I would ever consider.
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@GKUnion I have never “considered” it. It just happens! This isn’t a planned way to sleep. You are fortunate in being able to sleep so well.
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Sorry if I misunderstood, but that article almost romanticizes segmented sleep.
It is comforting to those of us who wake after a few hours! I don’t think anyone would suggest you intentionally interrupt sleep! I envy you 
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I segment it somewhat easily in the morning after the animals have been fed and I can go back to sleep and get another hour, but the middle of the night wake ups are not my preferred sleep pattern. If I wake up and turn on the light I’m just done for. Sometimes I can read with a book light or my phone flashlight until I get sleepy again, but I couldn’t actually get out of bed and do anything (besides go to the bathroom) and go back to sleep. I can’t nap during the day either.
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Middle of the night wake ups aren’t my preferred patterm either. I have no control over it. I am often just not able to go back to sleep no matter what I do or don’t do. Who prefers to wake up at 3 am?
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I don’t know. Sounded like some of those people in the article were ok with it.
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I think the article is being misinterpreted. It is just a different way to look at the kind of insomnia that involves waking. The author explicitly says it is not a choice. It is a different way to look at those hours of being awake, that cause anxiety about getting back to sleep. Read it carefully.
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I get up with the cat sometime between 4:30 and 6. I play the NYT Spelling Bee game while he’s out doing his business, then go back to bed when he returns … no trouble going back to sleep. It helps that I’m retired and not trying to get up for work.
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I do not fall asleep easily any time, so going back to sleep after getting up and being on my feet for longer than it takes to go the bathroom (and sometimes even that will do it) is probably not happening for me. Went to bed at 1am last night and got up with the cats at 7:45 this morning. A little short for me, but not too bad.
The pandemic, she writes, has permitted those who are working from home and thus have more control over their schedules, like Ali, to embrace two-part sleeping. One person Danielle spoke with sleeps from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m., then from 3 a.m. to 7 a.m. Another does 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. and 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.
“Embracing” is a term that implies they like it. If they were struggling with segmented sleep a better term might be “resort to” or “suffer through”, etc.
Experts and former insomnia sufferers beg to differ. In The Times Magazine in 2016, Jesse Barron wrote a letter of recommendation for segmented sleep. He learned to love the hours between snooze segments that the French called dorveille, or wakesleep. “Waking into them is different, childlike,” he wrote. “The time feels freer. The urge to be busy abates.”
Sounds pretty much like he is more than okay with segmented sleep if he’s writing letters of recommendation for it.
I think it’s great if it works for them. I think my husband does this sometimes, but he’s one of those guys who doesn’t need much sleep (regularly runs on about 5 or 6 hours) and can fall asleep at the drop of a hat and sleep through all sorts of stuff. I am a light sleeper and it takes me awhile to fall asleep and if I get waked up it takes me awhile to fall back asleep. I cannot nap at all.
Midsomer Murders (all 13 Seasons) is your friend.
The author, in essence, has invented a new word for insomnia. Instead of lying awake, feeling guilty about it, they have chosen to yes, embrace, accept, co-opt, or adapt to it in ways that make them feel better about it.
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At first, this sounded to me as if insomnia hired a new PR agency. Isn’t waking up in the middle of the night and watching back-to-back episodes of “The Golden Girls” until you’re drowsy again unhealthy? Shouldn’t we strive for eight uninterrupted hours of blissful slumber? Surely waking up in the middle of the night should be worried over as a problem, not scheduled like a lunch date.
Experts and former insomnia sufferers beg to differ. In The Times Magazine in 2016, Jesse Barron wrote a letter of recommendation for segmented sleep. He learned to love the hours between snooze segments that the French called dorveille, or wakesleep.
Maybe it is a spin on it, but sounds like for some people they do like to sleep this way and advocate it for others. I can’t do it because I can’t go back to sleep. Once I’m fully awake that’s all she wrote. It might be nice to be able to go back to sleep or to nap, but I just don’t work that way.
Yes, you’ve quoted nearly the entire article at this point. That voice that’s telling you “Everyone should wake up in the middle of the night and then try going back to sleep” is probably coming from your television set.
Well it seemed like other people weren’t bothering to read it.