From the time we are babies, we are encouraged to consolidate our sleep into one big chunk - ideally 8 hours. But this hasn't always been the case. Records from the 17th century describe a different sleep pattern: two four-hour segments with an hour or two in between spent reading, meditating or socializing with bedfellows (wink, wink).
As someone who struggles with nighttime wakeups and insomnia, I was intrigued and somewhat heartened to think about this. Most people have adapted to a longer 8-hour(ish) sleep time, but those of us who haven't aren't physiological oddities, but just doing what comes naturally.
The transition from a "first" and "second sleep" to one, longer period of sleep may be tied to cities lighting their streets at night thereby extending the number of productive hours one could have outside the home. Lounging around in between these two sleep periods may have become looked upon as wasteful or lazy. Some sleep researchers believe that this restful period in between sleeps was helpful to regulate stress which is quite a contrast to the anxiety many modern insomniacs feel lying awake at night.
Read more: "The myth of the eight-hour sleep" by Stephanie Hegarty, BBC News Magazine.
(Image: Shutterstock)
MORE SLEEP POSTS ON APARTMENT THERAPY:
• How To Get a Really Good Night's Sleep
• Don't Lose Sleep Over It: A Guide to Surviving Snoring
• When Couples Don't Sleep Well Together...
Apartment Therapy's Sofa Shopping Guide
Nikki’s Sweet and Cheery Print Studio
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Stanley Console by ...
5 Things Paris Taught Me About Travel
Recipe: Ham, Cheddar & Chive Egg Bakes
Interesting. Could this be why I wake up (and toss/turn) for an hour almost *every* night, and always between 2 and 3 am??
I read that people used to sleep 10-11 hours a night before modern times.
Yes, some say we slept more hours each night before electric lighting became common. Some also say we slept even more hours each night than that before use of fire became common. Some even say those changes have caused major medical problems. There are corrective actions you can take if that concerns you, including reading more about it in a book called Lights Out.
@Zeusz - not much, it has to do with the home and how we live in it.
There's an interesting book called "The Head Trip" byJeff Warren, and in it he tests this out by going to his family's cabin in the dark woods and living without lights. He tests a lot of other things, too. Good book.
Great article. I need about 10 hours of sleep to function properly (without being tired all day). And I love naps. I have been made fun of almost all my life. When I tell people that the "6-8 hour" sleep cycle isn't normal, but was invented to fit our "9-5" lifestyles, I get mocked. I know our sleeping patterns have been set to coincide with modern standards of whats acceptable, fearing that we will be called lazy because we need a nap after lunch after waking up at 6am. To each his own! If you can function on 5 hours of sleep, don't berate me because I need 10!
@ZEUSZ, not everything on this site is design-related. Some articles give tips on doing your laundry or on getting along with your neighbors.
AT's mission: "Helping people make their homes more beautiful, organized and healthy by connecting them to a wealth of resources, ideas and community online."
@MrsBerg: I completely agree! I need about 9 hours of sleep to function properly -- I also work at home, so 9-5 just doesn't work for me. And when I have had to work 9-5 jobs, I've ended up dragging myself around. We're all different, people need to celebrate that rather than turning their noses up at it!
Happily looking forward to the day when I can sleep partly late at night and partly in the afternoon, if left to my own devices this is always the pattern I fall into and it's the only time I feel really rested and fresh. I like experiencing the early dawn and the evening, and I feel uneasy or sluggish in the wee hours and late afternoon.
Things that make you go, "hmmm". Thanks for this!
My hubby sleeps 5 hours per night & functions fine on that. I need a good, solid 9+ hours. We're quite the odd couple. When I was high school, I needed 10+ hours and would regularly fall asleep on the way home from dates. My boyfriend (now husband) would have to carry me in the house when we got back to my parents' house!
My friend from Spain said that, where she'd lived long ago, everything shut down for a long afternoon siesta, then stayed open until 8, and after that every one had dinner and stayed up much later than here. It sounded refreshing.
BTW, some commenters might benefit from a sleep lab test for sleep apnea, which my husband has.
many cultures have a siesta. others[mostly agrarian] focus meals on breakfast and lunch - fueling& rest for the kind of work to be performed. sleep schedules for most revolve around work schedules, child care needs, climate, season, etc. AT helps in terms of home design so that the bedroom can be a serene place, away from the rest of activities in the home, and black out curtains are great too. I have an ever changing job schedule due to shift work and a quiet dark bedroom where i can sleep all day if I have to pull night shift is invaluable. Keeping an open mind about what works for you, what doesnt and how to work around the challenges of daily life is a collaborative process facilitated here - one of the reasons I love it.
my sleep pattern is weird: if i sleep 4-5 hours a night, i wake up fresh and happy, with the feeling that i already was nearly awake when the alarm went off. this is because i have been in REM-phase, waking up in this phase you will feel good and awake. my energy and awakeness stays all day.
if i sleep 6-9 hours, the alarm wakes me from the deepest sleep phase, i feel extremely tired and confused, and fall into kind of a coma if i don't set a few other alarms after that. my weakness stays all day, i feel tired and down until evening, when i kind of wake up again a bit.
i sleep with the iphone-app SleepCycle (0,99 $ in the appstore, more information on http://www.sleepcycle.com), but you can get similar apps for other smartphones and there are also real clocks or wristbands that work with sleeping phases. "since you move differently in bed during the different phases, the Sleep Cycle alarm clock is able to use the accelerometer in your iPhone to monitor your movement and determine which sleep phase you are in. Sleep Cycle then uses a 30 minute alarm window that ends at your set alarm time and wakes you in your lightest sleep phase.)
but i have to set the alarm window very short, max. 5 hours of sleep, otherwise my sleep feels BETTER when SleepCycle wakes me, but not as PERFECT as after 5 hours.
On an international work trip some years ago, I fell into a pattern of waking for 8 hours, sleeping for 4 (I was not even away for one week, it wasn't worth adjusting my internal body clock). I have to say, it was the easiest pattern I've been in. If only work didn't get in the way nowadays!
Take a look at this: http://polyphasic.blogspot.com/
Weird but very interesting.
This is an interesting topic....I would like to find more information on it. Thank you for sharing it and thank you to those who suggested books for further reading.