Split sleeping

Who doesn’t know that awkward sleeping pattern where it seems we wake up every five minutes?

You wake with a start. The world around you is pitch black. Your partner is sleeping, provocatively peacefully. You reach for the alarm clock, then curse it. It’s 3am. Again. Why does this keep happening? Is it symptomatic of stress; a sign of something even more sinister? Or perhaps we’re worrying needlessly, manufacturing a “health crisis”?

British professor of circadian neuroscience, Russell Grant Foster, the Director of the Nuffield Laboratory of Ophthalmology and the Head of the Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Institute (SCNi) found in that the whole reason to write a book.

Foster and his group are credited with key contributions to the discovery of the non-rod, non-cone, photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (pRGCs) in the mammalian retina which provide input to the circadian rhythm system. He has written and co-authored over a hundred scientific publications. He is the co-author with writer and broadcaster Leon Kreitzman of two popular science books on circadian rhythms, Rhythms of Life: The Biological Clocks that Control the Daily Lives of Every Living Thing and Seasons of Life: The Biological Rhythms That Enable Living Things to Thrive and Survive. He has also co-written a book titled Sleep: a Very Short Introduction; and Life Time: The New Science of the Body Clock.

“I wanted to say: here’s the science. Now stop worrying about it.”

According to him the human race has never been better set up for sleep. Soft beds, anti-allergy bedding, weighted and electric blankets abound. And yet, believes Foster,

“we’ve become so worried about our sleep – there’s now a real condition called sleep anxiety.”

Read more about it: The truth about ‘split sleeping’ – and what to do if you wake in the middle of the night Forget the mythical eight hours and sleep like our ancestors