This can be such a difficult time of year for sleep cycles. If you live far enough north, it’s dark for 15 hours a day. The light levels are pitiful, our energy levels are low and our bodies want to sleep 9-11 hours a day – ideally, in two phases the way that people did … for millennia.
In the olden days (pre 1780-ish), it was more normal to sleep in chunks interrupted by quiet time spent reading, eating a light meal, having sex or just playing a board game and then returning to sleep.
Yup – this is simple history – Here’s a quick overview from Science Alert
Unfortunately, thanks to electric lights, blue light from devices, the internet, Netflix and more recently, extensive working from home, we are simply fighting our brain’s winter programming.
But the internet, Netflix and our devices are available 24/7 so why aren’t we making them serve us – instead of the other way around?
Here are a few thoughts and solutions …
The history of sleep
If you’re finding it difficult to sleep over the winter months particularly in February, but in reality, anytime from September to April … Please RELAX it’s normal!
You are normal.
Historically, people slept in two phases – the first phase (or first sleep) of 3-5 hours from shortly after their evening meal around dusk until about 10-11 pm. They then had a wakeful stage between 11-pm and 2 am and then slept again (Second sleep) from 2 am until 6-7 am.
In summer, when there is more natural light, people historically also tended to split their sleep into 5-7 hours at night and 1.5-3 hours as a nap or siesta in the afternoon.
And then with the industrial revolution, it all went to shit and people were supposed to sleep the same eight hours every day, all year round regardless of what mother nature was doing, because that suited the factories or Big Business.
Pretty much the only person it doesn’t suit is us.
If you like data and want a bit of background, you can check out this wiki page on Biphasic and polyphasic sleep which are just the scientific names for what I just explained.
So what can I learn from this?
Stop fighting it and work with it! I know a number of people who have quite a lot of control over their working hours. Certainly, they have core hours – but outside of those hours, they can set their own schedule as long as the work gets done.
Let’s take the example of Peter, who fades dramatically at about 7.30pm. As soon as he’s eaten his evening meal, he wants to go to bed. (And yes he’s been checked for pre-diabetes – it’s not that). Normally, he would force himself back to work for a few hours several days a week.
This year with more autonomy over working hours (thanks, ironically, to Covid) he has been experimenting with going to bed at 7pm.
By 10.30pm he’s wide awake and actually feels ready. He even described it as ‘raring’ to go back to work.
He says, “I get a phenomenal amount done between 10.30 and midnight and it’s quality work, uninterrupted by idiotic queries – far more than I was achieving (reluctantly) between 8pm and 10.30pm. it’s worked so well that my wife and I are now both doing it. We both work and then have a really nice 90 minutes to 2 hours chilling and watching a movie or whatever between midnight and 2am and then we both go back to sleep. We’re sleeping better, getting more done and are much less fractious with each other!”
Stop fighting your own body clock – work with it instead
The single most helpful piece of advice that I can offer is please try to work with what your body wants.
And if, like Peter, you are also in a position where you have some power over your life. Then consider trying something different.
Quick Tips for winter sleep
Go easy on yourself!
Once mid-April comes around, you will be back to your normal sleeping pattern. In the meantime, stop beating yourself up and sleep when you’re tired and relax when you need to and fit the work in where you need to.
Also, make time to be with the people you love.
And if what you want to do at midnight is read a great book or watch a relaxing series on Netflix then do it.
Just try to avoid:
Blue light – stick to a kindle or a dead tree book or set your iPad to night-mode.
Horror movies – go with an old favourite or a rom-com instead – feel-good movies make it easier to sleep than slasher flicks.
A too-warm room – a slight reduction in bedroom temperature about an hour before sleep increases our sleepiness and the ease with which we can pass out peacefully.
Too heavy a meal at bedtime. Eat, but not too much. In the olden days, they mostly ‘ate lightly’ between their first and second periods of sleep and saved the big meal for Break-fast. Yup, Breaking the Fast is the origin of the meal’s name – now there’s a clue. Breakfast like a king, as the old saying goes, and it will get you through your day ?
And finally:
Get outside close to mid-day (anything between 11 am and 2 pm will work) if you can. Even if it’s only for 15 minutes – it helps your brain to reset your body clock and regulate your circadian rhythm.
