{"id":34044,"date":"2013-12-06T03:24:44","date_gmt":"2013-12-06T08:24:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/horizonsmagazine.com\/blog\/?p=34044"},"modified":"2015-10-16T08:35:54","modified_gmt":"2015-10-16T13:35:54","slug":"our-ancestors-used-to-sleep-twice-a-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/horizonsmagazine.com\/blog\/our-ancestors-used-to-sleep-twice-a-night\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Ancestors Used to Sleep Twice a Night"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Sleep<\/a>8 hour sleeping is a modern invention. \u00a0Imagine you are a denizen of the 18th century. It\u2019s just past 8:30 P.M., you\u2019ve got your night-cap on. You blow out your candles and fall asleep to the smell of the wax and the wick, which gently fills the air around your bed. Some hours pass. 2:30 AM. You awaken, grab your coat, and visit the neighbors because they, too, are up. Doing quiet reading, prayer, or even having sex. Well, apparently before the age of electricity, sleeping twice a night was completely ubiquitous. \u00a0Back in those times, we slept twice a night, getting up for an hour or two for recreation before heading back to bed until dawn.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

From Slumberwise.com: \u00a0The existence of our sleeping twice per night was first uncovered by Roger Ekirch, professor of History at Virginia Tech. \u00a0His research found that we didn\u2019t always sleep in one eight hour chunk. We used to sleep in two shorter periods, over a longer range of night. This range was about 12 hours long, and began with a sleep of three to four hours, wakefulness of two to three hours, then sleep again until morning.<\/p>\n

References are scattered throughout literature, court documents, personal papers, and the ephemera of the past. What is surprising is not that people slept in two sessions, but that the concept was so incredibly common. Two-piece sleeping was the standard, accepted way to sleep. \u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s not just the number of references \u2013 it is the way they refer to it, as if it was common knowledge,\u201d Ekirch says. \u00a0An English doctor wrote, for example, that the ideal time for study and contemplation was between \u201cfirst sleep\u201d and \u201csecond sleep.\u201d Chaucer tells of a character in the Canterbury Tales that goes to bed following her \u201cfirste sleep.\u201d And, explaining the reason why working class conceived more children, a doctor from the 1500s reported that they typically had sex after their first sleep.<\/p>\n

Ekirch\u2019s book At Day\u2019s Close: Night in Times Past is replete with such examples. \u00a0But just what did people do with these extra twilight hours? Pretty much what you might expect. \u00a0Most stayed in their beds and bedrooms, sometimes reading, and often they would use the time to pray. Religious manuals included special prayers to be said in the mid-sleep hours. \u00a0Others might smoke, talk with co-sleepers, or have sex. Some were more active and would leave to visit with neighbours. \u00a0As we know, this practice eventually died out. Ekirch attributes the change to the advent of street lighting and eventually electric indoor light, as well as the popularity of coffee houses.<\/p>\n

Author Craig Koslofsky offers a further theory in his book Evening\u2019s Empire. With the rise of more street lighting, night stopped being the domain of criminals and sub-classes and became a time for work or socializing. Two sleeps were eventually considered a wasteful way to spend these hours.<\/p>\n

The science seems to back up our history books. In a 4-week study with 15 men living with restricted daylight hours, something strange started to happen. After catching up on their \u201csleep debt\u201d \u2013 a common state of affairs for most of us \u2013 the participants began to wake up in the middle of the night: \u00a0They began to have two sleeps. \u00a0Over a twelve hour period, the participants would typically sleep for about four or five hours initially, then wake for several hours, then sleep again until morning. They slept not more than eight hours total. \u00a0The middle hours of the night, between two sleeps, was characterized by unusual calmness, likened to meditation. This was not the middle-of-the-night toss-and-turn that many of us experienced. The individuals did not stress about falling back asleep, but used the time to relax.<\/p>\n

Russell Foster, professor of circadian neuroscience at Oxford, points out that even with standard sleep patterns, this night waking isn\u2019t always cause for concern. \u201cMany people wake up at night and panic,\u201d he says. \u201cI tell them that what they are experiencing is a throwback to the bi-modal sleep pattern.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although the article mentions there are no benefits for sleeping twice a night, it\u2019s difficult to imagine there wouldn\u2019t be some major effects on our daily consciousness. How much would we benefit from a few hours of \u201cunusual calmness, likened to meditation\u201d? Seriously. I haven\u2019t tried \u201cbi-modal\u201d sleep, but I think many of us, including myself, have stumbled into it. Our maddeningly busy digital schedules prevent us from considering the possibility, and benefits, of interloping with the sidereal realms of consciousness for more than an 8-hour \u201csleep debt\u201d crash. \u00a0But we can\u2019t go back to a pre-electric lifestyle of early-to-bed, early-to-rise. Yet, maybe we can we utilize this knowledge to enhance our quality of life, and open us up to alternative modes of mind and time.<\/p>\n

From here<\/a><\/p>\n

Related: <\/span> Repaying your sleep debt
\n<\/a>Why darkness is important to recuperative sleep<\/a>
\nThe secret to rest is staying in bed in the dark with eyes closed<\/a>
\nRestful sleep and increasing melatonin levels naturally<\/a>
\nMy sleep habits are morphing again<\/a>
\nI may not need to change my life, I may just need to change my perception of it<\/a>
\nThe morphing sleep cycles of menopause; 15 things to do when you can\u2019t sleep<\/a>
\nNot able to sleep? Turn Off The TV, Turn Off The Lights
\n<\/a>Melatonin 101<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>
<\/a><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t