Our Ancestors slept in 2 short cycles--not one 8 hour "chunk"

[Sushi]

Your Ancestors Didn’t Sleep Like You​

The existence of our sleeping twice per night was first uncovered by Roger Ekirch, professor of History at Virginia Tech.
His research found that we didn’t 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.

http://slumberwise.com/science/your-ancestors-didnt-sleep-like-you/

 

[alex3619]

Interesting. I often sleep in that pattern.

 

[maddietod]

This article got me thinking about the whole idea of "normal sleep." I put a lot of pressure on myself to solve my "sleep problem," and for the longest time that's meant I've got to sleep through the night. This is pretty silly, given that the last time I slept through the night was sometime in the '90s.

Yes it's crazy to wake up every hour or two, but maybe it's equally ridiculous to insist that success only = 8/9 hours of straight sleep. I'm rethinking my assumptions, to include things like less sleep at night and a really deep nap. Or an hour of meditation where I stay silent inside if a nap just isn't happening. The idea is to accept this as perfectly normal and fine for me. Replacing the idea that this is a stop-gap until I'm fixed.

I'm still working on waking less during the night. But my notion of 'normal' has broadened considerably.

"Nearly one in 10 people in the United States suffers from insomnia" ( http://stanfordhospital.org/clinicsmedServices/clinics/sleep/sleep_disorders/insomnia.html). I just don't see how they can call it abnormal if 10% of the population lives with it.