YouTuber Craig Benzine, a.k.a. WheezyWaiter, has spent the last couple of years taking on a variety of physical and mental challenges to try and improve his overall health, from cutting sugar out of his diet for a month, to the longer-term commitment of working out every single day for an entire year. In his most recent video, Benzine tackles a component of our daily routine which has an unescapable effect on the rest of our lives: sleep.

Specifically, he adopts a “biphasic” sleep schedule, meaning rather than simply sleeping for one period each day, as most of us do, instead he scheduled two shorter periods of sleep each day. “I kind of do it already,” he says. “I wake up in the middle of the night and lay there… Or I just don’t get a lot of sleep, and nap later… So what I want to do is embrace it. When I wake up, instead of just laying there in the middle of the night, get up, do some work, start the day, until I get tired and then I go back to sleep.”

Benzine sets his alarm for 3 a.m. each day, with the goal of working on a project, then going back to bed when he gets tired. Almost immediately, he finds that his eating habits become affected: While usually the body suppresses the appetite through the night with a hormone called leptin and then releases ghrelin (the “hunger hormone”) upon waking in the morning, Benzine’s earlier wake-up means the hunger hits earlier than usual.

He does begin to notice benefits, however, noting that he is able to get a lot of work done as nobody else is around and there is nothing to distract him. He also starts to enjoy the second phase of sleep each day. “The second sleep is the best sleep,” he says. “My sleep is so deep. Vivid dreams that seem to last forever, and I feel so much more rested.”

This improves further when Benzine pushes his nap to later in the day, although he admits that he doesn’t manage to sustain the biphasic sleep every night, as his bedtimes vary due to his social life, work schedule and responsibilities as a parent.

“I’m not going to schedule the biphasic sleep, I’m just going to lean into it when it happens,” he says. “I think the best thing I can do is just try to listen to my body as best I can.”

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