Yesterday I learnt about biphasic and polyphasic sleep and it fascinates me. I’ve always admired people like Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher, T. Tesla and Leonardo Da Vinci, who achieved so much with only with few hours’ sleep. It seems like the secret to shorter sleep is napping? Ooh, and I love naps! My best time to have a nap (if possible) is on a Sunday afternoon. I’m thinking I might try this biphasic sleep so I can nap every day 😊 and see what it does to my productivity level??? Polyphasic sleep is common in many animals, including mammals. Our dogs are napping pretty much all day, and generally, dogs will sleep between 12 – 14 hours a day. Most of this is during the night, the same as their owners, and some sleep during the day, usually when the owner is at work.
Puppies sleep excessively after they’ve burnt their energy with running around, endless games, (and some naughtiness!), and older dogs tend to sleep a lot too, mostly because their metabolism is slowing down. You may even experience that your furry pensioner is sleeping less at night and more during the day. I experienced this problem with my 1
4-year old Kerry blue terrier, Kimi. She used to sleep with us in the bedroom, but last November I had to move her to a spare room because of my husband. He’d had a major operation, and when he got back home, I didn’t want Kimi accidently jumping on his abdomen. To make it easier for Kimi to adjust to her new sleeping arrangement, I put our young Lakeland Terrier, Tinker, with her to keep her company.
She got used to the new set up straight away … but then she started waking up far too early! When she was getting up between 4:30 – 5 am it didn’t bother me too much, because it would make my day longer and that meant I could just do more of the t
hings I enjoy doing! But when she started to wake up at 3 am, that was a little too much for me.
Another problem was, as soon as she woke up she was so active, and after she went out she was very demanding of her breakfast. And to be honest, she wouldn’t shut up until I fed her. Her barking would of course then wake up all the other dogs in the house … it was a vicious cycle!
To be fair to Kimi, I knew it was her old age kicking in, and it’s starting to look like canine cognitive dysfunction or doggie Alzheimer’s is now creeping into our lives. Knowing this, I started putting a few drops of Comfort Blend on her bedding in the evenings and a few drops on her chest as well after she’s been out first thing in the morning. She’s now started sleeping longer hours again, and she wasn’t so demanding when it came to her breakfast. Now that she’s back in our bedroom, she sleeps well until I wake up. Demanding her breakfast hasn’t stopped, but I just take it as a part of our new morning routine! Jitka x
Thank you Norbert Roland Photography for beautiful photos