# Do you occasionally or routinely practice the habit of "first sleep" and "second sleep"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 18, 2024, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-occasionally-or-routinely-practice-the-habit-of-first-sleep-and-second-sleep/1007417 "2024-09-18T02:33:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2024, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-occasionally-or-routinely-practice-the-habit-of-first-sleep-and-second-sleep/1007417/41 "2024-09-19T04:19:38Z")
I learned years ago to delay going to sleep until 11pm. That gives me a decent chance of sleeping until 7AM. Going to bed early, like 9pm always means I’m awake by 2AM If I do wake up at 1 or 2AM then I’ll play soothing instrumental music at low volume. Mantovani Orchestra is my favorite. Hopefully fall back to sleep by 4AM. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2024, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-occasionally-or-routinely-practice-the-habit-of-first-sleep-and-second-sleep/1007417/42 "2024-09-19T05:46:52Z")
This idea sounds crazy. It’d be like me falling asleep at 10PM then waking up a few hours later and posting on the Dope at 1:30AM. ---
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2024, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-occasionally-or-routinely-practice-the-habit-of-first-sleep-and-second-sleep/1007417/43 "2024-09-19T11:36:06Z")
I’ve been doing this for years, but mostly because my dogs like to wake me up at 4am. ---
**Author:** ![Ellecram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellecram/32/18948_2.png) [@Ellecram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellecram)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2024, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-occasionally-or-routinely-practice-the-habit-of-first-sleep-and-second-sleep/1007417/44 "2024-09-19T11:40:22Z")
I was up at 3 AM last night. Got hungry and have no food in the house except for some old airplane snacks. They were still OK. Fell asleep for another couple hours. Thankfully. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2024, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-occasionally-or-routinely-practice-the-habit-of-first-sleep-and-second-sleep/1007417/45 "2024-09-19T13:34:16Z")
🤯 Heaven forfend! * * * > [@Ellecram](#): > > …no food in the house except for some old airplane snacks. They were still OK. 🤣 ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2024, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-occasionally-or-routinely-practice-the-habit-of-first-sleep-and-second-sleep/1007417/46 "2024-09-19T14:26:53Z")
No, “practice” is the right word. I don’t deliberately do it, I just sort of naturally semi-fall into such a cycle. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2024, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-occasionally-or-routinely-practice-the-habit-of-first-sleep-and-second-sleep/1007417/47 "2024-09-19T16:17:09Z")
> [@PastTense](#): > > Surprising no one has to get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, I go to bed each night intending to sleep the night through. Sometimes my bladder vetoes the idea. I don’t count waking up, checking the clock, rolling over, and going back to sleep. That’s not really waking up. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2024, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-occasionally-or-routinely-practice-the-habit-of-first-sleep-and-second-sleep/1007417/48 "2024-09-19T17:00:37Z")
It helps if you don’t drink anything past about 6 PM. But I usually forget… until I have to get up and **then** I remember. 🤦🏽‍♀️ ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2024, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-occasionally-or-routinely-practice-the-habit-of-first-sleep-and-second-sleep/1007417/49 "2024-09-19T17:24:25Z")
As parent of 4 kids under 7 I definitely routinely practice 2 or more sleeps, not voluntarily. Based on my experience I am not cut out to be a medieval peasant as end up almost as tired after the nights where I get about 8 hours split up into 2 or more sleeps as I am after nights where I just get very little sleep. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2024, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-occasionally-or-routinely-practice-the-habit-of-first-sleep-and-second-sleep/1007417/50 "2024-09-19T17:29:23Z")
Not deliberately, though as I approach middle-age it still happens in one of two ways: 1. I just find myself napping at a time still far from when I want to go to bed. And I roll with it…I enjoy those brief naps. Then I’ll be awake until my normal bedtime. 2. Obviously some times in the middle of the night I may need to pee, and if I find myself quite awake after that, no worries I can browse the internet for a bit. I still wouldn’t actually get up and do chores though. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2024, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-occasionally-or-routinely-practice-the-habit-of-first-sleep-and-second-sleep/1007417/51 "2024-09-19T17:30:31Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > I actually enjoy this, waking at 3 knowing I have a few more hours to sleep. Yeah, that’s pretty much how I’ve slept my whole life. I very rarely awake at wake time, and, when I do, I’m disappointed, as I expect to have some time to go back to sleep. With my current dog who has Cushing’s disease, so has to pee a lot, I sometimes have to awaken 3-5 times a night to let him out, and I actually don’t mind it, as each time I’m like, oh, I have five more hours to sleep! I have three more hours to sleep, etc. And I have no issue falling right back to sleep after letting him out. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2024, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-occasionally-or-routinely-practice-the-habit-of-first-sleep-and-second-sleep/1007417/52 "2024-09-19T18:08:57Z")
> [@Capn\_Carl](#): > > I can see an evolutionary advantage for these varying sleep patterns. Within a troop/tribe/town some people would stay up after dark, others would be up before dawn, and a few would be awake during the gap. Some years ago I read an article by an anthropologist who’d spent a year living with a hunter-gatherer tribe in New Guinea. He mentioned in passing that just like “civilized” folk, the youngsters would stay up late and arise late while the elders were early to bed and early to rise. As a consequence, there was only a two-hour gap where no one would be awake. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2024, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-occasionally-or-routinely-practice-the-habit-of-first-sleep-and-second-sleep/1007417/53 "2024-09-19T18:24:50Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > It helps if you don’t drink anything past about 6 PM. But I usually forget… until I have to get up and **then** I remember. 🤦🏽‍♀️ I don’t get off work until 6:30 PM, so that’s unlikely to happen. I could take a shot at not after 8. Maybe. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2024, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-occasionally-or-routinely-practice-the-habit-of-first-sleep-and-second-sleep/1007417/54 "2024-09-23T19:23:55Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > This idea sounds crazy. It’d be like me falling asleep at 10PM then waking up a few hours later and posting on the Dope at 1:30AM [checks time of post] [snorts] [though I don’t know what time zone you’re in] > [@ThelmaLou](#): > > It helps if you don’t drink anything past about 6 PM. Then I’d be too thirsty to get to sleep. – getting up to piss doesn’t always wake me up significantly; but occasionally it does, or something else does. In which case I’ve learned to more or less give up, turn the light on, read or do sudoku for a while; eventually I can get back to sleep. It doesn’t feel to me like my natural cycle is a split cycle, though; it feels like my natural cycle is something like go to bed at 2 or 3 in the morning, get up at 9 or 10. That doesn’t work with the rest of my life, though. I don’t think everyone’s got the same natural sleep pattern; I think it varies quite a bit between individual humans. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2024, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-occasionally-or-routinely-practice-the-habit-of-first-sleep-and-second-sleep/1007417/55 "2024-09-23T19:59:23Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > > [@ThelmaLou](#): > > > > It helps if you don’t drink anything past about 6 PM. > > Then I’d be too thirsty to get to sleep. Yeah, if I’m thirsty, i drink. If i wake up to pee, i go back to bed. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2024, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-occasionally-or-routinely-practice-the-habit-of-first-sleep-and-second-sleep/1007417/56 "2024-09-23T20:04:39Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > [checks time of post] > > [snorts] > > [though I don’t know what time zone you’re in] Yeah, it’s EDT. I’ve rarely slept more than 4 hours in row since I was a teenager. I’m usually up for 1-2 hours before I get back to sleep. If I get back to sleep. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2024, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-occasionally-or-routinely-practice-the-habit-of-first-sleep-and-second-sleep/1007417/57 "2024-09-23T21:14:49Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > > [@ThelmaLou](#): > > > > It helps if you don’t drink anything past about 6 PM. > > Then I’d be too thirsty to get to sleep. I shouldn’t have used the word “anything,” seeing as how I’m dealing with a literal-minded crew. 🙄 I didn’t mean to go to bed parched. I meant don’t guzzle several glasses of iced tea or several beers after supper so that you’re sloshing when you go to bed. I keep a big glass of water\* on my nightstand and _sip_ if I wake up with a dry mouth. \* It’s one of those thermal cups with a cover and a plastic straw poking through. Years ago, I woke up one morning, and found a dead cockroach (the BIG Texas kind that we call “water bugs”) floating in the water. If I had reached for that glass in the dark to take a sip… 😱 Ever since then, it’s always been a container with a cover. ---
**Author:** ![not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_what_you_d_expect/32/3246_2.png) [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_what_you_d_expect)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2024, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-occasionally-or-routinely-practice-the-habit-of-first-sleep-and-second-sleep/1007417/58 "2024-09-23T21:35:47Z")
I’ve always been an ‘Early to bed, early to rise’ type, but about 10 years ago or so, I started getting sleepy quite early in the afternoon. I go to bed anytime between 2:00 and 5:00 in the afternoon. I sleep for about 4 hours, then get up and have coffee and read and play my switch or bake or cook something because it’s cooler. I’ll usually get sleepy about 6 hours later, so I go lay back down and sleep for a few more hours. I do blame my bladder for this change. But this works fine for me except for the two days a week that I have to be at work at 7:00am. I can’t lay back down on those two days so I go to work and end up going to bed at 2:00 or 3:00. I can’t wait until I don’t have to work even two days. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-occasionally-or-routinely-practice-the-habit-of-first-sleep-and-second-sleep/1007417.md?page=2)