Cocoa the housecat wakes up at 4:10 am, wanders outside for an hour or two, then curls back asleep for another hour. Around 1 PM, Cocoa's catching zzz's again for another couple of hours. Shall we offer the cat pills for insomnia?

Are we certain humans are supposed to sleep eight hours straight? Perhaps we force ourselves into a modern-era time schedule when our bodies and their natural biorhythms are designed for something less rigid: a smaller block of night sleep, and a nap or two during the day. Research has already suggested the human body yearns for siesta early in the afternoon.

Perhaps our mammal bodies are also programmed for different amounts of sleep according to the season: more sleep in the hibernation-friendly dark of winter, less in the long hours of light in the summer.

All my life, I’ve awakened occasionally in the early morning hours. I learned I had the choice to worry about it, or enjoy the quiet hours, listen to the radio, walk outside and look at the constellations. Hard to do with high pressure job obligations the next day, but where possible, it's ok to listen to the body's requests and timing.