So remember back in the summer when I was running so early in the morning to beat the heat? I would go to sleep around 10 PM, wake up at 1 AM, run, and then get back home and crash for a few hours (usually between 5:30 AM and 7:30 AM, except for when the fall semester started and I had to forego the second sleep).

Well, that sleeping schedule worked perfectly with how my body operates. I’ve never felt as good as I did when I was on that sleeping schedule.

My body liked it so much, in fact, that I’m still having a really hard time adjusting back to the normal “sleep for one solid period of time” schedule.

My husband can attest to this.

Anyway, I came across this Twitter thread yesterday and it got me thinking about that summer sleeping schedule. It also got me thinking about the fact that I have never seemed to need as much sleep as other people.

My mom can attest to this. Even when I was a kid (and even when I was a fetus in the womb), I did not sleep very much.

The tweet referenced above (and other articles on biphasic sleep) suggest that the typical pattern was sleep for 3-4 hours, wake for 1-2 hours, then sleep for another 3-4 hours. My sleep sessions are shorter than that, and my middle “awake” period is longer than that. I can function perfectly fine on three hours of sleep (less than that and I can really tell, but three hours seems A+). I suspect part of that is just how I’m wired, but I suspect another part of it is that I’ve just trained my brain and body to expect that little sleep and so I’ve become incredibly efficient when it comes to falling asleep and going right into REM sleep. No matter what the circumstances are (how I’m feeling, where I’m sleeping, how the day went, the temperature, etc.), I fall asleep within at most like two minutes as soon as I lay down.

Both my mom and my husband can attest to this.

Anyway. Just a few thoughts on sleep, sleep patterns, and sleep duration.

How many hours of sleep do you think you need? Have you ever tried any sort of polyphasic sleep schedule?