Posted on 09/09/2014 9:06:31 PM PDT by blam
Eric Barker, Barking Up The Wrong Tree
September 9, 2014
Roger Ekrich noticed many old books, including Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales", referenced two periods of sleep being the norm in their era.
Via Dreamland: Adventures in the Strange Science of Sleep:
...Ekirch somehow rediscovered a fact of life that was once as common as eating breakfast. Every night, people fell asleep not long after the sun went down and stayed that way until sometime after midnight. This was the first sleep that kept popping up in the old tales. Once a person woke up, he or she would stay that way for an hour or so before going back to sleep until morning—the so-called second sleep. The time between the two bouts of sleep was a natural and expected part of the night and, depending on your needs, was spent praying, reading, contemplating your dreams, urinating, or having sex. The last one was perhaps the most popular.
So researchers did a study. When subjects had no exposure to artifical light they reverted to this 2 stage type of sleeping:
Soon, the subjects began to stir a little after midnight, lie awake in bed for an hour or so, and then fall back asleep again. It was the same sort of segmented sleep that Ekirch found in the historical records. While sequestered from artificial light, subjects were shedding the sleep habits they had formed over a lifetime.
Was this fragmented sleep bad? Far from it. Bloodwork showed that the time between the two sleeping periods was incredibly relaxing and blissful:
The results showed that the hour humans once spent awake in the middle of the night was probably the most relaxing block of time in their lives. Chemically, the body was in a state equivalent to what you might feel
(snip)
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
And thus was created the midnight snack.
Yet the old ways didn’t seem to do too much for their longevity
Lately I’m lucky if I’m awake three times a day, having my eyes open doesn’t count.
I take an afternoon siesta and then I sleep part of the night and then again in the early morning.
Obama’s slept his whole presidency away.
“Yet the old ways didn’t seem to do too much for their longevity”
Off point.
There may have been other factors at work, don’t you think?
Wondered were that wonderful habit came from ... thanks. LOL!
I very often wake up evry hour on the hour all damn night even if I have to take pain killer or sleep aids
I think it might be some kind of PTSD because I wake up screaming or crying a lot
This has become my natural way of sleeping as an adult. I very rarely sleep for more than six hours straight without waking up, and not just for bathroom obligations. I’ll often wake up around 3.30 or 4am, then, if i have time, I will go back to sleep for a final ‘dream cruise’ until 6.30 pr 7am.
I have a sleep disorder. I’ve been awake since noon yesterday. I can be asleep and completely conscious at the same time. Unpleasant.
Not sure how it’s done these days, but the British Navy during the Age of Sail routinely slept and worked in alternating watches lasting four hours each as the prevailing conditions allowed.
Except for the dog-watches from 4-6pm and 6–8 pm. So called because they were...”cur”-tailed! (Arf!) ;-)
So candlelight, firelight, gas light and oil light were not “artificial” according to this op/ed that seems to omit them?
15 years ago I spent a week at a solar powered resort on the west end of Moloka’i in something called a tentalo and I fell into the exact same sleep pattern. When you don’t have anything to distract you after sunset (the sucky, sar1powered batteries only aster 15 minutes past sunset) you fall asleep quick. When me and the missus woke up in the early AM sex was a natural outcome.
Usually I have nothing nice to say about the primitive lifestyle as practiced by hippies, but that was nice!
I don’t know, supposedly there’s a lot of evidence for this being the habit, and my big lib friend on facebook says his wife has always done this, but it still doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.
People waking up in the dark of night and puttering about, MAYBE it was because they went to bed to early (no light, etc.) but it still seems strange.
That sounds pretty bad. People need atleast 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep to be on top of their game. I would go to a sleep specialist MD (usually a pulmanologist or neurologist) maybe you have a RAM sleep disorder or obstructive apnea.
I thought it was just me. Started for me about 5 or so years ago. I wake up routinely from 2:30 - 4:30. Come downstairs and cruise FR or play a game. Pass back out an hour or so later and usually sleep pretty good until 6:30 or so.
“Except for the dog-watches from 4-6pm and 6–8 pm. So called because they were...”cur”-tailed! (Arf!) ;-)”
I believe that I have found a fellow Patrick O’Brian fan!
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