The Reverse Nap: Mounting evidence that I am not a crazy person

I’ve been reversing napping for more than a year now.

I go to sleep at my regularly appointed hour, usually somewhere between 11:30 PM and midnight.

Then I wake up at some point in the middle of the night, usually around 2:00 AM. I climb out of bed. go downstairs and work for about 90 minutes. I write, revise, empty the dishwasher, walk the dog, pay bills, read.

Then around 3:30 AM I return to bed and experience all the joys of climbing into a warm bed and falling asleep for a second time that night. I sleep for another 90 minutes or so and then wake up again and begin my day.

The Reverse Nap.

I don’t do it every night, but I do it many nights.

When I first started reverse napping, people thought I was crazy. Then I wrote about it, and shortly thereafter, a few people began trying it and wrote to me, singing its praises.

Then I found research suggesting that segmented sleep, with two periods of rest separated by a period of wakefulness, was the dominant form of sleep in Western civilization prior to the Industrial Revolution. Human beings, it turns out, are already wired to reserve nap and did so for centuries.

Then I found research suggesting that if you are already awakening in the middle of the night and struggling to fall back asleep, remaining in bed can actually lead to “learned” insomnia, a kind of sleeplessness is caused by anxiety that comes from trying too hard to doze off when you can’t. 

Last week, New York Times science columnist Anahad O’Connor answered a question from a reader who falls asleep easily but is wide awake after only 3-4 hours.

O’Connor turned to Dr. Meir H. Kryger, a professor at Yale School of Medicine and the author of “The iGuide to Sleep,” who suggests the following:

If you wake up at night and find that you still cannot get back to sleep after 20 minutes, do not lie there in anguish staring at your clock. Get out of bed and do something that distracts and relaxes you, like reading a book. Then return to bed when you feel sleepy.

Dr. Kryger is suggesting the Reverse Nap.

Perhaps I’m not so crazy after all.

Reverse napping: Science says yes.

In addition to gaining coverts, it turns out that there is actual science behind the Reverse Nap.

From a Wikipedia entry on segmented sleep:

Historian A. Roger Ekirch argues that before the Industrial Revolution, segmented sleep was the dominant form of human slumber in Western civilization. He draws evidence from documents from the ancient, medieval, and modern world, which he discovered over the course of fifteen years of research. Other historians, such as Craig Koslofsky, have endorsed Ekirch's discovery and analysis.

According to Ekirch's argument, typically individuals slept in two distinct phases, bridged by an intervening period of wakefulness of up to an hour or more. Peasant couples, who were often too tired after field labor to do much more than eat and go to sleep, awakened later to have sex. People also used this time to pray and reflect, and to interpret dreams, which were more vivid at that hour than upon waking in the morning. This was also a favorite time for scholars and poets to write uninterrupted, whereas still others visited neighbors, or engaged in petty crime.

Did you see that?

“This was also a favorite time for scholars and poets to write uninterrupted…”

I’m not a scholar and only a hack poet, but still, that’s me!

There is also a TED Talk on the subject:

In truth, I’m not sure how I feel about this.

While it’s rewarding to know that science supports my idea of the Reverse Nap, I’m a little disappointed that the idea does not appear to be originally my own.

In a perfect world, preeminent scientists  and researchers would have read my blog, been intrigued by my idea, and conducted a massive study to confirm the validity of my idea.

Instead, it seems as if I have stumbled upon something that others stumbled upon previously.

Decidedly less rewarding. 

The Reverse Nap

I’ve started a thing, and someday you’ll be able to say that you knew the guy who started the thing and remember when it started to become a thing. The thing is The Reverse Nap.

Here’s how it works:

I go to sleep at my regularly appointed hour, usually somewhere between 11:30 PM and midnight.

Then I wake up at some point in the middle of the night, usually around 2:00 AM. Originally it was the dog who was waking me up, and occasionally the baby, but now I just wake up around this time whether I want to or not.

I climb out of bed. go downstairs and work for about 90 minutes. I write, revise, empty the dishwasher, pay bills, read. Whatever is most pressing. Whatever I didn’t get to the day before.

It turns out that 2:00 AM is the ideal time to accomplish goals. No one in the house is awake. There are no children pleading with me to play hide-and-go-seek. There are no emails hitting my inbox. Even Twitter is relatively quiet. It’s just me and whatever task I have chosen for a solid hour or more.

Then around 3:30 AM I return to bed and experience all the joys of climbing into a warm bed and falling asleep for a second time that night.

The Reverse Nap, my friends.

I’m telling you, it’s going to become a thing. A big thing.