Your own good time

Fred Schebesta says sleeping in two stretches, also known as a biphasic sleep pattern, comes naturally to him. Every day he wakes and happily works from around 1am to 3am before catching a second set of Zs. Leon Lack, professor of psychology at Flinders University in Adelaide, says the standard wisdom of getting a solid eight hours in a single overnight block is relatively modern. There’s evidence that before the Industrial Revolution it was common to split a night’s sleep with an hour or two of work or pleasure. The sleep researcher also points to the prevalence of the afternoon siesta in many cultures. “This suggests there is no health consequence to sleeping in two shifts as long as a 24-hour sleep need – seven to nine hours – is obtained,” says Lack. Still, “a randomised control trial of thousands over many years has never been carried out and probably never will be so the health benefits or impairments of sleep in two shifts cannot be guaranteed.”