Monophasic vs. Biphasic Sleep
Let’s begin with the concept of sleep phases. The common belief is that high quality sleep requires a full uninterrupted night of blissful unconsciousness that is never interrupted by wakefulness. Furthermore, in the “good old days” (that probably never really existed), we humans put in a day of hard physical labor, went to sleep without major worries (having harvested the back four acres or fed five hungry children and a spouse), and prepared to fall asleep when the sun went down and leap up from bed fully refreshed when the sun rose in the morning. This wonderful circadian-based pattern of sleep was to take place every day. There were no trips to far-flung countries halfway around the world and no worries about the strategic plan that won’t actually go into effect or be tested for another six months. Monophasic sleep reigned supreme!
We know that these ideal conditions for monophasic sleep are no longer available for many us. Interrupted or delayed sleep is the cost of urban living, earning a salary by traveling 3000 miles, and eating on the fly. At best we can hope for a night of sleep that is only broken into two parts. Our bedside prayers are devoted to asking God or some other entity (including our own body) for a satisfactory night of sleep that is not delayed by several hours of wakefulness or a pattern of fragmentation and frequent wakefulness. The monophasic pattern of sleep hasn’t been available to us for many years –unless we sedate ourself with one or more of the sleep aides that I will be identify in an essay on the fourth set of pathways to sleep. Unfortunately, many of these sleep aides are highly addictive, impact on other domains of health, and become (like most addictive drugs) less effect over time (as our body “adjusts” to them).
There is second reason to challenge the veracity of monophasic sleep. As I mentioned in my introductory essay, it is not clear that our ancient ancestors sleep soundly throughout the night. Perhaps monophasic sleep only reigned in the life of our more recent ancestors who lived on farms, did physical labor, or assumed traditional separate gender roles which is a recent invention in many societies—and lived without the fear of being eaten by other animals or being attacked by a rival tribe. However, our adaptive biological coding (the stuff in our body that demands our attention whether we want to listen or not) is still pretty much set by our life on the dangerous African savannah. We did not sleep throughout the night if we stayed alive. Biphasic or semi-wakeful sleep might very well be built into each of us—and we can’t avoid the biological demands inherent in this wiring.
How should we face this challenge of biphasic or semi-wakeful (or fragmented) sleep? Through this series of essays, I will be proposing that we embrace this challenge and make it into a positive, health-producing experience. I will be suggesting that there is nothing wrong with waking up in the middle of the night, doing something other than sleep for a brief period of time, and then going back to bed for a second (and even third) segment of sleep. The key is to make the additional segment(s) of sleep something to look forward to rather than dread. It is during the sleep bridge that this shift begins to take place. I will have much more to say about the sleep bridge in the next four essays.
