Eating in the middle of the night

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Usually I go to bed at 9 or 10 pm and wake up between 2 and 4 am and try and fail to sleep for over half an hour

Sometimes I eat breakfast and then go back to sleep. Today I did that

Yesterday I woke up at 1:30 and tried and failed to sleep until 4am.

It seems like eating in the middle of the night makes me less tired during the day. Also eating in the middle of the night makes it easier to go back to sleep.

The total amount I eat during the day is the same no matter what time I eat breakfast.

I live alone so I didn't wake anyone up

Been weighing myself every day and weight has been stable for many years

However some articles claim that eating in the middle of the night is really bad for your health. Maybe the side effects are long term. Otherwise maybe I am a special snowflake and in my situation, eating breakfast at 1 or 3 am (not both) is healthier than eating breakfast at 5am

My stepdad does the same. He's healthy and slim. His favourite night time meal is Weet-Bix.

It used to be quite common for your sleep to be broken into two sleeps (first sleep and second sleep). Between the two sleeps, there were a number of things that some people would do. For example, you might eat, have sex, talk, go to the bathroom, visit neighbors, read ... .

I don't usually get up to eat, because I'm always late to bed so when I do get my head down I don't like to lose any more sleep by getting up again. But I can't sleep on an empty stomach so I often eat just before bed. It sometimes gives me heartburn, but it doesn't seem to stop me sleeping like a lot of people say it does, unless the heartburn keeps me awake. The only answer I've found is to use moderation - eat enough to stop me feeling hungry in the night, but don't pig out, and avoid foods that encourage heartburn.

I do rather like the idea of dividing the night's sleep into 2 sessions, but I've not tried it. As I'm currently living with my wife in a tiny apartment, I don't want to wake her up by turning on lights and making noise. Plus, like I said, I'm usually so late to bed that I need all the sleep I can get if I don't want to eat into the following day. I think our cat has the right idea - she just sleeps when she feels like it. But she can see in the dark. I can't. And she's too light to make much noise.

There was a guy back in the 1970s or early 80s who said he cat-napped instead of sleeping in one long block, and he reckoned he was a lot more efficient that way. There was also a craze for something called "power napping." But I think it was discovered that none of it really works.

I don't think that it is so much wanting to do two sleep periods, but it happening naturally.

In the old days, people generally didn't have much in the way of sources of light at night and candles were pretty expensive. So they would go to sleep shortly after dark. The nights tended to be pretty long and so it was common to wake up around midnight or a little after for an hour or two.

I wonder if the original source of a "midnight snack" was eating a bite between the two sleeps.

Once gas lighting became common and there were things to do after dark in the cities, the general practice of first sleep - second sleep quickly slipped away.

Of course, when we males get older and our prostates get enlarged and shrink the bladder, waking up at least once becomes quite normal again.