Striking the right biphasic balance

Iam, apparently, what is known as a biphasic sleeper, someone who sleeps in two shifts at night, usually from about 9pm to midnight, then from 2am-ish until 6am.

This habit of sleeping in two shifts is common in some cultures, and was popular in the pre-industrial era when, according to sleepfoundation.org, in the days before artificial lighting, most of us would get up in the middle of the night to eat, tend to children, and add more wood to the fire before going back to bed until sunrise.

I have done all of these things between my sleep shifts, as well as other things with a pre-industrial vibe, such as tending to animals. I have led a distraught pet lamb back to the safety of the house paddock in my socks and by moonlight, and chased a possum from my bedroom.

I also get up to some pretty modern things in those wee hours: work, reorganise the linen cupboard, watch tractors lit up like Christmas trees make silage in the hills around my house, and binge-watch Nordic noir crime shows on Netflix.

Sometimes it's even a little bit exciting to be up and at 'em then: giant farm burn-offs can still be pumping flames metres into the sky at 1am, and I once mistook the reddish glow on the back of our garage for a blood moon, only to find the shed and truck stop next door had burnt down overnight.

I would have seen the flames if I had taken the time to go out the back door.

Fire events aside, an overnight power cut like the one we had in Waikato last week can make for a dull few hours between sleeps. Too dark to find a torch, candle or phone, there would have been nothing to do had it not been a still, moon-lit night.

It looked like daylight in the garden, so off I went to the vegetable patch to pull out some old brussels sprouts plants, kill some slugs and prune a feijoa tree.

It was a good use of time, or proof I had hit peak middle-age. Either way, I would recommend it for all the biphasics out there.